Saturday, August 19, 2023

Absurdly Overloaded

 


6 comments:

  1. The tank is for water cooled brakes. Even some highway trucks had them before Jacobs Brakes became ubiquitous. When following a truck that had them down a river grade it smelled like a fall shower. Kind of fun.

    You had to be careful with them because if you applied water at the wrong time or in the wrong amounts you could crack/split brake drums.

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  2. That was very informative. I’ve wondered about the tanks back in the “ old days “

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    1. In the '50s and '60s the tank was oval shaped and sat in saddles on the headrack just above the frame behind the cab. Guys would always have a place to stop and refill the tank between the mill and the woods. It gave them a chance to stop for a while and catch their breath during their busy go-go-go day.

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  3. Loaded by Real Men! Not Soy Boi Types.

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    1. The best loaderman I've ever worked with was a guy named Patrick Hill. Six foot five and full of muscle. But I digress.

      We were logging a burn above Placerville, with the Cedar going to Pioneer on Highway 88, above Jackson. It was kind of out of our usual territory. One day one of the company trucks came in and told Patrick he'd been stopped by the commercial CHP man out of Jackson for the express purpose of taking a picture of the load. Turns out he'd been admiring Pat's loads and decided to take a picture to show a loaderman from a local company how logs were supposed to be loaded. He told our driver that the guy "couldn't load apples in a boxcar".

      Pat was that good. And he was fast. I once witnessed him load a short logger with 300 cull logs in less than 15 minutes. He was amazing.

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