Re: [MV] Cautionary tale re loading steel tracked vehicles

From: shoop19@brick.net
Date: Mon May 16 2005 - 19:29:01 PDT


OK...........my Trailmobile 53 foot trailer with beavertail (steel) had
the ramps down ready for my M5 Hi Speed Tractor.......with steel
tracks........Had a spotter on deck and a observer, Milt Barnes, a
delightful local guy that works at my machineshop. He is also the driver
of the All American, my truck!

Up I went on the ramp and about 3/4 way up the left track slipped in the
steel deck....and off the side I went.....sideways, holding the controls,
the left track slipped off the deck and down on the side we went...

Now I am hung up on the deck and the right track is in the air and the
back of the left one on the ground....

My spotter Ron, is laughing his ass off at me, as I hold on for life.
Engine shut down to see whats up and find out just what is so
funny........

Ron continues that once we started to slide off the trailer deck, Milt,
who is 6'5 and over 350 dry was,according to Ron, frozen in place eyes
wide and turning white.......

Pretty good trick, when you consider Milt is black......but to my suprise,
Milt agreed.......scared he was.....got back in and went for broke and
backed off since the one track was in contact with the ground. Then we
loaded by placing 2X12s on the deck where the track was in contact with
the steel, mission accomplished, lessons learned....2X12s on board the
truck all the time now.

Jon
>>
>>The owner of the carrier is an experinced guy
>>but I have had a lot of hairy experience with
>>steel tracked vehicles and steel surfaces. Let
>>me tell you gentlemen THIS IS NOT A SAFE MIX. I
>>know, there will be loads of you who clamour
>>that you have done it many times without a
>>worry, perhaps you have been lucky, but i would
>>like to point out the dangers in the hope that
>>just one person is avoided the aggravation and
>>potential serious injury or death that could
>>result from such an act.
>>
>
> I've experinced this in a different way. This
> past early spring, I was loading a Carrier on a
> rollback wrecker. As I mounted up the wrecker
> with the carrier, moved up a good ways up the
> deck and then stopped. But, as I stopped, the
> carrier started to slide back slowly. It was like
> ICE. Foot firmly on the pedal, I couldn't stop it
> and hunched over and gripped the wheel firmly
> waiting for that inevitable WHAM!! The carrier
> got to the bottom of the roll back and simply
> stopped. No wham, no bang, no problem. "Ok Mr
> Wrecker driver, how about we winch the carrier up
> that long ramp?"
> --
> --
> Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Oct 28 2005 - 22:42:52 PDT