Hot in the summer. Cold in the winter. Such is the life of metal shipping container turned mobile construction office. I caught this Peterbilt from A-Verdi Storage Containers removing a home away from home for someone at the site of the Hotel Syracuse renovation site. Work is quickly coming to end on this historic property with booking dates already available starting in July.
Many trucks are useful but a roll back truck really can do so much and more.
All most everyone who has ever driven a tractor is interested in how they’re tested and some of you may even have the idea that many of them never were. That sentence is the opening line to a great vintage promotional film by Allis Chalmers regarding the severe testing of their tractors. They barely waited even tens seconds before launching in to the jokes. Despite the light hearted opening line you’ll soon realize how serious AC took the testing of their protype tractors. It’s a fascinating look into the methods used to simulate years of heavy and demanding use in a fraction of the time. An ingenious setup was designed to simulate three hours of field use for every hour of testing by connecting test units to old tractors weighted down with concrete and iron. The film mentions the engines have been converted at the manifold level to make them function air compressors. I’m not sure what conclusion I should make from that detail but I’m not tractor expert. Either way, the test engine is effectively run at 100% design horsepower load for days on end, a condition rarely seen under normal use. Components or systems that fail during this testing or modified or corrected until the entire power train is deemed worthy of production. Other highlights of the film include chuck hole testing and ROPS engineering. You’ll gain a greater appreciation of the test farmers on these tractors after watching them drive repeatedly over broken roads and rough terrain. The roll over test at the end of the film is the grand finale. While no operator is in the cab it appears an engineer had to run along side the tractor with a long cable that presumably controlled the throttle and steering. At the last moment he would let go and watch at the tractor shot up the cambered ramp and on it’s way to destruction. Can you say hazard pay?
Bear with me as I play your long distance cousin who just stopped by to share their vacation photos of a recent trip to Lichtenstein. Hopefully the photos I have to share won’t be as boring as that hypothetical cousin. First up, this Mack Granite of the Middlesex Corporation of Orlando, Florida. I saw this truck, or a similar one, many times during my stay in the area. It was a fast mover and hard to capture but I found a good angle on it while standing on a pedestrian bridge.
Big cranes were to be found all over the area with two such examples hovering over the expansion to the Animal Kingdom. Remember that move Avatar from over seven years ago? Disney is busy making an all inclusive section of their park to resemble the alien world of Pandora.
Back at my hotel another guest arrived in style with a crew cab Freightliner M2 complete with gooseneck and loading crane. On their final day the truck came back through the gates with a Cat diesel engine strapped on the back. Cat 3408? I really don’t know, I’m just throwing out some numbers.
Annnnd more! A heavy haul Peterbilt that I reacted to slow to grab a good shot, a familar looking Kenworth flatbed, bus terminal construction at Disney Springs, more Animal Kingdom crane, a parting shot of the Middlesex truck, a tricked out Pete shot through a bus window, random construction, Reedy Creek Improvement District Mack front loader, and the final three are self explanatory.
Today we travel to Indianapolis to visit the 2016 NTEA Work Truck Show thanks to our friend Tom Shand. Every year hundreds of vendors and suppliers gather to show the latest products and offerings for vocational trucks. At the Work Truck Show you can meet with various vendor representatives, examine actual products first hand and even take a test drive or two. If I had to think of consumer analog for this show I would choose SEMA. The main exception being most of the truck add-ons seen at the WTS help you and your truck make money instead of simply costing money.
Freightliner 108SD Cummins ISL 350 HP Allison 3000 Galion 10 foot statinless steel body Good Roads Plow
Thanks to Tom for his detailed notes regarding each truck which should show above each photo in the gallery below.
I wandered back up to the Carrier Dome the other day to see if I could catch any sign of dirt being hauled in for the upcoming Monster Jam event. As you can see below there was a little action taking place. 😉
Truck after truck rolled up the hill and through the air lock doors of the dome. Two at time just like Noah’s Ark. A few minutes later the doors would open again and empty trucks would leave. This process will repeat until around 425 trucks loads of soil have been moved.
As you can tell from the photos it was wonderfully cold, windy, and bitter day to be standing on a large hill but still beat sitting on my desk bored during lunch.
The monsters are coming. Monster trucks that is. They yearly spectacle that is monster truck racing has once again returned to Syracuse. As you know, I have attended the past couple of years and found both the actual show and the post show clean up equally as entertaining. This year, fresh off a vacation, I’ll be watching from the cheap seats. The real cheap seats. So cheap that I sit outside of the building and don’t have an actual seat. In other words I’m not going. But just because I didn’t get gouged by Ticketmaster doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun. Yesterday I hoofed up to the Carrier Dome during my lunch break on the off chance I would catch a few dump trucks hauling dirt through the air lock doors. As it turns out that activity is still a day or two away as the heavy equipment was still arriving from Milton Cat on the back of Big Red Towing.
A line of material handlers, skid steers and one rather large 950K were already unloaded and gathering attention from curious SU students. You just can’t be a selfie in a bucket larger than the average dorm room.
Maybe tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll head back up to the hill to catch more of the prep action. But if I don’t, please enjoy the photos below.
It has been a down year for snow across much of the country if you don’t pay attention to that blizzard from a month ago. So far the forecast for March looks similar to that of February, unseasonably warm and sunny. At this stage of the game I won’t complain. Even though the snow has been scarce the plows still exist. We’ll start off with this 2004 Oshkosh of the Dutchess County Highway Department. This truck is equipped with a Cat C-12 diesel capable of generating 375 horsepower while an Allison automatic helps reduce driver fatigue.
Heading down the Hudson River we arrive in Greenburgh, NY and find one of their former trucks, a 1979 4×4 Mack RM ready for surplus. With just a little rust repair and some fresh paint it will be ready to run again. Seth tells us this truck was ready for auction around November of last year so there is a good chance it is all ready plowing the highways of Massachusetts, the land of contractor based highway snow removal.
Back on the home front I came across the City of Syracuse Paystar convention. Two identical looking units parked next a later model. All were enjoying a well deserved lunch break on the local Price Chopper.
I actually stopped by this spot on my way to and from my intended destination and found this WorkStar decorated for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day.
The winter of 2016, one to forget! Thanks to John and Seth for the shares. Make sure to check out Seth’s website for more great photos like the one you say above.
At first glance this old Autocar may not seem like much but under the hood there is the potential to discover plenty of history. When we first saw this truck during an Autocar Mondays post from last year it was mentioned that possibly, just possibly, this was one of the first Autocars to use a Caterpillar engine, a 1673B, direct form the factory. This DC103T once belonged to Southworth Caterpillar and when paired with a lowboy trailer moved an untold number of machines for decades upon decades. It would make sense that a Cat dealer would want a truck with a Cat engine right?
Currently the 1673B is seized up tight and before any restoration process begins a choice needs to be made regarding the engine. If indeed the Cat is original to this truck and one of the first to be shoved under an Autocar hood then current owner Larry Marmet might just go through the trouble of bringing it back to life. If not, well, there is a Cummins NTC290 just waiting in the wings.
From what I understand Caterpillar first started producing diesel truck engines in the mid 50’s that were less than successful. Production ceased for a period of time before starting again in 1961 with two or three different engines of which one was the 1673B. Larry’s DC103 is believed to be a ’64 model year which puts the two close enough in history to make a connection. Are there any Caterpillar or Autocar experts out there that can weigh in with a definitive answer?
Caterpillar announced today that production of their Cat line of trucks will cease with no further orders accepted as existing customer orders are fulfilled. BOOM! Just like that the dream is over. This past summer Caterpillar announced plancs to bring production of their trucks in house, back from a Navistar facility in Mexico and into a excavator plant in Victoria, Texas. Over two hundred jobs were expected to be created and Cat flooded social media and the press with fancy videos about sticking to the product line and creating jobs. This turn of face might be surprising but not totally unexpected.
Back in 2011 when Caterpillar announced their line of CT heavy duty trucks I was excited, as any truck fan would be at the promise of new iron on the road. However, the part of my brain that suffered at the hands of various marketing professors in college couldn’t help but feel the heavy duty truck market in North American is a mature one. This means entry costs are high while opportunity for success is low. Long established manufactures have the market carved up, with single digit sales increases stolen from each other as one of the few avenues of growth. Hoping to defy the odds Caterpillar partnered with one these existing players to utilize their experience and facilities. Some might say this was the first mistake as International was entering a phase of disastrous engines and product quality. The CT line was billed as premium truck but many found it hard to look past the DNA it shared with the International Paystar. Anytime I saw this truck at a trade show the poor sales folks couldn’t go one minute with out the “ain’t this just a International with an ugly hood” comment flying through the air.
Despite a product line of three unique models, one of which was just introduced this past summer, Cat was only able to move, at best, 1200 units a year. In the age of shareholders demanding increased returns with each quarter a business unit like the truck line was just the right sacrificial goat for the time.
“Remaining a viable competitor in this market would require significant additional investment to develop and launch a complete portfolio of trucks, and upon an updated review, we determined there was not a sufficient market opportunity to justify the investment,” said Ramin Younessi, vice president of Caterpillar’s Industrial Power Systems Division.
And there you have it, the corporate press release we all knew would fall if given enough time. Say what you will but I’m sad to see Cat go. It’s always good to have an outsider muscle their way in to the established club. With their an intrusion new products, ideas, and service become mandatory no matter the age of the market. Maybe this was the problem with Cat trucks along, they tried to follow the path already blazed by others decades ago.
In memory, a collection of some of the Cat trucks I saw in person. I always thought I was being cheated but now that I know they sold less than 10,000 over 6 years I figure I saw a good portion!
Source: Caterpillar to End Cat Truck Program – TruckingInfo.com
Construction never stops in sunny Florida especially in the tourist centric hub that is Orlando. During my recent trip to the sunshine state I found myself with some free time while my wife enjoyed a few hours at a spa. To keep myself busy I did what any sane person would do, watch construction. Early in the day I had noticed the unmistakable boom of a concrete pumper at a job site within walking distance of my hotel. I wandered over to have a look not expecting to see much. If you’ve ever been to Disney you know the construction fences are very tall and explicitly designed to hide everything from view. Thankfully this was not Disney property and only a rinky dink chain link fence stood between me and the action.
I watched as truck after truck from Cemex rolled in the Buena Vista Palace Hotel and Spa with concrete for their new swimming pool complex. It wasn’t uncommon to have 7 or 8 trucks scattered around the site at any one moment. Impressive for a small town rube like myself!
Bright sun, 70 degrees, unrestricted views. It was almost too easy.
I did a quick pan through the site to capture the visual and audio side of things.
