Mack in tow

 On May 29 I posted a photo of an old Mack, and I repeated the often used phrase "Old Macks never die..." (- supply your own ending). Some Macks due from time to time require hospitalization (for jaundice?) however, and last week I caught this unfortunate member of the Mack family in the care of A-1 Towing and Recovery Ltd.

The Mack is more than a little unsual, because it carries Armour Transportation signage on its door. It may be the only Armour truck that is not painted red, it is certainly the only one I have ever seen. Armour, based in Moncton and including Pole Star, was a family owned company until sold in 2021 to Seaboard Transportation. Up until now I had not noted any change under the new owners. Seaboard was best known for tank trucks, where as Armour has been heavily involved in dry van and intermodal.

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Old Macks...

 It may be true that old Macks never die. Some however appear to be in critical condition. Despite having lost its hood letters and bulldog this one is still easily identifiable as a Mack. Nevertheless this beat up R model was able to make it from New Brunswick to Halifax (a hair raising drive I expect - note the missing driver side mirror).  It will be exported to some distant land where it will be coaxed into a few more years of use.

R series are hard to date since they were produced for over forty years. The first Rs came out in the early sixties and the set back axle RB model (like this one) was discontinued in 2005.

The high breather and chrome visor make this one stand out. The pair of Mack air horns are also a nice touch too. I wonder what goodies are lurking under that tarp.

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Imports and Exports

 There seems to be no end to the RVs this year. I counted more than a dozen still to emerge from the Fairview Cove terminal, and with more due to arrive from Europe.

Among the ones I've seen recently were a small but rugged IVECO AWD from the Roth, Bavaria district of Germany:

 

I kept seeing the big Mercedes around town for a few days (see previous post) and finally figured out how they managed to get aboard.

The telescoping steps fold up under the door. There does not appear to be a railing.

Another small RV is a Dethleffs Globetrotter...

but I did not identify the cab/chassis manufacturer...

The map on the back includes Asia, Australia and the length of the western hemisphere, and certainly lives up to the Globetrotter label.

Not all vehicles moving through the port are imports. There is a large trade in used cars heading out to third world countries. There is the occasional truck too.

This Mack chassis concrete pumper arrived over the road from Sherbrooke, Quebec (that must have been gruelling trip). From the shape of the second steering axle mud guards I would say the chassis was prepared by Simard in Baie-St-Paul.

The pump is from Schwing, which makes many different models. Its North American operations are based in Minneapolis, MN. They aslo make fire booms and truck mounted conveyors.

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Road Trip - Part 2

 Continuing my northern mainland Nova Scotia jaunt from September 10, is a mixed bag of interesting or different vehicles.

Truro, NS is an important transportation hub on the Trans Canada Highway (designated Highway 104 in Nova Scotia) running from the New Brunswick border to North Sydney on Cape Breton Island. Nearby Onslow is the junction with Highway 102, which runs approximately 100 km to Halifax and is the busiest section of highway in Atlantic Canada.

It is not surprsing that Truro is home to two major truck dealers - one for Freightliner and one for Volvo/Mack. Both also operate large maintenance facilities. 

The Volvo / Mack dealer ( MacKay's - no relation) had some colourful equipment in its yard.

A couple of new Macks were lined up on display.

The owners of this new Volvo opted for high visibility.

Getting ready for winter, this Nova Scotia Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal Mack plow truck may also be getting ready for a new door label as the department has been renamed the Department of Public Works.

Several trucking companies make their homse in Truro sas well. One that is new to me is WMB Holdings Ltd, a transporter of commodities - I assume agriculture related. They run some big bulk hauling rigs such as this Kenworth. The tires on the fourth trailer axle are just slightly off the ground.

 Irving Oil's large truck stop is a convenient stopping off point for through traffic, and is a good place to see long haul trucks such as this Kenworth running for DFS Projects of Woodstock, ON.

The used Cat backhoe may be coming from or going to the nearby Ritchie Bros equipment auctioneers, whose facility at Debert, NS is another busy spot.

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If there's someting strange in your neighborhood...

 The first line of the thme song from the Ghostbusters movie goes:

 "If there's something strange in your neighborhood

Who ya gonna call?

Ghostbusters."

There is a big sewer replacement project goin' on in my neighborhood and there are a lot of expensive and very fine Komatsu diggers and loaders, lots of pickups and some very nice support vehicles such Western Stars and Peterbilts, all owned by the Prime Contractor. 

 

When it comes to dump trucks however he has hired independants, and they are bringin' in some very strange equipment - not exactly fresh from the showroom. I'm not gonna a call ghostbusters - not yet anyway.

I believe this twin steer Navistar International is a Paystar model. I like that when the grill was removed, it revealed the original factory paint colour. I preferred the pre-fibreglass Paystars with steel hood and fenders, but this one will do for toughness - aside ftom the weirdly long wheelbase.

This beaut has a fleet number "97-04" on the hood, and it could well be from 1997. Mack introduced the R model cab, and the U and DM model offset cab trucks in the mid 1960s and they ran to about 2004. The DM was a heavier duty model of the U. This guy also has a newer BeauRoc dump body.

This Sterling carries a fleet number 07-038, which seems about right.

For a 2007 truck, it is in remarkable condition however.

Not in my neighbourhood, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it here, is this classic I discovered the other day:

Although it carries a Ford badge, I believe it is in fact a Sterling. The fleet number 09-051, if I am correct, would date it from the last year of production of the Sterling A series. Ford sold the Louisville plants to Freightliner in 1996 and the last Fords were produced in 1998. Sterling produced Louisville and Aeromax style trucks until 2009. They used second generation L cabs and aside from some labels were identical to the last model Fords. I believe it would be easy to swap out the name plate and remove Sterling lettering from the grille.

How about a house for sale with matching dump truck. Or vice versa?

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What's new and not so new

 I don't often get to the Burnside Industrial Park in Dartmouth, but when I do I like to swing by all the truck dealers to see what is on the lots.  Usually there is something of interest. Sometimes it is a new truck ready to deliver and sometimes it is an older truck in for service or resale.

Today (April 23) was a nice sunny day, and this is what I saw:

A new Mack Anthem ready for delivery to Municipal Contracting. It has some nice options including a serious headache rack.

Hansen's deliver high end autos in enclosed trailers, but also carry cars in the open. This Volvo was in the yard, maybe for servicing.

The Kenworth dealer had this "triple screw" T880 - surely a fairly rare beast - and worthy of two photos:

 

The Western Star dealer had this 4900 with a very serious bull bar:

 Speaking of W'Stars, and bull bars I spotted this twin steer, at the Navistar International dealer's lot:

To round off the trip, I also saw a rare International LoneStar, but not at the dealer's. It was at the Petro Pass fuel stop. It also had a serious critter filter, specially configured to protect the LoneStar.

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Heads I win, Tails you lose

 It was more aircraft components at Fairview Cove today as two tail assemblies were pulled out on flat bed trailers. We have been accustomed to seeing the smart looking Watson trucks pulling these trailers, but today it was trucks from Total Transport + Rigging, the company that acts as local agents for oversize loads. Watson may pick up the loads from TT+R, but it looks like these ones will be hauled directly by TT+R.

First out was a cleam looking Mack Anthem. It is hauling a Paron trailer, still with a Mills Heavy Hauling sticker. (Mills was the predecessor to TT+R under previous owners).

TT+R trucks, as were Mills trucks before them, are usually painted red, so this may be an owner /operator rig.

A Navistar International equipped with a third axle hauled the second trailer.

The tail assemblies arrive on ships of the Atlantic Container line and are destined for Bombardier's aircraft manufacturing facilities in the Montreal area or Downsview, in the Toronto area. Bombardier used to own the former Short Brothers factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but sold it to Spirit AeroSystems in 2020. It seems Bombardier still gets assemblies from Shorts, which ships out of Liverpool, England.

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What's New

 The dealers have lots of new trucks on their lots:

Mack Trucks (part of Volvo since 2000) has re-entered the medium duty market going head to head with Freightliner and Navistar International, the industry leaders and to a lesser degree Paccar (Kenworth/Peterbilt). Ford and GM nibble away at the sub-class 6 market too, but haven't returned to class 76 in a serious way.

This new MD series unit awaits a body at the dealer in Burnside.

Mack's new models in the larger sizes are also appearing in service:

This "Anthem" model appears road ready. Those hood mounted convex mirrors should keep the driver well informed about what is around and behind.

This F'liner has been in service for a while, but still looks new.

Western Star's lot was full of new trucks too:

Nice to see some that weren't in 'plain vanilla' paint.

This highway rig is ready for rural areas with a stylish "roo bar". [Roo for Kangeroo - these bars were apparently first used in Australia.]

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New Territory

 Instead of hanging around the port area I decided to branch out a bit today and take in something different. Out in the Rocky Lake area, I spotted a nice day cab Mack tractor with no owners marking.

If I were going to haul slippery cargo like that I would like a headache rack or a trailer bulkhead.

Nearby was this short wheelbase Volvo day cab, specialized for moving mobile home and factory  built houses.

But back to the port, and all the oversize cargo that arrives by ship. One recent one was this pile driving tower bound for Ontario.

A sharp looking Western Star with a four axle trailer and single axle dolly bound for Ontario had to wait several days for permits. JNB Heavy Haul claims Brodhagen, ON as its home, but is really based in nearby Mitchell, ON near the home of some of my ancestors.

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Small stuff and Big stuff

 There seemed to be quite a combination of smaller sized trucks and bigger sized trucks on the road today.

Among the small stuff was this wonky Freightliner with a very light weight trailer and three cars strapped on board. The road runner on the cab door hints at a more southern sort of origin, which was reinforced by the giant cactus on the sleeper. It looks like it was spec'd to tow a fifth wheel RV instead of towing old used cars for export.

There are still Sterling trucks on the road, although most are showing signs of wear. Production was discontinued in St.Thomas, ON in 2009 and in the US in 2010. There was a stock of new trucks available for some time after those dates, but even so the newest Sterling would still be at least ten years old. 

Therefore this Halifax Water tanker is looking pretty good. (The operator is the utility responsible for maintaining the drinking water and sewer systems in Halifax.)

Peterbilts are favoured by many owner operators, and by wrecker operators as they are made to order with very strong frames for long wheelbases. However to see a large day cab Pete with a wrecker body is a bit unusual. 

A-1 Towing + Recovery operates this Pete with a NRC 35 ton slider. It had been dispatched to tow a twin steer dump truck, one of many bringing fill to a pier expansion area at the Fairview Cove container terminal.

This Mack is typical of the twin steer dump trucks operating in the area. It has just dumped a load of fill and is NOT carrying the container terminal sign.

Although it looks like a major car wreck, the equipment behind this Kenworth is a mobile screening plant, used to grade gravel. It is quite an impressive bit of machinery: Terex Finlay 833

Operators of the Kenworth chose not to show their name on the truck, but it looked like it had New Brunswick plates. 

As usual there were lots of containers going out by truck instead of the cheaper (but slower) train. This Freightliner is running for CANAM Flat Decks out of Winnipeg, MB.

As the driver straps down his load, the sun was just right to see the strong undercarriage which allows the trailer to carry a loaded container.

It is paving season, so there are trucks on the road carrying asphalt. One of the clues that it might be carrying that cargo is the heating line "taps" on the side of the trailer that allow for the cargo to be heated up to make it pumpable.

This big Kenworth has a trailer that appears to be fitted to carry asphalt. Note the "taps" near the front. However, since it was near an asphalt plant, but had no hazard symbol displayed, it might also have delivered some form of oil to the asphalt storage facility, which uses "food grade non-toxic oil" to heat the asphalt.

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CN 100

Canadian National Railway is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and as part of that they are setting up exhibits in various places across the country. Today it was a parking lot near the Halifax waterfront and score of CN's intermodal boxes of all shapes, sizes and colours, began arriving, for the most part using CN trucks.

CN has a large fleet of impressively painted trucks -of all brands it seems - no two were alike as far as as I could tell, and I did not see them all I am sure.

Navistar International BH74

Kenworth BN103

Freightliner BN135

Mack BH84

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