Monday, October 23, 2023

Enormous Load

 


Elmo says, "the story is remarkable not only because of the Pete but because it was Hall-Scott propane powered and it was a company truck for the old mill in Feather Falls, my favorite stomping grounds. I spent a couple of summers hauling off of that ridge. It was a magical place back in the '80s.

Unfortunately, that country all burned up three years ago in the North Complex fire.

Thanks for sending that, Elmo!


6 comments:

  1. My dad drove a logging truck with a butane Hall-Scott back in the 50's.

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  2. Thanks for posting this. And thanks for memory trip Elmo. I remember (vaguely, too many years lol) Feather Falls back in the 80s. Saddened to hear that it burned. NorCal was some of the prettiest country I ever lived in.

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    1. If you have memories of Feather Falls, you'll probably enjoy this article as much as I did. It answered questions I've had for a long time about the place and its logging operation.
      https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/jack-and-the-butane-burning-peterbilts

      BTW, the 319,000 acre North Complex fire made a 24 mile run the night it took out Feather Falls and Berry Creek. If it hadn't been stopped by Lake Oroville it probably would have destroyed a large chunk of Oroville itself.

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  3. That's alot of board feet of lumber on that truck.

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    Replies
    1. If you open up that Hennings link I posted above there's another picture of a Feather Falls Pete with what they say is almost 33,000 board feet of green Sugar Pine on it. The most footage I ever hauled on highway was an 8,300 board foot load of bug-killed Ponderosa Pine back in the '76-'77 California drought days. Those logs were light as a feather and it was a huge load. But it was still only a fourth the footage that old off-highway Pete had on it. Amazing.

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  4. What advantage does butane or propane have for a truck motor? Higher BTU/per volume?

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