More Big Loads

 Lots of port related traffic today - March 28.

A small herd of Deeres left the area behind an Evangeline Transport Freightliner.

Next up were a couple of wide body aircraft fuselages from Ireland behind a pair of Watson trucks - one Kenworth and one Peterbilt. Watson is now part of QSL, and the trucks do not get the custom paint schemes they used to have - too bad.

 

 Bellemaire trucks still have the unique orange / yellow paint scheme. I never did get a clear shot of this Kenworth hauling a Sandvik mine truck.

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Cats and Stars

 

I always like to see trucks from the Bellemaire Group. They are invariably clean, which shows off their distinctive orange and yellow colours. I spotted this one the other day with a Cat 962M wheel loader on a jeep and trailer combo, hauled by a Western Star. According to Caterpillar's product info the 960M has an operational weight of more than 44,590 lbs (that is with full fluids), so might be slightly less as seen, but enough to deploy the fourth axle on the trailer.

Bellemaire is based at Ste-Catherine, QC, south of Montreal on the mainland, and are oversize and heavy load specialists. They also apparently have a contract with Caterpillar, as I discovered previously.

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More crushing, more axles

 There seems to be a run on rock crushing machinery coming into the Port of Halifax lately. Today there were a pair of Terex Finlay units (I only got a photo of one) and Atlantic Tiltload Ltd was on the job with multi-axle trucks and trailers.

The Western Star with flat top sleeper was equipped with an air lift third axle and the red Trail King trailer had a two axle dolly. Unfortunately I could not see the whole rig. The Terex Finlay J-1160 is a "Primary Mobile Jaw Crusher" suitable for demolition, recycling and quarry work. A similar Terex Finlay was hauled away before I could get my camera out.

Another Atlantic Tiltload rig was also lead by a Western Star - this one with a high rise sleeper, third axle and a black multi-axle Trail King complete with three axle jeep dolly and three axle booster. I didn't see what load it was taking.

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Screening and Crushing

 A big name in the gravel screening and crushing world is McCloskey International, founded in Canada, with a big plant and world headquarters in Keene, ON, near Peterborough. Since 2019 as an independently operated part of the giant Finnish company Metso Outatec, McCloskey also has factories in India and Ireland. It is my guess that the two pieces of screening equipment spotted today, arrived by ship from the latter location, via Liverpool, England.

When I saw them they were about to be hauled away by a pair of Equipement St-Germain trucks. The similarly spec'd rigs were a Kenworth with an Aerodyne sleeper and a Peterbilt with a mid-rise sleeper. St-Germain is a machinery sales, service and rental operation with its own oversize transport division, with operations in St-Julie, QC and Lévis, QC.

Both of the McCloskey units were were crawler tracked and Cat powered. The Kenworth was hauling an R155 model screener and the Pete had what I believe was a S190 vibratory screener.

The screeners can be used in a variety of operations including quarrying, mining agriculture, demolition and waste disposal. See McCloskey's range of screeners at: https://mccloskeyinternational.com/products/screeners/

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Are you lost

 The annual invasion of European tourists and their RVs usually starts in the spring, so spotting a foreign RV in February is a bit unusual.  This funny little IVECO showed up on February 13, fresh off the boat.

The Iveco appears to be a 35-180 model, known as a "Daily" with nicely integrated box body and dual rear tires.

 

The rig carries a UK license plate indicating that it was licensed in Bristol and it is a 2017 model.

 

I hope the visitors were prepared for winter as we had a 10 cm snow fall the very next day.

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Going Postal

 Canada Post Corporation has been in the news recently for setting a "green" target for its delivery fleet. Half its 14,000 truck fleet will be zero-emission by 2030 and the rest by 2040. They have already committed to some Navistar "eStar" electrics with 160 km range and 6 to 8 hour re-charge. Those trucks will also have cassette batteries that can be changed out in 20 minutes. They will also be getting GM "Zevo" mini-vans to be built in Ingersoll, ON.

In the meantime of course they will have to replace older vehicles before the electrics come along. Currently, at least in Halifax, Canada Post runs Utilimaster stepvans.

As the faded red paint would suggest, some of these Utilimasters must be getting tired.

Recently a batch of new vans has appeared in the local headquarters parking lot, but have not entered service yet.

They have several interesting features:

They have a lift panel on each side (but different on the left and the right sides) - maybe that will mean easier conversion to food trucks! They are also quite low profile, and so may not have standing head room inside.

They have sliding doors on both sides, (which block the side panels when open). The doors have very odd looking windows - the top portion may slide down. They are also conventionally fueled (gasoline or diesel). There is a fuel flap on the left side ahead of the rear wheel. And the ones I see are right hand drive.

The VIN numbers show that they are F-150 regular cab 4WDs from the Kansas City assembly plant, but everything from the frame out may be from someone else.  They do have a Ford steering wheel however! and I believe they have been labelled as C250s.

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Sweeping in Style

 The Norwegian company Øverassen makes airport runway sweepers, snow blowers and plows - some self propelled, but others to be towed. One of their towed sweepers arrived in Halifax recently by ship, and was towed off by one of the stevedores' Ottawa yard tractors:

Power for the sweeper is provided by a rear mounted motor enclosed in a sort of Darth Vader type cowling:

In service the rig is towed in style by a specially configured Mercedes 2043 COE day cab:

Destination for the unit is unknown, but they better hurry if they want to find use for it this year. 

 

 

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