Pushing a crane

Feb21

It’s quite common for a really heavy load to have one or more push trucks behind it to push when going up inclines. Push trucks are commonly used on the Dalton Highway as well as the Parks and Richardson when the loads are outrageously heavy, otherwise it would take a very long time and so much fuel for the truck with the load to get up a mountain, and it would also impede traffic for long periods of time. The push trucks just follow the load when not going up hills.

Taken 11 years ago, these photos really show how close Jack’s push truck gets to the load he’s pushing (a crane). You can see the pad that the push bar pushes against, how the trucks make contact.

Push bumper, where the two trucks make contact

Crane boom close to push truck windshield

Mod Lift at Alpine

Jan18

Hard to believe this was 10 years ago, Jack says. This is a mod lift at the Alpine oil fields (mod is short for modular), back when he was doing heavy haul. Since it’s been so many years all he had to say about it was that he hauled this prefabricated unit to Alpine from Valdez and the workers there got busy lifting it off his truck. It took all day actually. That was one part of heavy haul he doesn’t miss.