How's everyone doing with the SNOW

Gcorron · Apr 5, 2015

Not so sure AStanton. The first time, long ago, I took a track machine bravely out after an ice storm to clear for everyone, I nearly ended upside down after doing a lot of really neat 360's! This was before ROPS were required, and, for some reason, the seat smelled really bad!:shocked:

One of the old guys who saw the spectacular feat, put it this way for me "steel tracks, ice....sounds a lot like ice skating to me" I never forgot that. Maybe on the fluffy snows of Vermont, but on the icy snows of Virginia, I'll take rubber tires, thank you very much! BTW, with chains if it's really icy!

Would love to have that old John though.

George

Mendonsy · Apr 5, 2015

Another inch of snow last night. No big deal, but we have more snow on the ground for Easter than we had at Christmas.

TomSeller · Apr 5, 2015

AStanton said:
I spotted this old time green tractor over the weekend. I'll bet that the rear tires on this tractor would have been good in the snow.

Never get a flat either. Nice looking old iron.

tcreeley · Apr 5, 2015

We had rain when we left the house and bare ground showing in places when we left to visit my son 2 hr. south of us. We came back to 2 " of new snow and this morning, everything is white! I thought I saw a woodcock last night driving home, or a sawhet. But it looked like a woodcock - 8pm in the headlights. I hope it was a sawhet- cold ground for worms!

-earlier in the week on a warm day, we let the barred rock chickens out. One discovered a small hibernating frog and was running around with it in its bill, pursued by the other chickens wanting a piece!

jix · Apr 5, 2015

herringchoker said:
Hey jix, at least I tried. I think I'll wait awhile before I try again.

I would be lost without that old Case crawler. It's a leftover from a business I once had. There is a huge swamp near the front of my woodlot, so there has to be a hard freeze before I can get back there. Believe it or not, the crawler will cross the frozen swamp even when the RTV starts to break through. In the off years when there is no hard freeze, I cut on my sister's lot (which is our old home place), that is across the main highway from my lot. I store the equipment at my sister's place, where somebody can keep an eye on it. I live in Moncton, which is 50 miles away. My B7800 lives in town in the winter to do snow removal, and at the home place in the summer where it maintains the fields (big time alder country).

Tracyville - nice area. I haven't been there in years. In 1971 I worked as instrument man on the design survey for the re-alignment and upgrading of Route 101 from Beaver Dam to Tracy.

Herring choker

I know where the old hwy bed for 101 still is. The power line still follows it. Hard for the power crews to get at in the winter becox they don't plow it, of course We have a lot of power outages on that older part of the former hwy. They don't cut the vegetation in there either, and they won't realign the power line for some reason. The next post after your recent post shows an old john deere tractor with steel wheels. Its brother is sitting direlect on my uncles old farm in Saskatchewan. It is big pile of rust now. The crawler tracks have less pressure per sq inch than almost any wheeled vehicle, even a 8 wheel argo Years ago I tried to get to a remote lake near wellsford in the winter. Over the morning the sun softened the crust of the deep snow and the argo kept getting stuck when the wheels broke through. Fortunately we had a set of argo tracks to get out, but the creeks were in torrent, so we got stuck at a river bank and were swept downstream about half a mile. Eventually we came to a low spot and crawled out ofd the bush 24 hours after we had begun. Now I avoid argos..if you get stuck, you are Really STUCK! I got stuck in deep black swampy ooze in an argo, couldn't walk out, couldn't drive out but I had a Lariat rope and lassooed a biggish bush with it. took some turns around the argo wheel and sorta winched myself out. Argos are useless in a bad swamp. Alberta game wardens tried them but they often got stuck while trying to apprehend hunters in canoes in shallow swampy water, then they had to call for a helicopter, w2hile mischievious hunters just paddled away through the bulrushes. Poor game warder hadda sit there for most of the day waiting for the copter. Heh, heh. But I got a JD 440 dozer stuck in a swamp once. just sank in over the engine. We got it out with a heck of a big winch, cables and snatch blocks hooked back to a big oak tree. Engine just barely avoided being drowned.

jix · Apr 5, 2015

G Corron:
We had a big caterpillar dozer a D6 I think, up in Thule Greenland to support an arctic geophysical survey, back in about '77 or so (OP LOREX). There came on one of those Greenland ice cap infamous wind storms, like you would not believe. The crew left the cat sitting on the ice near a runway and went for shelter. Three days later, the cat was nowhere to be found. One of our Herc planes spotted it sitting about 20 miles out from the runway. on the ice of the sea. The wind had slid it on the tracks on the downgrade of the runway and got it up to such a speed that is just kept sliding, we guessed. Those storms are called williwaw pressure storms and man can they blow hard and long...and darn cold!! They even have to cable anchor the buildings there. Yep tracked vehicles can skate! People said storms with 200 mph winds happen there in the fjords where it gets channeled off the ice cap.

Now that is a blow job (sorry, couldn't resist):laughing:

Gcorron · Apr 5, 2015

A very good friend, who went in the Corps in the early 50's, was trained in several disciplines, operating being one of them. I think one of the best stories was one of his.

They had a project at Camp LeJeune, which is well known for quicksand. One of his crew was operating a D9 doing some clearing when the entire machine begins sinking, now....that's a lot of machine. On the official report that night it said, "...running when last observed."

How would you explain that a D9 just disappeared while you watched? They did not attempt to recover it! DOH!!!

jix · Apr 5, 2015

Gcorron said:
A very good friend, who went in the Corps in the early 50's, was trained in several disciplines, operating being one of them. I think one of the best stories was one of his.

They had a project at Camp LeJeune, which is well known for quicksand. One of his crew was operating a D9 doing some clearing when the entire machine begins sinking, now....that's a lot of machine. On the official report that night it said, "...running when last observed."

How would you explain that a D9 just disappeared while you watched? They did not attempt to recover it! DOH!!!

The British Engineers drove a TD25 into a swamp at Camp Gagetown in '76.. it sank deep. It took a tank recovery vehicle and two bulldozers with thirty men six days to get it out. They used a corduroy road to stop the heavy recovery equip from sinking too. What a mess the birits were at the end--- Mud to the ears. It wasn't funny, but I laughed anyway. Now who in heck drives a TD 25 into a swamp??

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

Gcorron · Apr 5, 2015

The Yup, sometimes you just can't help laughing!

I had no understanding of quicksand, Murph, on the other hand, had an intimate knowledge on the subject! It moves! If it is here today, doesn't mean it's not 30 feet away tomorrow. You can't plan for it, you just have to accept it.

They installed a new com-line one time, got it all commissioned and done. The next morning there was a trouble on the line, Murph sent one of his guys out to check the lines. A while later there's a "Uh, Sarge, you better come out to (such and such) a section" on the radio.

He goes out to see what the problem is to notice that the cross arms for about 8 spans are 6" off the ground! The only reason they weren't gone was the cable holding them up!! Cut the cable loose from the poles, cleared the trouble, 6 months later, reinstalled the poles, all good!

TD-25 is one nice piece of equipment, I've run those. I'd hate to lose it as well. Never got to play on a D8, for the casual observer here, the TD-25 is the International version of the Caterpillar D8, both some awesome bulldozers, you can do a LOT of damage with them!

George

vtsnowedin · Apr 5, 2015

None of these big dozers have a flotation button on them. Here is some of the troops retrieving one of theirs.LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpF2XJZh_GU