Export and Import

Trucks and machinery are imported and exported through the port of Halifax. Today's examples:
1. International lives up to its name as it is headed for the port of Mersin, Turkey. Eventual destinaiton is not known.

2. One of a pair fitted with National Crane booms.

3. This Valmet logging vehicle comes from Finland. I like the custom wheel well under the large tire-was it made to order? The Volvo carries Quebec plates.

4. Another Mills heavy haul is this Komatsu crawler backhoe. Its boom and bucket will arrive on another truck. It is bound overseas.

5. M.A.N. seems to be popular with the European camper set. This is quite a luxurious model by Phoenix.

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Preparing a crane for the road

A Liebherr wheeled excavator arrived by ship and had to be prepared for a road trip.
The crane drove off the ship and positioned itself on four jack pads. The truck trailer backed under it, and the crane then lowered its frame down onto the trailer.
A boom truck then removed the cranes wheels and other gear and loaded it onto a waiting flatbed.

1. Big Liebherr 954 wheeled excavator positioned on the low bed trailer, as a Ford boom truck removes the wheels.

2. The Liebherr's cab has already been removed, and the Talberet multi-axle trailer is bearing the unit's weight.

3. Powerful looking Volvo with drop axle, operated by Atlantic Pacific Transport Ltd of Clairville, NB.

4. One tire has already been landed on the waiting trailer, hauled by a sleek International ProStar from Filmore Trucking, also of Clairville, NB.

[Clairville, NB is north of Moncton and west of Buctouche.]

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Herring Fleet

The herring are running in their annual migration past Nova Scotia. The seine boats catch them then come into the nearest port where they pump the fish ashore into waiting trucks. The trucks then take the fish to the fish plants in the southwestern end of the the province in the Pubnico and Saulnierville areas or even to New Brunswick.
The trucks themselves aren't much to write home about, but the trailers are moderately interesting. The tractors do double duty, hauling other loads depending on the season, such as reefer trailers, but are pressed into duty during the herring run to haul the herring.
The trailers are former milk tankers or fuel tankers. They are loaded through the top ports and "dumped" through a huge tail pipe directly into the fish plants.
1. D'Eon Fisheries Ltd of West Pubnico runs this 2000 Volvo and stainless steel tanker. The loading spout is centre over one of the top ports.

2. The tankers are unloaded by gravity through huge tail spouts, which one hopes never give way when on the highway. These all belong to Comeau's Seafoods of Saulnerville, NS.

3. Donald O'Neill Trucking Ltd of Baie Ste Anne, New Brunswick has this low rise KW with flatbed carrying fish boxes. This is the alternative method for transport instead of tankers.

4. Avery's Trucking Inc of Yarmouth, NS uses a low rise KW with a former pup fuel tanker. This well worn body may have had an insulating skin at one time.

5. A Ryder Rental Freightliner has been brought in to haul this load of boxes.

6. Herring getting transferred from boat to box. Any volunteers?

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Black Pete 587

What appears to be a fairly new Peterbilt 587 hove into my sights yesterday and stood still long enough for a photo. Owned by Guy Densmore Transport Inc of Brookfield, NS, this fine looking truck was pulling an extended float trailer with a strange marine davit of some sort.

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Truck and Pony and Donkey

Nova Scotia truck regs permit straight truck and pony trailer combinations, up to 23m on overall length. Truck and pony are allowed a total box length of 20m, and a maximum weight of 44,000 kg (on the best roads) on 5 axles. (Six axle combos are allowed, as are 4 axle twin steer trucks with 3 axle trailers.)

This Freightliner M2 Business Class 3 axle truck and 2 axle pony trailer runs for Elmsod, but has an added feature, the Donkey forklift attached to the end of the pony.

See http://www.donkeyforklift.com/

The curtainside cargo bodies are ideal for forkift loading and unloading.

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Autocar alert

The Hailfax Regional Municipality has an Autocar. Granted it is of the current generation of Autocar Xpeditors built by the successor company, but at least it is not a refuse truck! In their almost exclusivley Volvo lineup of larger trucks, it is a nice to see the old badge up front again.

This line painting rig should soon be getting to work (if dry weather ever arrives) and so there will be another Autocar roaming the roads of Halifax.

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Bulldog - but not on the rad

There's a bulldog in this picture, but it isn't on the truck's rad.

This long haul Volvo running for Motrux of Delta, BC and Toronto http://www.motrux.com/ has a bulldog* as co-driver it appears.

Perhaps he is also guarding the totally unsecured container on the flat bed. (I wouldn't worry too much about the container, it had only recently been unstrapped and was almost ready to off load at the Halterm container terminal in Halifax.)

* Okay so maybe the dog is a pug, but that wouldn't be worth a picture would it?

Long load for Challenger.

Challenger Motor Freight is the fifth largest trucking company in Canada, with more than 1500 trucks. Since it operates coast to coast and through the US to Mexico, its stripes are familiar sights. It is based in Cambridge, ON.
See http://www.challenger.com/
In 2009 they acquired Sandrock Speciality Carriers, and thereby expanded in oversize and equipment transport.This wide nose KW is hauling a Manac extendable bed trailer, still marked for Sandrock.
Challenger has made some pretty big moves including the following: http://www.ctl.ca/videos/play/?plid=1000399797
The trailer is a Manac, a company based in St-Georges de Beauce, QC, which is the biggest custom trailer builder in North America. It has factories in Quebec and Missouri, and owns the rights to Trailmobile Canada. See http://www.manac.ca/Kenworh of course needs no introduction. This wide nose is a T800 by the look of it - a favourite for the heavy haulers and long load folks, particularly in central Canada.
The long shrink wrapped tower or pressure vessel is bound for export.
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Worth a Look

A new book by trucker photographer Michael McClure:

http://www.michaelmcclure.ca/Michael_McClure/Photo_Blog/Entries/2011/5/2_playing_in_traffic.html

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The Plumnose

Nova Scotia is Bluenose country, but here is one variation on the theme. "The Plumnose", an International 3600 of unknown vintage, with a Thomas built school bus body (complete with wheelchair lift and ski rack) was spotted on Saturday. The distinctivce plum colour paint job, certainly sets it off.

The short nose chassis with high visibility offside window is also an interesting feature.

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More arrivals by ship

Two more ship arrivals yesterday, a pair of campers:

1. Dalanuma is Swiss couple headed for Alaska as far as I can tell, after a test trip to Morocco. There are some technical issues with their blog, but it is here:
http://dalanuma.blogspot.com/
Their camper is built on a European Ford Transit - quite nice looking unit.

2.The impressive crew cab M.A.N. "Tembo" is presumably from Germany, but I can find no references on the web. This guy could go anywhere, and has enough spare tires to last for quite a while. His infinitely adjustable levelling system must have been a treat to set up. Hope he doesn't have to do that every night. [No it is from France -see comments below]

3. The rear overhang probably exceeds the usual four foot requirement for red flags, but would allow for some pretty steep hill climbs!

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Tight fit for Liebherr

Another in the seemingly endless string of Liebherr cranes for Mammoet arrived by ship last night. This one a 250 tonner (or maybe a 350 tonner) is a 12 x 8 x 10 (12 wheels, 8 drive, 10 steer.)

It takes a very skilled driver to get it onto the flat car in exactly the right position - it must be centered side to side, and positioned so that its weight is centered.

To aid in this operation, the centre steering axles are air lifted-as shown in the photo.

Once in position, lugs are welded to the car deck and the crane is chained down into position - a job that takes at least a day for the skilled rigger crew.

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Another old dog

This delightful R model Mack Econodyne is not quite factory stock. The massive moose bar front end is certainly a rare sight on a Mack of this vintage. I didn't notice until long after I took the photo that the bulldog has been replaced by a chromed Daffy Duck, so the blow up doesn't do it justice.
The two box trailer with amidships grab crane is also an interestnig find.
Woodside 2011-04-30.
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