Seeing Stars

There seem to be a lot of Western Stars on the road these days, and that's a good thing! They are particularly plentiful around the Fairview Cove container terminal where a lot of interesting RoRo and heavy cargo comes in from Europe.

This small Liebherr crane was recently arrived from Europe and was in transit by Total Transport/ Mills'  Western Star and well used four axle trailer.

Working across the street Atlantic Tiltload had this Star on hand to move a portable building to make more parking room for idled buses.

Equipment Express of Ayr, ON had a shrink wrapped boiler to move. The company must have several similar trucks. This one is number 311, and I saw 320 here  week or so ago.

On close inspection I realized that I got Armour, Sunbury and Midland trucks in the same picture, although in the background. I don't know who runs the Cat powered Peterbilt.

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Right Hand Drives

It is unusual to see a right hand drive vehicle, but to see two of them within minutes is indeed a rare occurrence.

First up was this cute little street sweeper. Much smaller than the usual rig, it must be used for pathways and trails or other roadways that are too narrow for the bigger units.

The RAVO is a Dutch manufacturer, part of the Fayat Group, a French company. Very well known in Europe, they are fairly recent arrivals in this country. The RHD configuration allows the driver to cosy up to curbs where most of the road grit accumulates over the winter months.

Somewhat larger in scale is this well used European Volvo that I discovered driving around near the Fairview Cove terminal, so perhaps it had recently arrived from Europe. it didn't appear to have local plates or permits.

The rig was also equipped with an unusual looking Multlift body.

The plates it did carry were "SF 53 WFD" .

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Cranes for Crane - Part 2

Work continues dismantling a Potain tower crane that came down during Hurricane Dorian (see Part 1, September 27.) A second large crane has now been raised to assist in the work.

 This one is a Manitowoc 440 ton crawler with lattice boom. I estimate the boom to be about 300 feet.

The Manitowoc model number is 14-440T-03, 16000. A number of cranes of this type are advertised on line for sale or rent, the nearest in Mississauga, ON another in Syracuse, NY. I imagine R&D Cranes brought this one in especially for this project.

There are "smaller" cranes on the job too, including a Grove 9000-02, used to assemble the crawler and a Grove GMK 5240 (no clear view of this one for a photo.)

The mast of the Potain tower crane is still resting against the adjacent building, but since this photo was taken it has been lashed to the structure of that building. That building was under construction, but work has now been suspended.

The red arrow shows where the mast clipped another adjacent (occupied) building on the way down.

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Heading Home

This Volvo with its 90m articulated boom is heading back to Europe after a time in Canada as a demonstrator. It was spotted near pier  23 waiting for its ship.

The boom was built by Janneniska OY in Finland. They have now established themselves in Canada, and no longer require the unit. The Janneninska Group is the parent company of Bladefence Canada Ltd which  specializes in wind turbine repair and maintenance. Bladefence set up in Canada in 2016 with an office in Toronto, but services the whole country. (That is one of their smaller units in the left of the upper photo). Bladefence Canada currently operates a fleet of more than half a dozen units ranging from 90 to 105m.

I first saw the crane truck truck just before Christmas 2016, shortly after it came ashore.

The Volvo chassis is a 5x4 with twin steer axles forward, tandem drive axles and a trailing axle at the rear.

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Crane for a Crane

On September 8, 2019 Hurricane Dorian passed through Halifax. The class 1 storm toppled trees, tore off roofs and brought down utility lines.

The most spectacular damage however was the collapse of a tower crane that draped its boom over a nearby building and left its mast leaning against the same building.

Removal and clean up will be a lengthy and complex operation, and a variety of equipment has been mobilized to handle the job. One particularly impressive piece of gear is the Grove GMK 6400 all terrain crane owned by R+D Cranes of Dartmouth, NS (a division of Cherubini Metal Workers).

Boom stowed in the conventional position, the crane appeared to be newly arrived from the factory in July.

Manitowoc introduced the GMK 6400 model in 2017 and is rated at 400 tonnes, 450 tons (US) and has a self-rigging auxiliary hoist. It has a 60m main boom and a 136m maximum tip height.

The crane requires a dolly to distribute the load sufficiently to travel on Nova Scotia roads. Gross vehicle weight is 72,000 kg or 158,730 lbs.

The tower crane that came down was manufactured by Potain in France, and has been used on other projects in Halifax.

(2014 photo on a different project)

A major street in the area, and several businesses  (one block from my house) remain closed until the remains of the  crane can be removed.

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RV Catch Up

The yearly influx of RVs from Europe continues, and I was able to catch a few of them during the summer.

Mercedes Sprinter types remain favourites including this very North American looking LMC Liberty.

A rare MB100D small van dates from 1992-1995. Note the two handled side door.

Ivecos remain popular too. This much travelled unit, sports a Mobilvetta Icaro 510 RV body.

Carado rebrands their RVs, at least with the radiator badge, but the hubcaps still have the Fiat name.

Not all RVs are from Europe. The North American visitors, often from the US, are usually fairly typical, but there are occasional odd balls.

 

Isuzu "stealth" RV from Oregon sports a tiny exhaust stack. The small side window is a bit of a giveaway, but so is the tail board with bike stowage and propane bottles below. It looks like there might be some solar panels on the roof.

Back in May I caught this early season visitor an unusual Merc "dually". Not sure I've ever seen a double rear axle on such a small vehicle, but it does serve a useful purpose for a light suspension chassis. And yes those rear axles have single tires -not duals.

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Road Trip Oddities

While on the look out for interesting trucks, sometimes real oddities or virtually unique trucks pop into view. Here are a few from this summer.

This Citro H van would not attract much attention if seen on a Paris street, so perhaps Quebec City was not so unusual a place for it, but it certainly stood out in a waterfront parking lot.
The H model traction Avant was produced from 1947 to 1981 with few changes. The squared rear fenders were introduced in 1969 and the single piece windscreen in 1964. Otherwise the suicide doors and corrugated unibody were retained throughout.

 A local produce distributor has been operating this Navistar for several years, but as far as I can recall it is the only Lone Star straight truck I have ever seen.

 A very rugged looking Toyota Land Cruizer pickup is just the thing for rough work. It suits the well used wheel barrow in the background.

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