Wall to Wall Buses, with guard

Most of Ambassatours articulated Prevosts are parked now that the cruise season is over, although they do see occasional service. This row shows nine of the former Holland-America Line Alaska cruise coaches lined up in Fairview (although there is one MCI imposter.)

A herring gull has been hired to oversee security when the units are idle.

Sterling heading south?

The Municipal Group of companies operates Dexter Construction Ltd and Municipal Contracting Ltd (among others.) It is a large civil construction, paving, quarrying and infrastructure management operation based in Halifax, but doing business in Atlantic Canada and the Caribbean. Now that the paving season is over in Nova Scotia the company is moving a portable asphalt plant to the Bahamas for the winter. They have a multi-year contract to extend the Providenciales airport runway 500m, including other improvements and repaving the entire runway system. They have had equipment on site since June removing a 600,000 cubic meter hill, and now are gearing up for paving.

The plant is now loading aboard the ship BBC Denmark in Halifax and this Sterling has been jockeying the pieces around for loading, and may well accompany the load south. The operator made a Tim Horton's stop this morning and I was able to squeeze off this shot in the rain.

Municipal Group vehicles are always plain red, with a company equipment number on the door, but no other corporate identification. They are very fond of Sterlings, and have a large fleet of them, including tandem straight tucks and tractors, and several of these tri-axles too.

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Update on new Mills Mack

Just missed it Thursday (pulling the Singh crusher) just caught it today. There was only time for one shot before it drove off. Wow.

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Suburban Classic

This is a little ode to Old Parked Cars - one of my favourite blogs. When I spotted this GMC Suburban I could not resist. Old Parked Cars has a look about it that is unmistakable, and the photography is so precise and the lighting so spectacular, I could not hope to match their technique, so apologies.
However the 1962-1966 GMC Suburban has class like no other. This 1964 has been gently massaged, with fixed rear side windows (I think the originals were sliders like the mid side windows) tinted, new wheels, tires and those exhaust pipes poking out ahead of the rear wheels.
The body needs a little TLC, but the paint colour appears to be traditional.

The interior has been totally re-done with bucket seats and chrome floor shifter, hinting at some non-stock power under the hood.

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Mack in the Rain

Too wet to be out taking pictures, so I grabbed this Mack making a beer delivery from a sheltered archway. Nice hydrant you may say.

Nice Mack too, with lots of chrome, and a decorated Unicell body. Read more about Unicell, its parent company DEL Equipment Ltd, and its interesting history as a Canadian and US company at www.unicell.com

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Big things on trucks

1. Singh crusher on Mills four axle trailer. Due to its height and width it has escorts front and rear. Also a nice new Mack Titan doing the hard work.

2. Davis Western Star on Young Avenue - not where you`d expect to see a truck.

3. Another Davis Western Star, this one with a Verboom grinder heading into Point Pleasant Park. It also had escort vehicles.

There seems to be a rash of big crushing things moving around Halifax on trucks in the last few days. First off was the Singh Crusher - a very large piece of rock crushing plant that arrived by ship and was moving down Lower Water Street, brushing the trees on the way. Mills Heavy Hauling had the job, and I just missed getting their new Mack Titan three axle on the lead of this load. (November 3)

Next was the Verboom grinder and Cat backhoe that Owen Davis Sons&Daughters were moving down Young Avenue, into Point Pleasant Park, where trucks are prohibited according to the sign. The grinder is used to grind up trees, and produce usable bio-mass, so presumably it will be used to dispose of the many fallen trees still left from Hurricane Juan, as part of the Park`s restoration project. Verboom is based in Truro, NS and has a web site: http://www.verboomgrinders.com/ This particular grinder unit appears to be a Peterson.

(November 4)

Interesting story here, that the original Owen Davis heavy hauling operation was purchased by Mills a few years ago. Then the Davis children who were in the landscaping and site work business, rejuvenated the heavy hauling operation, keeping the traditional Owen Davis colour scheme and loyalty to Western Star trucks.

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Cranes by Train

The intermodal yard in Burnside sees some interesting cargoes from time to time. Saturday October 30 was certainly a banner day for cranes. There were four brand new cranes on hand, two Groves and two Liebherrs.

1. The biggest unit by far was this Liebherr, owned by FAM. FAM is a world-wide materials handling company, based in Germany, but with operations in Canada, out of Calgary.

2. Eurogruas of Sevillle, Spain , five axle Liebherr. (grua = crane in Spanish) Eurogruas operates over 1650 units mostly in Europe and Africa.

3. Three cranes in a row on rail cars.

4. Grues Cambrils has this Grove model 4080. (grue = crane in French, but the company is Spanish) It is a sales operation.

5. Another four axle Grove (an orange grove?), model 4100 - no owners markings.

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