Friday, June 11, 2021

Pair of New Petes and an Oldie

There must be a happy Peterbilt salesman in the area, having wrapped up a deal for two of the trucks recently.
The first one I saw was this red on.
It was pulling a flat rack container with some sort of shrink wrapped UFO.


The second one has a B-train / step deck set up carrying lumber.


With the price of lumber these days, maybe he should have an armed guard.

Today's oldie is not a Pete, but a Freightliner COE.


I may have pictured this truck before -it looks familiar. It operates for Milltown Trucking Co Ltd of St.Stephen, NB.
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Tuesday, June 1, 2021

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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