A Challenge for Argabarga!

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

There's some pretty impressive tow trucks out there. Biggest one I've worked with was a rotator on a five axle Western Star chassis. Yep, five axles; three in back, two steerable axles on the front. IIRC, the boom on that truck could LIFT a loaded semi trailer, let alone the unloaded one we had it lift. A rotator is essentially a crane crossed with a tow truck; large boom of large tonnage capacity, along with the usual back end lift.

On that particular job the semi had a blowout, parked on the shoulder to wait for the service truck and then had the shoulder collapse under the tail of the trailer. The trailer went over the embankment, thankfully not pulling the tractor with it, the king pin sheared off. There was about a 30' steep drop followed by about 200' of hillside.

Of course, the trailer didn't stop until the bottom, rolling most of the way, finally coming to a stop on it's roof. Actually worked out better that way, we were able to set a snatch block to a tree at the base of the drop and drag the trailer up the hillside. Unloading was a chore; we used pallets with Gaylords(gigantic cardboard box, usually stapled or nailed to the pallet, approx 4x4x4') and had to unload each pallet off the trailer one by one. Once the trailer was empty we flipped it and lifted it up the drop off, where it was loaded onto a lowboy.

I wish I would have had a camera with me, and the time to actually take pictures. Loading the trailer onto the lowboy was cool to watch. The truck operator lifted it up pretty much as high as he could with the boom then rotated 180 degrees to lower it onto the lowboy they parked next to the truck. They had to close the rest of the road when they lifted(we'd been working with one lane and a set of flagmen) so the lowboy had a spot to park, but they only had to shut the road down for about 10 minutes.

[lordlundar]

And here I thought you had a challenge for Arga.

North of the 49th he could be in even deeper legal trouble If he doesn't have a class 2 Operator's license. Depending on the province he is not able to legally operate an identified bus with a seating capacity above a certain level.

[Javarod]

"Used to"? Still do.

Said sometimes, sometimes they would send out a large wrecker like they use for semis and tow it that way. The flatbed is more impressive though.

I see both School and Commuter buses broken down a fair bit. Most of the towing companies here have at least one _huge_ wrecker, they look like they're built on an elongated tractor/trailer cab.

It prolly is, i know expediter trucks are stretched semi tractors.

[Gilhelmi]

I watched one of our transportation companies do "Tank; loading and unloading" training. It was fun to see them load a tank, using only ratchets and pulleys.

Ya, they will tow it. I will be anticipating the "news" story on it (if it ever happens, he claims to be reformed).

[Argabarga]

Illinois has a similar law. In fact, if a bus is used for any other purpose, the school has to be covered.

Same here, they don't care about color, but, any school name has to be removed. Naturally, most people go the cheap route, and get some yellow spray paint and blot out just the "SCHOOL" part, so it now reads "BUS"

One person got even more miserly, and just painted out the first "S" and the "H", creating the "C OOL BUS"

In my family, when we bought our old Army Truck from military surplus, the unit identifiers had to be removed. The guy at the surplus site did that with a can of black spray paint as we were leaving, painted over the letters on the bumpers, and then waved us out. We go to keep the camouflage.

[lordlundar]

One person got even more miserly, and just painted out the first "S" and the "H", creating the "C OOL BUS"

Sounds like he's a fan of Canada's Worst Driver. One season the host explained how you could legally drive a bus with a Class 5 license (it required removing identification of it being a school bus and ripping out most of the seats.) The removal of the school identifier was to do just as you described.

[Jetfire]

I was going to mention the Canada's Worst Driver Cool Bus challenge. :P

So instead, I'll mention another Discovery Canada show, Highway Thru Hell. It's a towing company that takes care of wrecks in the mountains in BC; especially along the highway linking BC to the rest of the country. (And now on the highway going to Northern Alberta too)

A year or two ago they added a Rotator to their fleet so they could pick up those loaded trailers from the gullies and valleys along the edge of the highways.

Each season is filmed in the winter, when the most accidents happen. So these tow guys are on the edge of the highway, trying to get fully loaded trailers (or gravel trucks or boom trucks or logging trucks) back on the road, in the middle of blizzards and in 3+ft of snow. What they pull off, often with only a couple of guys and a truck or two, is just amazing.

Sadly, the producers are starting to slip a bit of Drah-ma into the show, like what usually happens when a Reality Show goes on long enough; but so far its managing to stay focused on just the TowGuys and the challenges each wreck presents.

[Argabarga]

My occupation has changed my outlook on life in ways I didn't expect.

For example

Every time I'm watching one of those police-cam compilation shows where some idiot tries to run and eventually crashes, as soon as the car stops moving, I'm already thinking... "hook winch line there, put block there, pull straight, fork from rear axle, drag it out, 30-45 minutes, tow, winch, cleanup, bill SCPD acct: $355. NEXT!"