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Macks of All Kinds

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Eric

It’s been a Mack Trucks heavy fall around here with Trucktoberfest and the ATHS Hudson Mohawk truck show taking place. So many great events in such a short period resulted in a backlog of bulldogs that I need to be cleared out.

I came across this old R-Model while passing through a work zone outside of Oswego, NY. Rifenburg Construction is the operator of this truck.

Even further back in time, say around early July, I was passing through Pennsylvania when this Granite hauling a Granite for Pikes Creek Site Contractors was rolling down RT 11 in Clarks Summit. PCSC is part of the HK Group.

Back on my home turf there is massive renovation of the historic Hotel Syracuse taking place. Most days if swing by the job site you’ll find trucks of some sort hauling in supplies or hauling out debris. Here we have a Barr Transportation truck leaving the scene after offloading steel scaffolding.

Below, some dealer finds courtesy of Beam Mack along with one Granite of Alex Cole Paving.

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Posted in At the Dealer, On the Job | 1 Comment

Hawaiian Trucks

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Eric

The tropical paradise that is the Hawaiian Islands has it all with white sand beaches, perfect year round weather, and stunning natural beauty in every direction. Now it comes to light that Hawaii even has more than a few cool and very heavy duty trucks. Is it possible to have more?

Ryan recently traveled from SoCal to Maui (this guy) and all other points in between. When you’re a truck nut you’re never really on vacation but simply in unexplored territory full of new possibilities. While the Hawaiian sugar industry is a shadow of its former self Ryan was able to find a few heavy haul gems of the Kenworth variety.

Looking at this photo alone it’s entirely possibly to believe it was taken outside of a steel mill in Pittsburgh. In reality you are viewing the processing mill of Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company.

Elsewhere Ryan discovered a Kenworth C500 tanker that was once a tractor for Maui Pine. According to its driver the truck is a simply a tank and cannot be stopped. Based on looks alone I would agree.

We’ll end our vacation with a shot of yet another C500 that once was owned by the now defunct Pioneer Sugar Company out of Lahaina.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing and check back soon for more of his photos from this trip.

Take Care of your Trucks

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Eric

Look at this poor old Freightliner dump truck. This rig was probably a real looker back in the day but years of use and aging have left their mark. Under the hood a well used Cat 3406 has it shares of ratty wires, worn hoses and duct tape. Yes, the time tested fix of all problems. There was also an a fraying bungee cord running from some spot under the cab to a manifold looking device on the engine. DOT approved for sure.

This truck and many others were part of a large auction held in conjunction with the Tracey Road Equipment open house. No less than four old Saunders Concrete trucks were up for sale that included two mixer trucks, a stone slinger and dump truck. If you bought them all you could have started your own concrete business. The RD Mack went for just nine grand. It had two sticks by God!

Here is a view of the auctions items from a Cat 330 with long reach and high cab.

Faded glory

More than a few values.

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Posted in At the Dealer, Truck Show | Leave a comment

Heavy Equipment for All

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Eric

This is the view from the cab of a 400,000 dollar wheel loader. The largest machine on display during the Tracey Road Equipment open house was a Liebherr L586. The Liehberr name seems to be a new addition to the already extensive stable of heavy equipment names that include the likes of Kolbelco, Sakai, Bell and Terex. Anway, the L586 comes equipped with a 335 HP engine, hydrostatic trans, z-bar linkage and a 50,000 tipping load. Based on that late stat and if I understand the specs correctly this loader should be able to lift nearly it’s own operating weight of 69,000 lbs before tipping over the front axle.

This pair of Kobelco excavators with demo shears are just waiting for that next urban renewal project. By the way, those shears while weighing just about as much as a modern car also happen to cost about the same price. Who knew it was so expensive to make scrap?

For those of you who freak out about walking through metal detectors at the the airport stay away from this machine.

And pleeennnttty more.

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Posted in At the Dealer, Heavy Equipment | Tagged kobelco excavator, liebherr, tracey road equipment | Leave a comment

New and Improved

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Eric

Row upon row of brand new trucks all open for the inspection. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet Tracey Road Equipment is Daimler Trucks NA dealership which means Freightliners and Western Stars of all types. Tracey has two of these 4700s in a low profile setup that are used to deliver rental and other equipment around town.

The 5700XE model is finally starting to arrive in large numbers. Here we see both the daycab and sleeper variants. Very sharp interiors on these trucks. Check out the video below if you need further convincing.

Video starts with a Freightliner Cascaida, moves to a Freightliner 114SD dump truck, next both 5700XE, a WS 4900 with DD16 engine and ends with a Freightliner 122SD. Over ten minutes of new truck footage!

New trucks were even rolling in as the open house began to wind down for the day. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen new rigs transported in this style. A mini goose neck looking arm attached directly attached to a fifth wheel of the power unit that connected to the second Cascadia. A truck pulling a truck pulling trucks. Truck inception! Out at the very back of this road train we have two daycab Cascadias for UPS Freight. I’m disappointed to see them switching to the all brown color of every other truck in the fleet. I think the silver, gold and brown paint job on current trucks looks really sharp.

More angles.

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And more trucks

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Posted in At the Dealer, Truck Show | Tagged freightliner cascadia, tracey road equipment, western start truck | Leave a comment

Tracey Road Equipment Open House

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Eric

We all know that I’m no stranger to the Tracey Road Equipment lot. Usually I’m just a casual visitor passing through but this weekend saw an open house that allowed me to get up close and personal with all types of trucks and other heavy equipment. Tracey Road is big player in the municipal market. Between their Western Star and Freightliner brands they sell and up fit a large portion of the new snowplows found around CNY and beyond. For the open house a fleet of brand new trucks were on hand along with some recently delivered units that came back for the festivities.

100% access. Can you ask for anything more? The lineup includes a brand new WS4700 for Onondaga County DOT, Town of Norway and a 4700 I figure to be dealer stock. The Town of Norway WS4900 is looking a little better than it’s sister truck from a few weeks back.

In the body and frame shop this International 4700 looks better than day it rolled out of the factory. This truck was completely rehabbed for the City of Watertown DPW including new cab and paint.

To help soak in all the details I made a little video of me bouncing between trucks while checking out the finer details.

SUPER MEGA GALLERY! Trucks seen included 4×4 for Town of Otisco, Town of Marcellus with a green WS4700, Town of LaFayette with red WS4700, and brand new NYSTA WS4700.

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Posted in Truck Show | Tagged freightliner snow plow, henderson plow, tracey road equipment, viking cives, western star snow plow | Leave a comment

Autocar Mondays – In for the Long Haul

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Eric

The AT64F, the last true OTR tractor offered by Autocar and often mistaken for a Peterbilt. Depending on your outlook on life this is either complement or an insult. Seen at the ATHS Hudson Mohawk show this was another classic head turner.

Based on a plaque found on the dash this truck looks to be #84 of a limited 130 truck run from back in 1984.

Sharp looking unit for sure. Now that I’ve seen the name on the hood visor I can’t help think of the movie Joy Ride in which the late Paul Walker and friends taunt a psychopathic truck driver by claiming to be a woman by the name of Candy Cane. No surprise, it doesn’t turn out well.

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Posted in Autocar Trucks | Tagged aths hudson mohawk, autocar at64F | 2 Comments

At the Dealer – CAT CT660 Logger

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Eric

Isn’t this a pretty picture. I stopped by Milton Cat last month to check things out and came across this nice looking CT660 with a Prentice 2144 log loader.

It looks to be the perfect truck for the hardwood heavy lands of northern New York.

Just call me Paul Bunyan Jr.

Posted in At the Dealer | Tagged cat ct660, milton cat | Leave a comment

Return of the Kodiak?

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Eric

GM is returning to the medium duty truck market that it abandoned at the the height of the great autoimplosion of 2009. Starting in 2018 GM will begin supplying Navistar with engines and other components for the production of yet to be announced vehicle. Manufacturing will take place at International’s Springfield plant following a twelve million dollar expansion and the hiring of 300 new workers. Interestingly enough this joint product will be sold by Chevy and International dealers with slight cosmetic differences between the two trucks. There will be no GMC version. While this partnership is still in the very early the stages with very little concrete details available it doesn’t take a crystal ball to imagine that the International TerraStar is not long for this world. It falls squarely in the planed footprint of the new GM/Navistar love child. Those of you with long memories may recall that International was at one point interested in purchasing the class 4 and 5 products of GM.

Chevy C4500

Sources: GM, Navistar Partner to Build Commercial Trucks – PickupTrucks.com

Navistar-GM Partnership Could Spell End for TerraStar – CCJ.com

Posted in Industry News | Tagged gmc class 5 truck, gmc topick, international trucks, navistar, navistar gm build truck | Leave a comment

Field of Relics

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Eric

This thing, right here, has been sitting in the same spot for decades. I have memories of seeing it as child when it was probably still a new machine. Maybe it still runs? Who can say. There doesn’t appear to be much going on around it that would warrant a bulldozer. Make and model? That’s another good question. Fiat Allis perhaps? The more I look at the photo the more I don’t see much in the way of vegetation or settling so there might be more life than meets the eye in this old hunk.

Speaking of hulks, look at this Ford Super County doing its best impression of tow scrapper. They may work great as snowblower platform but I’m thinking once the pan fills up this little Ford is going to have it’s work cut out for it. This was seen on the outskirts of Rome, NY on the magic mile of vintage machinery known as South James St.

Posted in Heavy Equipment | Tagged fiat allis bulldozer, ford super county | Leave a comment

Macks of All Kinds

Hawaiian Trucks

Take Care of your Trucks

Heavy Equipment for All

New and Improved

Tracey Road Equipment Open House

Autocar Mondays – In for the Long Haul

At the Dealer – CAT CT660 Logger

Return of the Kodiak?

Field of Relics

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