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The Final Milling

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Eric

Welcome to the special two day coverage commemorating the milling of Harrison Street. Announced in the early spring activity finally began to take place on October 2oth. Well, that was the plan. In attempt to appease motorists, work was scheduled to occur from 6PM to 6AM each day. I was looking forward night paving as I hoped to capture a different angle on the activity under the magic glow of portable light towers. The weather however had a different plan in mind. While the days remained dry the evening hours turned to rain. What’s the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men? Eventually the powers that be gave up the night paving idea all together and started working weekends and days. It was a win/win for me as the work was only a short block away from my office.

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Harrison Street is a half mile four lane stretch of road on the the outskirts of downtown and is a major traffic artery for people entering the city. The amount of machinery mobilized to finish the job in a short window was impressive. From one end of Harrison to the other there was a constant buzz of activity with the Cat PM-201 cold planer filling dump trucks as quickly as they arrived.

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While the cold planer and the paver (not shown) were the stars of the show a small armada of skid steers with various attachments were found all over the place. Some were loading milled material while others grooved the pavement close to the curb and around catch basins.

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Over a weeks time I watched as the street went from zero to hero. I believe I captured most of the phases except for the actual laying down of asphalt. Did I mention the endless stream of dump trucks?

If you didn’t pay close attention you were bound to miss something. I just got the tail end of the sweeper truck making room for more millings.

Originally the project called for the paving of both Harrison Street and the adjacent Adams Street which is equally long and as wide. Obvisouly that window has closed…for this year at least. Something to look forward too right? Check back tomorrow for over six minutes of road milling video fun!

Posted in On the Job | Tagged barret paving materials, c&s sweeping, cat pm201 | Leave a comment

Autocar Mondays – 1961 Hay Hauler

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Eric

Check this beauty out. It’s a 1961 model powered by a 250 Cummins mated to a 4 + 3 transmission. Still working and running this Autocar comes complete with not only a lowboy but a cattle trailer as well. It’s a great combo and one that will be around for years to come.

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Thanks for sharing Katie. I hope we can see more soon!

Posted in Autocar Trucks | Tagged 1961 autocar semi truck | Leave a comment

Town of Mohawk – Western Star 4800

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Eric

I first saw this truck at the NYS Highway & Public Works Expo but only grabbed one shot of it. This truck is massive and I just couldn’t get a decent shot of it completely in frame. Plus the lighting sucked and people were hanging off it like it was made of solid gold. A few days later I made a pit stop by Tracey Road Equipment as I so often do and was greeted by the truck on full display. Soak it in. Winter doesn’t stand a chance.

The Details:

2015 Western Star 4800 6×6
DetroitDiesel DD13 – 470 H.P. 1650 LB/FT
Allison 4500 RDS Automatic Transmission
Fabco TC-143 Transfer Case
Meritor 23,000 lb Front Axle
Chalmers B54 Suspension
Henderson plows and dump body

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Posted in Snow Plows | Tagged western star 4800 snow plow | 2 Comments

Long Serving Heros

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Eric

Zack, the purveyor of fine fire truck photos to the stars, is back with a nice collection of trucks still serving their communities in one form or another. I’ve always enjoyed the look of these Mack chassis trucks.

Thanks for sharing Zack.

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Posted in On the Job | 3 Comments

Classic Peterbilt Trucks

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Eric

Coverage continues today (thanks to Ryan) of the 75th Anniversary All Peterbilt truck show. As we’ve seen there were plenty of tricked out 3X9 models with insane paint jobs and blinding chrome but there were also plenty of classic models from the golden age of trucking. Check out this rig that once was operated by timber giant Weyerhaeuser.

Many great trucks in the gallery below and even more to come. Cabover fans prepare to drool.

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Posted in Truck Show | Tagged 75th peterbilt anniversary, all peterbilt truck show | 1 Comment

The Christmas Season

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Eric

Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is on the horizon. You know what comes next…Christmas! This past Monday the official Christmas tree for the City of Syracuse arrived for display in Clinton Square. Technically the city will never refer to this as a Christmas tree. In press releases it is simply known as “the tree”; just another part the Home For the Holidays celebration that takes place on November 28th. We all know the bottom line in this age of P.C. Annnnnyywaaaay, after two years of trying I was finally able to catch the arrival of the tree during my lunch break. It was a warm and beautiful fall afternoon that lead to some nice photos. Unfortunately I ran out of lunch time before the true setup began but I’ve got you covered through the links below.

JPW Erectors assisted Syracuse DPW crews with the hauling and setup of the 68 foot tall Norway Spruce. Using a specially designed tree stand that is physically part of Clinton Square crews cut and notched the base of the spruce to make a sturdy and upright display. City electricians will now spend the better part of the month rigging over 16,000 lights that will help make the holidays bright. Full setup details, videos and photos can be found here.

Link-Belt glamour shots.

And here it comes, 68 foot, 11,000 pound main event.

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Posted in On the Job | Tagged clinton square, jpw erectors, syracuse christmas tree | Leave a comment

Spam

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Eric

You may have noticed that since Monday there have been no updates to this site. Believe it or not I was locked out! For the past three days I struggled to regain access only to be blocked at every turn. I became a leech desperately bothering anyone I could at the WordPress support forums. I read every illogical post that remotely had to do with my problem hoping to stumble across someone to share my misfortune with while attempting to find a solution. Finding no shoulders to cry on I googled incessantly. I cleared cookies and caches until I saw the menus in my sleep. FTP this. FTP that. Reconfigure. Rename. Reboot. This hobby began to feel like work. During the darker moments I seriously considered just walking away from it all together. Leaving the page permanently frozen on an Autocar Mondays post wasn’t that bad of an outcome I figured. Nothing lasts forever. After reaching monumental levels of frustration I finally traced the problem back to an overloaded MySQL server. The root caused happened to be the spam filter that is so desperately needed around here. Over 645,000 tables entries marking every instance of “Cheap Gucci Shoes” and “Free Viagra” posts had finally taken their toll. After a surprisingly brief conversation with my website host I was able to setup a new database server and migrate over the data. Now instead of megabytes of storage I have gigabytes. Bring on the spam! I guess running this website requires a little more than just posting truck photos. HA!

In order to get back on track I’m going to post two or three stories today so keep checking back to see what it is new!

[Daniel Craig/Flickr 2004]

Posted in Free and Easy | Leave a comment

Autocar Mondays – A Tradition of Reliable Performance

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Eric

Where have all the Autocars gone? More specifically the A-Cars mentioned in the article below. Published sometime in the early 80’s the goal of this advertisement was to highlight the unrivaled dependability of Autocars when paired with Cummins engines. Four separate trucks are mentioned with their then current owners telling amazing stories of dependability and power. Mike Moore speaks about his turbo powered HB-600 “Iron Turkey” hauling scrap through the desert. A HRB-600 for Mario Susi of Boston is remembered as a hero after plowing snow for one week straight following the Blizzard of 78. Don Macke tells us about his NHB-600 affectionately known as Ol’ Auto powering through the hills of Arkansas with a 5 + 4 transmission. Have these legendary trucks been lost to the sands of time? I did some googling but didn’t turn up any leads. Does anyone out there know if these fine trucks still exist?

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Posted in Autocar Trucks | Leave a comment

Wegmans Food Markets – International TerraStar

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Eric

There is no good reason to go to a super sized Wegmans grocery store on a weekend. Imagine the busiest mall parking lot you ever saw and then multiple that intensity by a factor of five. And just wait to you get inside. Aisle after aisle of people wandering around in a daze with carts full of organic produce, smoked meats, craft microbrews, and artisan cheese. If you don’t have a Wegmans in your part of the world or have never been to one you simply cannot understand the cult that develops around this chain. Full disclosure, I worked for the company for over five years until I was kidnapped and sent for reeducation. The deprograming was long and painful but look at me now. I’m a fully functioning member of society. Anyway, I went to the DeWitt store yesterday figuring that I could get in and out quickly as I was only there for two things. Nope. My faith in humanity has once again been reduced to near historic lows. The one shining moment was spotting this International TerraStar lingering near the loading docks. I enjoy catching the old ball trucks of usually homogeneous fleets and this International fits the bill when it comes to Wegmans. Their typical tractor usually consists of Volvo VNL’s with a few Kenworth T660’s sprinkled in for good measure. Of course those trucks pull 53 foot trailers van trailers from warehouse to store. I’m not sure of the exact roll of this little guy. Maybe it stays local running produce from nearby farms directly to area stores?

Posted in International | Tagged international terrastar, wegmans truck | Leave a comment

75 Years of Class

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Eric

As Peterbilt fans will tell you, class pays. It also pays to know someone on the west coast who much like myself is obsessed with trucks. Last weekend Ryan attended the Peterbilt 75th anniversary truck show and came back with enough photographs of chrome, chicken lights and big stacks to last a life time.

Maggini Trucking