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So I hauled 12,000kg of cement powder up north of Worsley, Alberta last night. Got there just after a ugly thunder cloud rolled through. Reached the end of the pavement, surprise, freshly graveled road! Skipped chaining up and sped through. 3km in I crest a hill, fresh gravel ends and all the sudden its a 1 inch thick layer of wet slippery Alberta mud. The kind that snowballs on your tires and adds a platform to your boots with every step. And its slicker than Ice. I'm only doing 30km/h (20mph). I lightly get on the brakes and the trailer heads straight to the ditch. There is a nice 90* turn at the bottom of the hill with a narrow gate to get through with a ditch on each side. I get off the brakes and get my steering back, slide to the bottom, toss the inter axle lock and both drive axle lockers on, put it into fifth, drop the clutch and pin it. Somehow my rally move works and I drive sideways all the way through the gate and up the hill and over the crest. I'm on almost level ground. I stop, pull the tractor parking brake let off the foot brake and start to slide backwards. LoL! I blow the trailer brakes and the truck stops. I get out and chain up in the mud in the middle of a forest, at 11pm. Triples on all my drive wheels, single on a steer and single on a trailer wheel. I had to put them on by rolling in reverse. 45 minutes later, I get back in. The mud under my boots lifts the rubber floor mat as I lift my foot for the clutch. I release the tractor parking brake, get on the loud pedal and grab gears. Trailer goes sideways right for the ditch. Doh, forgot to release trailer parking brake. Release it in time, trailer wheels start turning and it grabs traction and pulls back in line. I crest the hill, undo my lockers so I can get some sort of steering, but its too slick. I'm fighting the steering wheel and ruts the entire time going from one side of tge road to the other. Its pretty warm so the rain/mud has turned to steam making it tough to see the ruts. I have about 3km to go, I pass a sign saying steep hill, another saying narrow bridge. I slow to a crawl, every time I touch the brakes the trail heads for the ditch. After the bridge I see a steep loving hill with a sharp turn at the top. RAD. I lineup with the single main forestry bridge, get my steer axle onto it, shift into 4th, toss a locker on and pin it. 2500rpm full boost chains tossing mud over the truck I slow to a crawl up the hill as the chains dig and keep me moving. I reach the top, pedal the gas a bit to get a bit of steering and make the turn. Another km and another bridge with no guards. If you miss it to the side you're going into the drink about 20' down. If I'm on the gas, I have no steering. If I'm on the brakes, no steering. If I'm coasting, the steer tires hook at whatever angle they're at and throw you left or right (I was losing track of how many turns on the steering wheel I had). I make the bridge, power up the hill and make it to the drilling rig. Get hooked up to the cement bin, the loading valve is busted and won't open fully. It takes an hour to unload 12ton of cement which should take 10 minutes. I call my coordinator, its 1:30am now. I tell him to send a supervisor up the road before they attempt to drive a pump truck in there. (They're worth 2.5mill and heavy). I head back down the road empty, get to pavement, pull my chains off while on the lookout for horny moose, bears, wild cats. Strip off my muddy boots and coveralls and debate sleeping or making it back to the shop. 2 hours later I get to the shop, soak the truck in caustic soap, hose it down with a firehose and then hot pressure wash the tractor. Daylight again (it doesn't actually get dark right now), park the truck, head home. Grab a sausage mcmuffin and an orange juice on the way, wash the mud out of my hair and climb into bed at 05:30am. That was a 15.5 hour shift in total, and while not the worst of days, certainly on of the most white-knuckled. Rained all morning here in Grande Prairie, kinda hoping there is no work to do today.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:27
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| # ? May 24, 2024 15:15 |
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jonathan posted:Back country adventure whyilefttheoilfield.txt Granted, it never got this bad here in Pennsyltucky, but I'm a prissy little girl and my company started doing some not so legal things. Hauling mail wagons is so much easier.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:59
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Where's the part where you got back to your bed and nutcup gently your rear end in a top hat back loose again using the the mud from your coveralls?
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Jun 10, 2014 00:46
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tater_salad posted:Where's the part where you got back to your bed and nutcup gently your rear end in a top hat back loose again using the the mud from your coveralls? The story was actually that he would use the mud left on the side of the road to sculpt mud cock n balls and then point them at his own face as other truckers drove by. It was from the old thread.
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Jun 10, 2014 01:14
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Street Horrrsing posted:Does anyone have any sweet lifehacks for cleaning truck cabs? I don't know if it's universal, but whoever decided to put grooved flooring on kenworths deserves to get stabbed. Just get a ride with hardwood floors like the big pimpin OOs in the TV house Petes. Missed the new page. And people bitch when they deliver down Nevada mine roads. Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 02:05
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Missed the new page. And people bitch when they deliver down Nevada mine roads. Yeah, they aren't that bad. Did see something funny as gently caress the other day when it rained, gently caress was that a couple of weeks ago already? When it rained like a sonofabitch. Anyway these road crew dofuses had dug out a couple of feet deep road bed and had parked all their cars and pickups in the hollow they were working on, needless to say when it rained and loving hailed, the old compacted as gently caress ground didn't soak up any of the water and the road crew started holding a regatta race with their personal rigs in the newly formed Lake Dipshit.
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Jun 10, 2014 09:20
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I called my previous employer to make sure they got my 2 weeks notice, apparently I pissed them off cause they said yes and hung up on me. Can't wait to see what they do to my DAC report.
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Jun 10, 2014 16:27
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digitalcamo posted:I called my previous employer to make sure they got my 2 weeks notice, apparently I pissed them off cause they said yes and hung up on me. Can't wait to see what they do to my DAC report. loving with a DAC (hireright) is getting to be a good way for trucking companies to lose money now, so they are doing it less and less. Some outfit just lost 100 grand for loving with a guys DAC, so keep your eyes peeled and if they give you poo poo, file a claim. I would also like to remind my Californian friends that here in Nevada, we drive on the same side of the road as you do. quote:A crash between a passenger vehicle and a semi resulted in the death of one person Thursday evening (May 29) at about 9:30 p.m. The crash occured 34 miles east of Winnemucca near milemarker 210 on Interstate 80. The accident is being investigated by the Nevada Highway Patrol. This isn't the first loving time this has happened, and I've almost had a couple of head-on accidents on the interstate. It was a big loving mess.
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Jun 10, 2014 20:17
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Sometimes, they're suicides. Assholes.
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Jun 11, 2014 00:56
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InterceptorV8 posted:poo poo is a lot easier when your company is like this:
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Jun 11, 2014 01:17
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CannonFodder posted:That wheel chock is so optimistic. Good grief, how do I get behind one of them bad boys, bet them are fun to drive. Is that like a dump truck for a mining operation?
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Jun 11, 2014 03:38
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digitalcamo posted:Good grief, how do I get behind one of them bad boys, bet them are fun to drive. Is that like a dump truck for a mining operation? Actually Im sure its stressful work that takes all of your focus all of the time. And it is in fact, like a dump truck, for a mining thing.
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Jun 11, 2014 03:42
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digitalcamo posted:Good grief, how do I get behind one of them bad boys, bet them are fun to drive. Is that like a dump truck for a mining operation? I'd rather drive the thing that loads it. 
Disgruntled Bovine fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 03:49
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digitalcamo posted:Good grief, how do I get behind one of them bad boys, bet them are fun to drive. Is that like a dump truck for a mining operation? Usually by working for a mine out in the rear end end of nowhere a couple days drive from anything vaguely resembling civilization. On the plus side the pay is usually pretty good assuming metal prices are up (if metal prices are down you will be unemployed). Or get hired by one of the manufacturers (Cat, Komatsu, Liebherr, Hitachi, etc.) at their proving grounds.
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Jun 11, 2014 04:41
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CannonFodder posted:That wheel chock is so optimistic. MSHA compliant!
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Jun 11, 2014 05:15
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digitalcamo posted:Good grief, how do I get behind one of them bad boys, bet them are fun to drive. Is that like a dump truck for a mining operation? Haul truck. You can get run over by one in Nevada if you wander long enough. They also have trucks that size that they slap a billion gallon water tank on to keep dust down on the better than driving on I-5 smoothness dirt roads. Galler posted:Usually by working for a mine out in the rear end end of nowhere a couple days drive from anything vaguely resembling civilization. On the plus side the pay is usually pretty good assuming metal prices are up (if metal prices are down you will be unemployed). It's not that bad in Nevada, you have running water and flush toilets near. Really though, even though the towns are small, they have almost anything you need, casinos, whorehouses and bars.
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Jun 11, 2014 07:31
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PainterofCrap posted:Sometimes, they're suicides. Assholes. We had one of those the other week. Driver of the frac sand hauler says he could see the guy glaring at him before impact.
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Jun 11, 2014 08:57
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Fort MacMurray has those huge earth movers. Most of them have each wheel driven by an electric motor, and the diesel engine drives the generator.
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Jun 11, 2014 09:05
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Speaking of suicide attempts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npl4RjiBSyY
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Jun 11, 2014 13:42
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ijustam posted:Speaking of suicide attempts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npl4RjiBSyY I love the soundtrack to that. I swear it's almost like those old "inappropriate soundtrack" videos jonathan posted:Fort MacMurray has those huge earth movers. Most of them have each wheel driven by an electric motor, and the diesel engine drives the generator. Yeah I guess CAT is the only one that uses a engine to axle system anymore, where everybody else has gone to the hub motor system like LeTourneau uses.
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Jun 11, 2014 15:56
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A lot of the smaller* trucks are still mechanical but yeah Cat are one of or the only ones still making ultra class mechanical trucks. Many years ago when everyone started working on creating electric trucks Cat gambled on mechanical trucks thinking that switching to electric would cost too much to be worth it. They lost that bet and have been scrambling to catch up for a while. *To the extent that you can call a ~200 ton capacity truck small.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:14
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The mechanical failures thread has one of those Cat Ultra class trucks which tossed an engine con-rod.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:24
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IIRC it didn't really toss a con-rod, it tossed all of them, half the block, the heads, and most of the crank in opposite directions. Really pretty impressive. Overspeeding an engine that big has some serious consequences.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:27
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InterceptorV8 posted:
That thing is electric  http://www.cashmanequipment.com/blog/tag/hycroft/
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Jun 12, 2014 01:21
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ijustam posted:Speaking of suicide attempts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npl4RjiBSyY This happened with one of our guys recently, except it was a pedestrian. Walked out onto I-5 right in front of the truck. His QC message was delightfully calm: "someone just stepped in front of me he might be dead." e: he was dead.
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Jun 12, 2014 01:54
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dubzee posted:That thing is electric Electric drive, like a diesel locomotive. The real power comes from a 3200hp, 85 liter twin turbo V16
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Jun 12, 2014 05:52
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 Sup nutcup
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Jun 13, 2014 17:13
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Javid posted:
I'm sure this will do wonders for the image of truckers...
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Jun 14, 2014 00:11
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digitalcamo posted:I'm sure this will do wonders for the image of truckers... We're already looked down upon as a bunch of idiotic, meth smoking scum suckers by a lot of people. Why not add some sexual assault to the equation?
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Jun 14, 2014 01:07
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Honsy16 posted:We're already looked down upon as a bunch of idiotic, meth smoking scum suckers by a lot of people. Why not add some sexual assault to the equation? Some? You mean more, right?
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Jun 14, 2014 01:32
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digitalcamo posted:I'm sure this will do wonders for the image of truckers... The jobless clowns in E/N look down at us.
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Jun 14, 2014 02:02
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InterceptorV8 posted:The jobless clowns in E/N look down at us. Where are you going to fit your collection of naked anime girl figurines in a sleeper cab? 
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Jun 14, 2014 02:58
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Right next to the half naked preteen body pillow, duh.
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Jun 14, 2014 03:08
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Safety Dance posted:Where are you going to fit your collection of naked anime girl figurines in a sleeper cab? Honsy16 posted:Right next to the half naked preteen body pillow, duh. GET OUTTA MY RIG drat IT!
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Jun 14, 2014 05:21
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Safety Dance posted:Where are you going to fit your collection of naked anime girl figurines in a sleeper cab? Honsy16 posted:Right next to the tied-up half naked preteen, duh.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:32
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Name was Russell.
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Jun 15, 2014 02:37
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Started my new job and I'm here to tell ya, this a company id like to retire at. Laid back as heck, very easy job, load water or sewer water and off load it at oil well sites. It can be a little dirty but not too bad. I can bobtail to work and home. After a few months they said they might give me a company truck for personal use. I believe I found a diamond in the rough.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:16
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Volvo is going full blast on their I-Shift technology. http://youtu.be/MR5iFgJBpYk
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Jun 18, 2014 05:08
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Honsy16 posted:We're already looked down upon as a bunch of idiotic, meth smoking scum suckers by a lot of people. Why not add some sexual assault to the equation? Yea I just don't understand why. I see more professional looking truckers at truck stops than I do 700lb scum bags. I mean the requirements to even be a trucker are higher than most jobs anyway, I've never had to do fbi finger print checks until I became a trucker. But, I guess it's just ignorant human nature to see one scum bag trucker and then they got it made up in their mind that all truckers are idiots scum bags, and now after this story we're all sexual predators now. Just wish the general public had the sense to know that truckers keep America running.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:00
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Because if the public really wants to be accurate, the trucker stereotype they should have is of a skeezy Russian in a track suit and a third hand Volvo who is most assuredly not associated with organized crime in any way.
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Jun 18, 2014 15:50
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