The Stovebolt Site Forums The Side Lot Old Dominion Stovebolt Society (MD, VA, West VA, DC, DE and PA) Some pics for Jerry and Mark ...

To go with a pm ... Sorry

Only they, and Billy, will understand.

But for the rest of you, this is the truck I drove to Winchester last year making money today.

Good show, John! Have you ever seen what's left of a highway overpass when somebody stores the boom a few inches too high?
LOL!
Jerry

Well since you asked Jerry,
Here's one from Hayes Kansas in 2006

http://www.c141heaven.info/dotcom/jokes/truck_bridge.html

ouch
Chuck

Yikes .... "...deviated from his route ..."

Well .... That's why I have a tape measure in my cab and use it regularly...

And I wonder why they felt it necessary to load the machine facing frontwards instead of backwards ... For overall length???

Im surprised they got all that damage fixed in 11 days.

I guess that lowboy wasn't LOW enough. Would have hated to be that driver. And in the article, it asked "how fast would he have to be driving"; couldn't have been all that fast!! Those excavators aren't very light and did you catch the tractor that was pulling it?

He nearly made it all the way under that bridge

Stewart -- I didn't see the tractor in any of the pictures ... did you? I bet, at highway speeds, suddenly getting detached from that load probably sent him a good ways down the highway. He might have even ended up in the ditch. Our Case 9030 looks to be nearly the same size and it weighs about 45,000 lbs. The trailer in that accident looks like a newer version of our detachable drop deck. I'm still wondering why they loaded it facing front ways instead of facing backwards like everyone else does. Loaded properly, it might have made it under the bridge. And even if not, the bridge would have only sustained minor damaged because it would have forced the boom/dipper down, rather than catching it and forcing it to do what it did.

?

The last picture showed the tractor a couple hundred yards from the trailer. Pretty small in the picture.

I doubt that loading that machine backwards would have made much difference. The boom travelling at say 50 MPH hitting that bridge, and even wedging itself underneath would have likely lifted the bridge off its foundations. Yes, it probably wouldn't have punched thru the deck, but still caused million's of dollars worth of damage.

A trucker hauling an overheight ATCO building hit a bridge here, and although it just ripped the roof off the building, it damaged the first "T" section of the bridge so much that the section it had to be replaced.
Eagle River Bridge Damage

I stand corrected! I mistook the red boom truck as the semi pulling the trailer and thinking it was a single axle semi. I think the green truck seen in the distance is the correct semi like Meneer Hansen said. I also don't think the driver should have been sited for taking a different route but the person who loaded and/or secured the load should be sited. The bucket would have to be resting on the goose neck making the boom quite a bit higher than the usual 15' overpasses. Maybe somebody was in the cab of the excavator and got tired of seeing the traffic behind them? Also, the speed still didn't have to be that fast and if Kansas hasn't changed their speed for trucks, 70 mph is still slow enough to do that kind of damage. I've seen trucks hauling 14' trailers tear down entire 12' 3" overpasses while doing 55 mph and ripping off their trailer roofs. Thank goodness I wasn't one of them.

The heavy haul wrecker owned by the towing and recovery service I once managed was required to carry 2 million dollars' worth of liability insurance by the state of Tennessee to cover any damage to local infrastructure we might create during a wreck recovery- - - -bridges, overpasses, road beds, etc. In order to be included on the call-out list with the Highway Patrol, proof of that coverage had to be on file with the state. That's one reason we had a minimum charge for a service call anytime the big rig hit the road. The insurance bill kept on accumulating whether or not the truck was making money, so the towing fees had to offset the cost of down time.
Jerry

Jerry -- Last week, I had to move the big excavator at the last minute.... not sure if we had a valid permit or not. I was by myself ... had a mission to perform ... If you look good, you are good. Accomplished the mission, no issues. Nobody bothered me. Got the big machine from A to B without damaging anything or hurting anyone. Good day.

I like my job.


John