Hi-Rails

 The Canadian National Railway, known as CN, is carrying out road bed repairs in the Halifax area, that includes tie replacement and re-ballasting. They use a whole flotilla of specialized vehicles that travel only on rails, and some custom outfitted trucks that can travel on roads or on rails.

 

The road capable trucks, known as Hi-Rail or Hy-Rail (for HIghwaY - Rail) come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Some are owned by CN and some by hired contractors. 

CN owns this Navistar International WorkStar dump truck. The truck is used to spread ballast (see pile at right). Of note are the access ports in the side of the tilt hood. Due to the bumper and hi-rail configuration the hood probably does not tilt easily, so the ports are there to allow for oil check and minor adjustments. The other features of note are the low mount step on the fuel tank and the stowed ladder extension under the dump box. That dump box may rotate - I did not see the truck in action.

Rail Contractors Ltd operates an umatched pair of Western Star hi-rails with Rotobec cranes and stake side flat beds. They are used to handle creosote treated wood ties.

The first one I saw (above) had company markings on the door and a fleet number, and two equal sized tool boxes.
 

The second has no company name, unequal sized tool boxes and a cab guard. The cranes appear to be the same, but with some different paint colours. Rotobec is a Quebec based manufacturer of rotating cranes and grapples for logs, scrap and rail ties.

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Inter extra

 Total Transport and Rigging, the heavy lift and oversize load carriers in Halifax, have been busy recently with some big moves. For this they neeed big trucks and the Navistar International HX seems to be a favoured model. The company carries a lot of material in and out of the port area, and I sighted this extra axle HX recently at Fairview Cove.

The truck has lots of extra lighting and chrome too, including the extra large bumper.

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Famous Truck hits Halifax

You Tube star Sergei Dratchev and his famous Kenworth 305 touched down in Halifax today. The heavy hauler has built quite a following for his in depth You Tube posts. Nice truck too.

Based in Cambridge, ON Sergei has his own You Tube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBPUpF6S1LFdKi3ZIve60gA

Also at Fairview Cove today was another aircraft fuselage. Total Transport + Rigging hauled the trailer out of the terminal using a big Navistar.

Addendum

Also on site was this Liebherr. I'm not sure how this will be configured when it is ready to go on the road. Seems a bit high, but if the boom is lowered it will be too big an overhang at the end.

Not to be outdone, Atlantic Tiltload showed up a bit later to take over a couple oversize crates.

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Atlantic Truck Show, Moncton, NB June 7,8, 2019

All the major brands were represented, but not all were photograph-able due either to the tight spaces or the masses of people around the exhibits blocking the view. Apologies to Peterbilt and Volvo- their displays were just too popular!

I found most of the trucks on display indoors fairly unexciting. They were obviously demos and thus few had any custom paint schemes and there were no dramatically new models that I had not seen before.

Autocar

Freightliner

Navistar International

Kenworth

Mack

Western Star

It was a different story outside, where the trucks were supposed to be secondary to trailers or cranes or truck bodies, but they were real working trucks, and they were all Western Stars!

Then there was the parking lots where there were some real finds:

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Your Guess

At the Fairview Cove terminal today, a Niavistar International from Total Transport and Rigging hauled a camo'd Freighliner with its body concealed by blue shrink wrap.

Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what is under the blue skin.

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Road Report - Big Truck edition - Navistar chapter

From Quebec - home of big trucks -  they come in all sorts,  including the legendary 'Binders which have always been popular.

 This veteran of 2006 vintage, may be on delivery to new owners. I like the improvised stack cap.

The HX model has found interest with wood haulers. The B-train with loader crane is fairly standard for the high horsepower trucks.

Remorquage Ferron, Louiseville, QC has lots of wreckers for all kinds of work, including towing a disabled yard spotter.

Brand new Deloupe scrap metal trailer may never look this good again, but the International Paystar set-back day cab has classic looks and may be more at home hauling wood or construction equipment.

Deloupe, based in St-Evariste, in the Beauce region, makes trailers of all types. This one, designed specifically for scrap metal, has bi-parting roof doors and live floor. They are  built to standard container dimensions, which may explain why the tires project beyond the body.

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Dead Cat in Middle of the Road

Readers of my post on Cat trucks the other day were kind enough to point out that I had missed the news that Cat has opted to cease production of their on-the-road trucks. The announcement from Cat on February 26, 2016 stated in effect that market conditions didn't warrant further production and no more orders would be taken. Presumably there are some new trucks still in the pipeline, and some orders to be filled, but soon there will be no more new Cats.

One of Atlantic Tiltload's Cats was out and about making deliveries today, undeterred by the news that there will be no more new Cats on the road.

The Cat on-the-road truck came about in 2011 in partnership with Navistar, which built the trucks at their Escobedo, Mexico plant. Navistar was developing a 15L engine to complement the 13L engine, which would potentially have increased sales, particularly in Canada. However in July 2015 Navistar announced that they were ending the partnership and would begin to produce their own similar vocational vehicle the HX, "inspired" by the Cat, however they were shelving plans for the 15L engine.

Caterpillar then said they would continue production of their truck, moving the assembly to a plant in Victoria, TX, and would be developing their own 15L engine. That move never took place, and Cat will be out of the truck manufacturing business. They will continue to service and supply parts for the Cat truck.
Cat will still produce off-the-road vehicles as they always have, but there is no word on the 15L engine.

So Cat joins the list of recent casualties in the heavy truck business, notably Sterling, becoming another dead cat in the road. Due the longevity of some trucks however we can expect to see the brand on the road for many years to come, but becoming rarer and rarer as time goes on. 

I guess Cat was trying to capitalize on its name brand recognition, but it just never took off. 

  White on white motif struck me as Clearway Cat disembarked from the Toronto Island ferry in 2014.

And to add to the previous post, here is the same G+R Kelly Cat, but with its plow attached, back in 2013.

So far I have yet to take a picture of the axle forward Cat model.

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Canadian Military Vehicles

Three types of Canadian military vehicles were parked at Debert, NS on Sunday.

The LSVW (Light Support Vehicle, Wheeled) is an Iveco 40.1, used by many NATO countries. The Canadian version was built by Western Star starting in 1993. Some 2800 of these were built. Two of these units can be carried on a Hercules transport plane. [see also April 13]

On the left is the newest Canadian MSV (Military Support Vehicle) called the MILCOTS (Militarized Commercial off the Shelf) It is a Navistar 7400 SFA, 6x6. For once, it is not built in Canada. Instead International opted to build them in Garland TX. Although based on a commercial model, International stated that they were not suitable for assembly line production in the Chatham, ON plant. (Soon after the contract was awarded, International laid off people at the Chatham plant, which had also received large government funding.)

Some 1300 will be supplied in several variants. These trucks are not armoured, and will not serve overseas. [see also April 15]

The old standby LVW (Medium Logistics Vehicle Wheeled) 6X6 based on the US M35 is the backbone of Canadian land forces. Although a 1950s design, they were introduced in 1982 and some 2700 were built by Bombardier. They may be replaced in 2011 to 2012 due to the wear and tear of overseas service.

New Binders for the Canadian Forces

The land element of the Canadian Forces (this would be the Army) has acquired a whole mess of International heavy trucks to replace their older crop of Steyrs and even older things.

Navistar has retrieved the International portion of their brand name, but has dropped Harvester and the IH interlocked emblem. Nevertheless those of the historic realm will still know Internationals as "binders" - short for cornbinders.

The International/ Navistar emblem is well concealed by the brush bars, but can be spotted on close inspection.

This early evening shot-complete with utility pole shadow, shows a few of the typical Canadian truck fixtures, most particularly the cab roof rack.

Just for contrast here's a photo of the best known Canadian military vehicle the CMP (Canadian Military pattern) of World War II. This one is a Chev, fitted with a communication body, and still going strong for the St.Lawrence Seaway Authority in 1972. Why it was in Halifax I don't know!