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

A raven’s eye tour of Fairbanks

Feb14

Flying into Fairbanks one day in 2008 the airplane took an unusual route. Instead of coming in from the southwest it came in from the southeast, flying over Harding Lake and Salcha and circling over Farmers Loop across north of town into the airport. Maybe this direction of landing is normal, I don’t know, I have never experienced it before, but this day happened to be beautifully clear and I captured some great photos of the Tanana River and various Fairbanks landmarks.

Click on the first one and then scroll to the right for an overhead, raven’s eye, tour of Fairbanks.

This is Hardling Lake with the Richardson Highway at the top of the photo (looking south).

Harding Lake with the Tanana River and Richardson Highway running in between.

This is the Salcha River flowing into the Tanana River, surrounded by the community of Salcha with the Richardson Highway running through it.

The Tanana River

Now we are looking northwest toward Fairbanks with the Tanana River flowing westward.

A closer view of Fairbanks with Fairbanks International Airport in the upper left, above the Tanana River. The Parks Highway runs next to the airport from the northwest then turns east (Mitchell Expressway). You can see almost all of Fairbanks here including the hillside residential areas to the north and west. The bodies of water in between Fairbanks and the Tanana RIver are the gravel pits around Lakeview Terrace and farther away, the South Cushman ponds.

The intersection of the Richardson Highway and Badger Road is on the right. The road that parallels the Richardson on the left is called Saddle Avenue; we think this is the dike that protects Fairbanks from Tanana River flooding. Fort Wainwright is on the right.

The middle rectangle spans south Fairbanks from the airport to Fort Wainwright. The University of Alaska is in the upper right hand corner and below it is part of downtown.

Now we are on the other side of Fort Wainwright looking southwest. Bottom right is Birch Hill Recreation Area and downhill ski runs and Jack says the circular cleared area is the Fort Wainwright landfill. On the right side middle you can see Johansen Expressway with the big box stores along it, though it’s more developed now with large commercial buildings on both sides of the road instead of just one. The Chena River winds westward from Fort Wainwright.

We’re flying north of town now looking south toward Fairbanks with the intersection of Farmers Loop and the Steese Highway in the upper left corner and McGrath and Farmers Loop closer to the middle.

Someone’s personal junkyard, one of many in Fairbanks. Normally you can just see an edge but here you can see one in all its glory!

This interestingly shaped pond is either an oxbow lake, which is formed where a river or slough used to run, or a thawed area of permafrost.

This is north Fairbanks where the industrial area of Aurora Drive and the residential areas north of it meet. Carlile Transportation is kind of in the upper middle, just on this side of the Johansen Expressway. Danby intersects Johansen in the upper left corner and on the other side of the expressway is the railroad industrial area. There have been a lot of changes since these were taken 6-7 years ago.

We are farther west, looking southeast, with Johansen Expressway running horizontally. The large buildings in the upper left (not near the middle of the photo, that’s the Aurora Drive industrial area) are Randy Smith Middle School and the car dealerships of Danby Road. Next to the red roof in the foreground is the partially constructed foundation of the Carlile shop that now services Jack’s truck.

Here we see the Chena River meandering through Fairbanks and the intersection of Johansen and Peger Road on the left. The Carlson Center is the large green building in the upper left. One of the newest and most expensive neighborhoods of Fairbanks is Doyon Estates which is on the right, inside one of the the loops of the Chena River.

The intersection of Peger Road and Phillips Field Road is near the middle and here is where the railroad industrial area and the residential neighborhoods meet.

This is Riverview Drive running between the neighborhood pond and the Chena River, with an active gravel pit on the right bank of the Chena. This residential neighborhood is called Taku or Westgate. You can see the new intersection of Airport Way and Washington Drive in the upper right corner. The large building at the corner of that intersection has been shuttered since K-Mart closed, and next to it is Sears.

And finally, we land at the Fairbanks International Airport with the float ponds next to the runway.

Curved directional pipe for crude oil

Feb8

I snapped these on Friday when this truck was fueling up to head north.

Jack says they are used for crude oil and that they lay on their sides, not upright like on the truck. You can see the actual metal portion of the pipe that is colored green with anti-corrosion paint. The black is thinner metal and in between the two is foam insulation.

This load is obviously going to Deadhorse or Prudhoe Bay. (FYI: Deadhorse refers to the “town” where companies have their operations, and Prudhoe Bay refers to the actual oil fields and is a much larger area.)

Click on the photos for larger images.

Truck in the ditch

Jan25

More snow in the engine, but this time it’s from someone going in the ditch! It seems to happen to everyone eventually and it’s better to land in the cushy snow instead of just about anywhere else. After it got pulled out they cleaned the snow off and drove it away!

(Identifying marks have been removed for privacy.)

Snow-filled engine compartment

Jan24

Jack snapped these shots after going through numerous snow drifts before he got into Prudhoe Bay. The engine is operating fine and he didn’t need to do anything, but it’s interesting to see how the snow gets into all the available spaces. The keypad looking thing is actually the air intake for the cab and the vent above it is the intake for the motor. Even though the engine is 200 degrees plus it’s still not enough to melt the snow at these temperatures, about 20 or 30 below.

Memory Foam Clouds

Jan19

Jack took these photos a couple of days ago. The clouds have a really weird consistency to them, like there are air pockets underneath that are pushing them up in patches.

It’s kind of hard to make it out but the clouds are indented from the bottom.

It almost looks like there are mountains in the distance but it’s all clouds.

The clouds look like a layer of memory foam being pressed on from below.

Donjek River Bridge, follow up

Jan17

A few months after Jack helped haul bridge beams to the Donjek River Bridge in Canada, he went back to haul the beams from the staging area off the road onto the ice where they were constructing the bridge. (Best viewed if you click on the first one and scroll to the right.) See captions for more info.

Two cranes are needed to pick up bridge beams, one on each end, since they will break if they are picked up from the middle. In the construction process they are pre-stressed to take weight from the top and won’t hold up if lifted from the middle.

The old bridge is on the left and the cranes are moving down onto the river.

Jack is down on the frozen river here with the new bridge on the left and what looks to him like concrete joints on the right.

The orange tarp is covering the concrete and keeping the warmth in from heaters so that it will cure.

The 2 cranes are on their way up to the staging area where they will pick up the beams and place them onto the trailers for the trucks to bring them down to the river where the cranes will then pick them back up and place them on the bridge in their correct positions.

They are loaded and following the cranes back down to the river.

Hauling Pipe Rack Units to Prudhoe

Jan4

A few years ago Jack and some other truckers took these pipe rack units from Fairbanks to Alpine, an area of Prudhoe Bay owned by Conoco-Phillips. You’ll see the units being loaded, then Jack driving behind other units. You can see the pipes in the middle of the structure as well as the valve controls on the top. These units are lined up next to each other and connected as part of the process of extracting oil and getting it into the pipeline to go south. In one of the ice road photos you can see a pipeline on the right.

They drive through tundra, over mountains, and finally on the ice roads of Prudhoe Bay. The last couple of photos, the ones where the road doesn’t look particularly icy, they are passing over a river. If you are also rather astute (and here I am giving you a clue) you can also see Jack’s reflection in the mirror, as well as a reflection of the small fan that he had mounted on the dash that could turn toward the windshield to defrost it or toward him on hot days.

(The best way to view the photos is to click on the first one and then click on the right arrow.)

Driving the Dalton

Jan2

Jack finally took a video of driving down the road. It seems like a silly thing to do but people have requested more videos and this one shows what most of his job is like, on the good days. 🙂

(If these appear blurry change your resolution settings on the bottom right side of the player.)