Heavy Loads and Horse Power

We finally got a picture of Six!!!

 

Ain't no sidewalk sissies in that pic!

 

On level ground and pavement, you can start and pull a massive load with one truck. I don't know what the limit would be but I've never seen it. This is assuming you have the right transmission and auxiliary and/or planetary hubs. Most heavy haul prime movers have super low gears when needed.

 

Forgot to mention the bridge...

I believe that Big Ronnie said with his old setup, he was somewheres in the neighborhood of 110 ft long. Your average rig is what...72-73 ft? That's 40 ft longer than average. Not an easy rig to maneuver. Well, why can't you get a 5 axle tractor and a 6 axle trailor and possibly drop the overall length some 30 ft? Well, the reason why they don't is because that's a lot of weight concentrated in one spot. And it would be rough as hell on tires.

To get maximum weights, they want you to SPREAD the weight out. It's like your spread axle steps and flats vs the tandem. Most places limit the tandem to 17000/axle, but the spread gets 20000. Look at the majority of the multiaxle rigs. Huge spreads.



Now, if you notice the huge million pound megahaulers, with all the little hydraulic turning axles. They are usually pulled. No 5th wheel connections, pintle hook. It's different. Where the 5th wheel should be, there is a big block weight. It's only there to aid traction. Same goes for the push trucks. Completely different animal. Usually, something like that isn't going too far.
They truck the trailor components in on flats and steps, and when the job is done, they're trucked out.

The trickiest jobs is where they have to truck a monster load in that's too far from any river ports. That's when you see the truck with the 5th wheel, pulling some massive 2 lane monstrosity, and the trailer has the tillerman standing on the back with a monster engine steering the back of the trailer. But notice the trailer wheels...everything's spread out.

What's the difference between the 2? My guess is the loaded traveling distance. I may be wrong. I have transported those hydraulic sectional trailers for Mamoet from Rosharon,TX to SLC, Utah. They were only running a short distance. On the other hand, I have seen the biggest of the 5th wheel trailers running from Texas to Washington state. You're talking about a 2 month run.

 

Most municipalities and sometimes states will let you fudge on axle weights and spreads if you are going a short distance. Most of the time you are required to bond the road and have any bridges engineer inspected. That doesn't get too expensive for short moves of just a few miles from port or rail to destination.

Goldhofers are good for 60,000lb+ per axle line. You can go above 60k but when you start getting close to max capacity, you've got to be really careful or you'll overload one side and it will turn over.

The operation of platform trailers is mainly controlled by the trailer operator. Mostly all the truck driver does is just start and stop when the operator tells him. On heavy, high center of gravity loads, a carpenter's level is placed on the deck and the operator has to constantly watch it and make level adjustments accordingly. IMO, most platform operators don't watch this as much as they should, that's also why YouTube is littered with videos of upside down platforms.

 

You can use one of my loads as a example of what maxes out a truck. Consider a 1960's mack with 280 engine. Then add a 40 foot shipping container packed to the max (Which was really foolish that day...) weighing 137500 before the stephens city va scales failed under it.

That truck swayed on it's bearings. As in side to side. Once you got it moving the power steering and front end went out of alignment at 31 so you held it to 25. Every little tiny upgrade killed it to 8 or so dragging along in low range until you could get back to 25 and stay there. A gust of wind in a breeze would knock you back to 15 or so. The spring suspension had no movement at all. It stayed compressed all the way to Baltimore.

Just like rolling a gigantic stone uphill according to mythology. Get two trucks on it. or even three.

If you throw a 21 to 24% grade against a 350 cat with a eaton 10 speed against a 80,000 pound load upgrade for three miles as in vermont, the result is low gear granny walking slower than a man can walk. It's a hour and change to the top. The front end would twist on it and come off but that really did not matter because you were still moving straight ahead on that one wheel that stayed down.

That pull required about 3 hours for the poor kitty to cool off and all teh gauges to return to what I would consider high normal with evidence of possible damage here and there. It was not abused during the pull. But it was maxed out. If it was anything less of a truck it would have stalled half way up presenting a hell of a problem that is life or death.

I have no problem with heavy haul people throwing 3, 4 or 5 tractors against a big haul. Add more, the merrier. if there is going to be a problem it will be at someone's drive shaft first when it fails.

 

Ugh.....

 

Double ugh......

 

Triple.