Loads from days past

Nov4

Here’s a gallery of photos of various loads Jack has hauled or encountered in his days of driving the Dalton. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.

Coming back from Prudhoe with a dozer.

Heading north with a dozer in the summertime, fueling up at Hilltop.

Hauling a crane.

Making room for a wide load climbing 3 Mile on the Dalton.

Chained up to start the trip from Hilltop going north (Jack was pushing)..

A Stryker, going to Anchorage.

A turbine in a box in Healy, going to Prudhoe.

Eighty foot pipe for a pipeline.

Who knows what’s in this mod going to Prudhoe.

A couple of cooling units in Glennallen after they were barged to Valdez.

The same kind of load, but turned around and very dirty. Fueling up in Coldfoot.

Not a very big loader but weight restrictions during break up resulted in this long trailer.

Somebody is being funny.

An insulated tank from Greer Welding.

Same load. This tank can sit on its end or on its side.

Pushing a big Volvo loader.

A mod, not covered with plastic.

The same mod – Jack is pushing it to Prudhoe.

Twelve wide trailer with mod going north.

The same trailer (with booster decked up) being pushed back to Fairbanks.

Photos from a past hauling job

Nov2

Here are some miscellaneous photos that Jack took a couple of years back at a marine dock in Valdez. He was there in May of 2012, hauling items for the railroad bridge that’s now finished (although there aren’t tracks leading to or away from it).

The above piece is part of the hammer used to drive pilings into the ground. For bridge foundations in this case.

This is used to put pipe on so it can roll while being welded together.

These are miscellaneous items used on the bridge job.

Another pipe roller.

Jack says this stands on end and the large circular piece drives down into the hole and onto a piling.

This is the hammer that pounds a piling, Jack thinks it’s for 24 inch pipe.

The large circular device in back should be for the large pipe in the far background.

24 inch pipe in back of some other items.

Sheet piling (which gets pounded into the ground to create an embankment) and miscellaneous steel items.

Six foot diameter pipe that most people can walk though without bending over.

More six foot diameter pipe with shipping containers in the background.

I must say this marine yard is a tad more attractive than most, surrounded by beautiful mountains and all!

Have a wonderful day and thanks to those of you who follow this blog and make comments. 🙂

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Valdez Avalanche Photos

Jan25

A major avalanche happened very recently along the Richardson Highway, about 20 or so miles from Valdez. Below are photos Jack was able to acquire from a friend – taken by Alyeska (and we hope no copyright has been violated by posting them here).

You can see here where the snow has covered the highway and the river that runs alongside it:

Here is the same thing but farther away.

And the rest are from another angle, showing the pooling of river water that is covering a long stretch of the highway.

So needless to say the Richardson Highway is closed and people who live in Valdez can only get out of the town by water or air. Jack says the snow will be removed by loaders but that sure seems like a dangerous job…!

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Why are the Wheelbases of Alaskan Trucks so long?

Jul26

Someone asked a question on Facebook about why the wheelbases of big rigs in Alaska are so long. Jack says they are so long in order to fit extra long loads.

Here is a photo of the long wheelbase being utilized:

Down in the states, the wheelbase would be much shorter on most trucks. In other words, the wheels would be much closer to the body of the truck and this sized pipe would result in more rear overhang, thus needing more permits and a more complicated set up. So to avoid that, the wheelbase has been lengthened, since these kinds of loads are commonplace in Alaska.

Since Jack has a long wheel base he can haul another trailer behind this one, as seen here:

This is the second trailer – it has a load of sheet pile (sheets of metal that are driven into the ground and used for road construction or for bridge construction).

(In the first photo you can see part of the second trailer but it’s hard to make out because there is another trailer of pipe behind it. In the second photo I erased the pipe behind so you can see the load on the second trailer better.)

Here are a few more photos of the Salcha-Valdez pipe haul.

The last piece of pipe being loaded!

Jack is so happy to be on his LAST VALDEZ RUN so he can get back on the Dalton!!

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Still Hauling Pipe

Jul16

Here are some photos of the job Jack is presently working on, hauling huge pipe sections from the port of Valdez to Salcha where there is a railroad bridge being built across the Tanana River.

Empty trailers, waiting for the pipe.

This is a photo from an earlier post: the trucks loaded with 2 lengths of pipe each, and more pipe in the background that still needed to be loaded and hauled to Salcha. Each section is 6 feet in diameter and 43 feet long. That stack has been transported by now but more has arrived from other barges.

Eight inch wood dunnage cradling the pipe. It gives space for the forks to pick it up and set it down, and the pipe chalks (upper wood pieces) stop it from rolling until they get it tied down. Each piece of pipe is 25,000 pounds.

The trucks have to stop at quite a few roadwork sites along the Richardson Highway. This is in the canyon just north of Valdez.

A couple of days ago Jack was held up at some roadwork for almost 2 hours. Since the Richardson is one of only a couple of major highways in Alaska, there must have been a line of ticked-off tourists 10 miles long!

Anyone interested in more information about this bridge project can go to this link: State of Alaska webpage.

Hauling Pipe from Valdez to Salcha

Jun24

This month Jack has been hauling huge pipe sections to Salcha, a small community about 35 miles from Fairbanks. The State of Alaska is building a railroad bridge across the Tanana River in Salcha and these pieces are probably going to be standing supports with concrete poured inside. Each driver manages to haul two sections a day, you can see them loaded here. In back of the trucks and in front of the shipping containers there are stacks of more pipe that need to be hauled to Salcha, so Jack won’t be off this project for a while to come. Yes, work means a paycheck, but ending up with one a a half days off a week is hard when you’ve got a home you want to take care of, and knowing there are only 3 months of summer in Fairbanks.

We’ll post more about this trip soon, so stay tuned and click “follow” if you are interested in getting an email each time a post is made here.