remy:
ChrisArbon when you drove for Big Freight did you have a Union Jack on your drivers door ? One like that drove into the walmart parking lot in Chicopee MA when I was parked there but the driver just turned around and left so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.
____ There were quite a lot of Big Freight trucks flying Union Jacks but I was never one of them. I preferred to keep a low profile, rarely opening my mouth in fear that someone would accuse me of being Australian. The Scottish and Welsh drivers usually had a saltire or dragon, so if I did ever have a flag, it would have been the Cross of St George. I was often asked how Big Freight got it’s name and really don’t know as they didn’t have any low-loaders, trombones or other heavy equipment. The only over-size loads that I carried were agricultural or construction machines; just over width and never too heavy or too long. The work needed a lot more effort with signage, lights, permits and pilot cars all being the responsibility of the driver. There were extra cents per mile depending on size but this was rarely paid without the driver complaining to the payroll department. Their excuse was that the over dimensional premium was on another spreadsheet. After the third time, I told them I didn’t like being cheated and would no longer be doing over size loads.
____ When I joined Flying Eagle, they were just starting to do heavy haul. The boss had formed a close friendship with a pilot-car company owner who had good connections with the over size loads shipping out of the Winnipeg area. They began tendering for low-loader work with transformers and pre-cast concrete. The company’s two Swedish drivers were pretty protective about the work so everyone else let them get on with it. I only did one load; when the company was contracted to deliver four loads in one day. My Welsh buddy, Bryn, and I made up the numbers on what is the longest and heaviest load I ever hauled.
____ On a Sunday morning in July 2013 and I was to take a loaded Super’B from the yard to Multicrete Precast in Winnipeg. On the trailers were two 4-axle bogies on hire from someone in Calgary. After unloading, I fitted a turntable with cradle on the front Super’B trailer and using one of the bogies at the rear, loaded a 128 foot, 70 ton concrete beam. I secured it and pulled out ready for the next truck to load only to be told that I had loaded it back to front. I had to reverse back under the gantry, get the beam lifted up, swap places with the truck and bogie, then reload and secure. Not easy and half the morning wasted.
____ Patrik, from Sweden, was the only other driver there as the other two were running back from previous deliveries. We loaded two beams each with the help of Elmer, the pilot car owner and Harold, his driver. It took the full 14 hour spread-over before we had lined them up, ready to go at 5 o’clock in the morning. For the journey out of Winnipeg and onto the Eastbound Trans Canada Highway, we needed a police ■■■■■■, one pilot car per beam and a driver in each bogie. Amazingly, enough people turned up on time to make it happen. Once on the four-lane highway, the bogies were changed from manual to automatic steering, where the angle of the beam on the unit was mirrored as the same at the bogie. Steering Ok for bends in the road but not for junctions.
____ Part of the permit conditions was to be 20 minutes apart on the road; I brought up the rear but moved into third place when Christer blew a steer tyre on his bogie. However, we were all together again at the West Hawk weighbridge at the Manitoba/Ontario border; all the units were overweight on the unit drive axles. Somebody had made a mistake in the beam placement calculations. No possibility of turning round, horrendous expense if calling for a crane and to make matters worse; across the provincial border, in Ontario, the weights would be legal. Luckily, Elmer also had another job; he was also a sergeant in the Winnipeg Police Force. He played the Law Enforcement Officer card and with a $300 fine for just one truck; we were rolling again.
____ I had a trouble free run all the way to the overnight stop at Nipigon with just one traffic light junction in Thunder Bay where the bogie had to have manual steering. A rig that size is limited by permit to 50 mph; just under top gear cruising but the Peterbilt 389 pulled very well and there were enough brakes too. The four beams were for the replacement of one carriageway across the Sturgeon River on Highway 11, just East of Jellicoe in the Canadian Shield. They would do one side of the road and then another four beams would complete the job later in the year. We were called up to the site, one at a time, and unloaded on the old part of the wooden bridge that was still standing. They topped up the bogie on the trailer and I came home. It’s difficult to remember and explain it all after nearly ten years so I’ve put in a lot of photos; hope you get the picture.
