Last week I mentioned that my potential photo of a mean looking International Paystar was wrecked by red light running jerk. Honestly, it nearly ruined my entire evening. I kept replaying the event again and again in mind because obliviously I have too much time on my hands. I decided that if I was ever to have peace in my life again I would have to grab a shot of this truck. Yesterday the weather cooperated and blasted Central New York with lake effect snows to help lure the plows back out of hiding. I figured that if I saw my dream truck once on a particular stretch of road I could catch it again so before work I went and stood on a street corner for about 45 minutes. The first truck to come along was just a late model WorkStar. Been there. Done that.
A few minutes later a single axle 4×4 WorkStar passed down the same stretch. Things were starting to look up. Then, in the distance I saw it. The truck was caught in morning traffic so I zoomed in and snapped off a shot between passing cars. It turned out just a tad blurry but I’ll take it. Peace returned to my life.
Looking back at the photo it dawned upon me. I’ve done this exact routine before with the same truck on the same streets! Oh well. I still had fun. If you’re a regular visitor you might be feeling cheated so here are few new shots.
Monday I was passing by the Onondaga County DOT North Area Maintenance Facility when I caught the fleet fueled up, sanded up, and waiting for a fresh batch of drivers. You can catch a sense of how hard the wind was blowing that day. Someone needs to push that dumpster out of the way.
Last year after Buffalo was buried under literally tons of snow in the span of just a few days various governmental agencies woke up to the fact that while they have the trucks and man power to deal with such events these forces are not always in the right location at the right time. This year through social media I’ve noticed both NYSDOT and NYSTA making a concerted effort to move snow fighting power to areas predicted to receive heavy snowfall. Perhaps this is standard operation procedure and I’ve just become aware of it or maybe being proactive is the theme of 2016. Anyway, to make some sort of point I caught this NYSDOT Case loader parked outside of a Thruway depot. Apparently staged for cooperative snow removal? Who knows.
In the gallery below we have a few more shots of recent activity. In order of appearance, Freightliner M2 for Town of Dewitt, Volvo VHD OCDOT, NYSDOT, video still of Paystar along with one more shot.
