Heavy Haul!

In my post yesterday about windmills it went to trucks and 4520 posted a picture of the readout on a truck scale of 93000 lb. I tried to find the heaviest illegal overweight semi ever caught and this came up. A generator was moved 850 mi. from Cal. to Utah that weighed 800,000 lbs. This included the 5 Mack trucks and the trailer. 182 wheels-300 ft. long. There is a 6 min. video on u-tube if some one wants to watch it-It's is a commercial for Mack trucks but it is interesting. Still looking for the heaviest illegal load and the fine---Tee

I have scaled over 100,000 one time with wet corn and yes it was Mack hauling it!

You can get more weight in a trailer with dry corn than wet,,,92,000 is kinds normal when your hauling grain,,the county here and to the west of me will okay 7% over 80,000 in harvest season,,but if your caught with much over that they get the ticket book out.. The local stone yards won't let you off the lot with an over load. A guy near here back in the 70's would make a run at nite to some where in Indiana with a load of coal weighing 110,000 each with 2 trucks.

I scaled over 100,000 with a GMC Astro. She hung right in there.

Five trucks on 800,000 pounds is 160,000 per truck. And there is a mountain range between California and Utah. I can see why they use this for advertisement. Pretty impressive.

How would you like to have the contract for changing tires on that trailer.

The best I ever did 8000# on a 1970 3/4 ton pick up.

FIL used to get coal at N. Lima, Ohio in his '68 F350 stake, 10.000 GVW. It weighed 5200. One trip he came home with 9,000 on it.

Is that a Kenworth badge on the front of the hood on the back truck?

Hey, Belgian, did you have an 8V92 Detroit in the Astro!!?? They were'nt too bad looking of a truck in their day for a cabover. Changed a cab one that had turned over back in '89 or '90!!

I once hauled 4500 pounds of sand on a trailer made out of an early 1950's International 1/2 ton pickup, pulling it with a 1978 Subaru Brat. You drive it like you know it is there, as in leaving room to stop.

I pull a 140,000 pound grain trailer setup but that's legal. Heard a few years ago a heavily trafficked bridge was deemed unsafe. So strict weight limits were imposed.. something like no more than 20 tons. It was in an area of several construction outfits and ag outlets so there had always been constant truck traffic. Supposedly one gravel truck went over it, not knowing about the weight limit, and got caught. These guys typically weigh 90-98,000 pounds. The story goes the state charged a $42,000 fine. I imagine he was 40-50,000 pounds over weight for that bridge.

As a trucker and farmer I can think of many more personal and close to home stories that didn't involve fines but maybe another time.

Best I ever did was 6300# sand loaded in a GMC S15 with the little Isuzu Diesel. Pound for pound the heaviest duty truck I ever owned

Found this a couple of weeks ago. Out in Arkansas. Idiot driver.
bus

I had the little Ford 4 banger Mitsubishi or somebody elses but Ford, built around 1980 give or take. It was small for me but that was ok as I was interested in gas mileage to work. I couldn't tear that little sucker up and a lot of times I'd do jobs with it I knew I was testing it and it came on through. My youngest son, not long after getting his drivers license toasted it for me.....his first of 7 learning how to drive.

Er ah.....Mazda....scuse me.

501 bushel on the single axle. My dad thinks there not full till it runs over.

If any of you remember Coastal Tank lines out of Ohio, I worked for them driving a tanker in Evansville Indiana, well one winter the Alcoa power plant at Newburg Indiana was running out of distilled water to make steam for their power plant and the plant also furnished electric for some surrounding homes and businesses, the fleet of trucks were 1966 International CO 4000 with a 238 Detroit, 15 speed transmission, now that would be a 5 speed with a 3 speed axle , here the part that is hard to believe , we hauled 9200 gallons of water from the AB brown power in Mt Vernon Indiana plant to Newburg Indiana , I scaled in at 119000 pounds every load, luckily it was almost all flat country, but had to go thru Evansville stop lights and all, you prayed that you did not have to hit a light or had to stop quick, wasn't gonna happen, that is something that will stick with till I die, That was in 1976/77 winter

2nd truck doing all the work is a T800 KW , I guess Mack needed some help LOL

I scaled over 113,000 hauling corn with a Western Star and a 39' frameless dump. 1342.50 bushels of dry corn.

I have a friend that I call aggravated overweight Robinson. We were talking trucks once and he was telling me about overweight loads. He was hauling timber from southern NH to central ME. He had a heavy spec ten wheeler Mack tractor at the time and a tri-axle trailer. He told me that legal loads just didn't pencil out because the fine was only around $500.00 and for the length of the trip loading the trailer up paid him a lot more. A few months later we were talking and he told me that he had reduced the size of his loads a little because they had hit him with a summons for aggravated overweight, which carried a fine of well over $1,000. What many guys can't seem to understand though, is that nobody goes out in the morning intending to have a crash that day. In fact it is well known that 87% of all drivers consider themselves better than average drivers, and that 92% of drivers will tell you that they perform superior maintenance on their equipment. Still, somehow trucks get into wrecks, and people get badly hurt and even die, and truckers lose everything, and sometimes go to jail.

I've driven a fair number of miles in a truck with a 238! We had one in a '80 Brigadier S/A tractor. It's a gutsy little engine, considering it's only 426 cu. in. Fuel efficient, too! Ours averaged 8.25 miles per gallon the whole time we had it. But at 119,000#, I'll bet that thing was wound up tighter than an eight day clock.

I knew a guy who used to haul grain from Central VA to the Shenandoah Valley and bring
lime back. He got caught one night grossing a little over 150,000. Limit is 80,000.
Another driver tipped off the State Police. It seems that he and the other truckers
weren't getting as many loads, 'cause Ol' Billy was hauling three in one!

I guess that puppy was pooped!

Hey Big-T -- the cranes that put up them big windmills around here weigh over a million and crushed every tile and blacktop road they crossed. the tracts they left will be seen for years-- just saying -- Roy

I think that guy that was hauling big loads of coal to Indiana had the same thing happen to him,,Jealous other drivers,, He had a high horse power Cummings in his truck so he didn't drag slow on the long hills and only ran heavy on night hauls.

They used a parking lot at the ethanol plant for a staging area when they put it together and I stopped on day and talked to the truckers-had one track assy. on a low-boy-said it weighed 90,000 lbs. 26 semi loads to haul the crane-I would hate to pay that bill!---Tee

If I met the DOT with that load I would "Drop two a mash it"-try to outrun them- or stop and get out and hide in the corn field and say that somebody stole my truck---Tee

It's an IH so no running away! That load was at my farm and I can get to the bins at my dads without getting on the road. The big chicken farm that buys corn is a mile away so I always fill them.

And MI is still the heaviest hauling state in the union with 160,000 legal on 11 axles. So those dogs with 160,000 each is not so much when we regularly put that on in Steel gravel grain and other products. There are other states that are legal over 100,000 like NY,WY,SD,ND,UT,ID,WA,OR,MT. Then there are many loads that with permits run over 100,000 on a few axles.
In MI after you get 3 or more axles together you are only allowed 13,000 per axle so if you have 5 axles on your trailer al set together you can scale 65,000 plus your drives and plus the steer. Drives at 34,000 and steer depending on tire size and axle from 12,000-18,000. Now with 5 axles on the trailer 2 or more may be lift axles lifted when turning then let back down after completing the turn.

Yea those boys from NORTH come down here in the winter to work with those three axel trailers and three rears on the tractor and think they can run around with 100,000 lb. Does not take long till they find out 80,000 is it no matter how man axels. The two extra axel are just dead weight and actually work against their paying load. Heavy truck can haul less pay load.

Hauled sand for the kids sand box one time. Went to the plant and told them I wanted 2.5 ton. Had a 1956 Ford F-250 and a trailer made from a half ton. Pickup had grain sides. Put what we thought was a ton on the trailer, then he proceeded to dump into the pickup. Seemed to me there was a lot going in, so I walked around and glanced in the back. Sand was nearly to the top of the grain sides!
When I waved at the operator to stop, he immediately shut down then asked what was wrong because I wasn't to the overloads yet. Rolled acros s the scales at 14,100 lbs net. Scary drive, that 56 had only a single cylinder brake system.

About a year later I went to help my brother in law on a project. He picked a great day, freezing rain the night before, roads like glass. Well, we slipped and slid to the sand plant. Rolled out with four ton on board. Dang the roads improved! We got to his house and had to back up the drive way. As I hit reverse, I saw a police cruiser coming with the lights flashing about three blocks away. Got up the drive way with no problems, it was a three foot climb to the side walk.
Got out as the police slid to a halt. "Is there a problem Officer?"
"I was going to cite you for too fast for conditions, but I think I'll just shut up." He then looked at the tires on the truck. Bald as my father. His jaw hit the pavement.

We won't go into how i use to haul when i was running a bucket , Came out of Bicknel (sp) In. one night with 96 and change in the wagon and had a state cop follow me almost to I 70 . Never once dropped below 50 Mph going up the hills and never once went over 55 even on the down hills . We will not go into how many pony's were under the hood of my truck. . took a Buckeye coal hauler special load of coal from below Terre Haute on up to Chicago and right past the state cop watching all the coal buckets pulling the hill going out of town . When i pulled away from the light there was a local coal hauler next to me in the right lane and i left him like a hemi Road Runner leaving a V W and owned the left lane passen them all . At the top of the hill they had them all lined up for the portables and the cop standing on the center line waved me on by as i LOOKED LIGHT , little truck just one five inch stack WITH MUFFLER and all cops know that little trucks can't go fast with big loads . Did i ever get caught with my hands in the cooky jar , Yes i did got nailed in Va. with 129and change on , and paid a huge fine of 56. dollars and 65 cents for a gross overload and they could not get me out of the scales fast enough . PLUS the good old boy Va state cop told me he NEVER wanted to see my face onhis scales ever again and took me for a ride and showed me how to go around the scales If i was ever over again . Got caught back here while hauling shale and was placed under arrest and ordered to drive the tuck to the sate scales since i refused to pull on the portables and BROKE the state scales , best he tried to get me for was a gross over load and that one was for 300 and some bucks and i did not have to show up in court and gave me three months to pay it off . The other truck that he got the same time as me had a full bucket more on then i had and he weighed out the same on the broken scales . He paid the fine and i went to court with a certified notary stamped scale ticket for that load and when the judge asked i i plead i said not guilty and handed him my scale ticket and told him that since the state could not weigh me correctly i was not guilty , he agreed and tossed it out of court . Got stopped once on the south side of Ft. Wayne by the portables with a full and i do mean full wagon of aluim. turnings stacked up like loose hay whith the rag covering them and he made me pull up on his scales and he fussed and fidited around and could not figure out why he was not getting a good heavy reading as he asked me what i had on over the C B and to mess with him i said STOKER COAL . After about a half hour of himfussen with his scles i told him that he was NOT going to find what he wanted to find due to the fact that all them cross member under the trailer were air tanks fill with Helium as this was a new thing us Buckeye Coal haulers came up with and once we get loaded we fill them and run , once we gt to where we are going we dump the tanks and then weigh in . It was so funny watchen him looking at all the cross members . He turned me loose and i was on my way . I would see him several times a week and he would always howler at me on the C B asking where i was headed for and never stopped me again. and i was NOT hauling aluim. turnings. But yes we did haul heavy and when ya did get a load that filled the trailer and you were extremely and by that i mean under 70000 gross ya did not know how to act . I hauled a lot of bulk mixing salt out of Cleveland O to points west and here a normal load was 23 ton and at that at the time i was legal as the old gross weight was 73280 and i could scale 46000 . BUT well when they needed two loads going to the same place and needed it NOW i would load the one and weight then light weigh and load the second one ontop , it all fit . and west bound hammer down . I had to run the back roads out to the old exit 5 on the Ohio pike and get on there because the scales were messed up and i coulld get on with a double load in class 8 and not class 9 , In. did not weigh ya they just counted axles and 10.25 would get you across the Hoosier . Then it was out 80 and then a jump south around the scales and back on the big road to either 55 or 57 then south . Never travel the same way twice in a month alway use different routes . Keep the truck clean with good tires make sure all lights work and be quiet and never do tow wrongs at the same time , in other words if your heavy then don't speed do not give them a reason to stop you . And have the pony power to make you look light and have and engine that does NOT ROLL COAL while running down the road . I ran a built Cummins that would flat out and eat any 3408 Cat and Detroits were not even in the running and the new just out KTA 600's could not even stay up hauling the same weight . As i had four close friends that just had to have them and had bought new K W 900 laid out decked out . there was one other truck that ran like mine and that was owned by my close friend and for years he and i ran everywhere together , he and i bought the new truck the same night and other then a color difference and S/N difference everything else was the same . Those days were fun days .

would that have been the Minne Haw Haw mine from Bicknel ?

Back when i was still a DOT Trooper we saw a lot of overweights. One guy in the scrap biz bought an old excavator, don't recall the brand, but it was huge and he had a scissors clamp type claw for it for tearing building and whatnot apart. His idea was that he could haul the machine into a place and load his trucks with it instead of trying to do it with a rubber tired loader. Problem was the loader truck, trailer and excavator was way over 100K and over width too! Felt bad for him but he just didn't think things through. He never gave a thought to the machines weight.

The heaviest loads I ever heard of/saw were down in NYC right after 9/11. The cops down there knew nothing about weights or oversize or anything. One of our guys kept watching loads going by of debris that were headed for one of the bridges. He finally had enough and scaled one. That rig was over 180K!!! That's 100K over the bridges weight restriction which was probably too high to start with. He turned the whole thing over to the NYPD guys but I don't know what they ever did with it. Things are different down there and they let stuff go no one else would.

You wonder where some of the old ratings come from, friends old 1986ish 6.9 diesel F350 dually, mid 1980's with a 14 ft steel dump body, they would load that up with sand and gravel, heaped right up the sides. My guesstimate in the 5 tons+++ range of load and meander their way back to the farm.

Delivering firewood they had taller sides and loaded about 3-4 cords of hardwood onto the thing, sometimes couldn't dump itself, had to throw wood off on onto the tail.

The local tractor dealer had the same era truck but was a F-super duty no not the current super duty, with a custom steel rollback. Would see it going with a ford TW on back with full weights and loaded tires. It eventually cut the pinion off trying to leave a farm yard with a big tractor on it. Well over its 15,000 lb GVWR.

No it was and aluim. plant and i had what was called BAG DUST . Plum nasty stuff it flowed like water but was dry dust that would find the tinniest pin hole and leak out . It sloshed around like water and took a long time to settle. You loaded under a auger and they timed the loading and it was suppose take 46 min. to get 46000 lbs . They had a break down on the auger sometime that day with a shive and maintenance installed a smaller shive that caused it to run faster and instead of a 1000 a min it was doing 2000 lbs a min there abouts and i ended up with like 96000 and change . Once on the trailer there was noway of dumping because the load was hazardous materiel . It was a Friday evening getting late and i should have already been getting close to the house , but NO i was in the far reaches of the Hoosier and the house is in N/E Buckeye . So as the old song goes i had a long way to go and short time to get there . Had that state cop not been setting in the closed gas station in the next little town up the road and had he not started following me we would have kicked the 4300 in the gas called Scotty down in the engine room and we would have flowen up that road as that road reminded me of one road here in the Buckeye that i hauled many loads of coal over , so hills and curves do not bother me , what bothered me was him setting on my tail gate all the way up to I70 . I am dead sure that had i not had the pony power to muscle the hills and flatten them out he and i would have been talking . Same as back home for three years my buddy and i drove past the one state bear that worked with the portable scales and he would watch us get on I 77 and head north off Ohio 212 just opne mile north of the perminit scales , we had one mile to get rolling before the big hill qand the bear and the scale wagon would set in the cross over at the base of the hill and watch trucks climbing the hill as aq lot of bucketes got on 77 at 212 and if the were heavy the freight boxes would pass them about half way up the hill , well not me and my buddy we were the ones doing the passing and we could top that hill if we kept them on the floor at over 70 and this was back when it was 55 . BUT if you did not go over 60-61 they would not bother you . Most trucks back then on that hill ran between 40-45 mph loaded legal . Between the power and gearing we could pull my top speed flat out empty or loaded was 88 MPH running 2550 rpm i could get 2650 if needed .

(quoted from post at 19:01:10 11/28/18) And MI is still the heaviest hauling state in the union with 160,000 legal on 11 axles.

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MI is legal to 164000 if setup correctly. UP here the paper mills will refuse to let you unload if your over 180k lbs. Not uncommon to see guys unloading logs down the road a ways to get below 180k, then go back with the rest for a second load.

Rode with our trucker one time and he scaled in at 181,xxx and they wouldn't let him in. So we took the chains, binders, tire chains, toolbox, etc off the scale and it was 179,995 lbs so they let him thru. Lol

I was told by a County Official that NYS is heading for a 140K standard limit. That doesn't make sense to me, but that's what he said. The bridges and culverts here are in tough enough shape already and we can't afford to repair what we have. It's going to cost a fortune to upgrade them.

164k on 11 axles is less weight per axle/tire than 80k on a standard 5 axle truck and trailer. In theory the weight is distributed better and isn't as hard on the roads.

I can tell you that in the woods 180k lbs on 11 axles show less impact on soft sand/clay/rock roads than when we have a normal 5 or 6 axle tractor trailer come in.