Neat PowerTrac-6x6

[SpringHollow]

Unfortunately, shipping would kill you if they would even sell you the insert.

Ken

 

[woodlandfarms]

Talked to Terry today.. He said this bad boy is indeed 6 wheel drive, although they made a 2 wheel drive as well..

As for business, Terry said the CUT market is slow, but Mining has made up for any downturn in CUT's.

Carl

 

[MossRoad]

As for business, Terry said the CUT market is slow, but Mining has made up for any downturn in CUT's.

Carl

Yeah, I can imagine mining taking off with energy needs and all. Speaking of mining, I've mentioned this before, but will tell it again.... Here in South Bend, Indiana is one of the busiest rail corridors for freight in the country. Two major lines come out of north eastern Illinois, cross in South Bend and one continues to Detroit and the other toward the east coast. Very often we will see MASSIVE and LONG coal trains made up of what appear to be new cars, loaded to the tops with coal, PASSING EACH OTHER IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS! Full coal trains going east passing full coal trains going west. Crazy! The only reason we can think of is this... the dirty coal from out east gets shipped west where there are fewer pollution restrictions while the cleaner coal from out west gets shipped east where there are more restrictive pollution restrictions. So the dirty stuff is shipped west and the smoke drifts east over the midwest, new england and south east Canada. The clean stuff gets burned in the east where it moves north, then out to sea. Kind of like the same thing the eastern seaboard does by shipping its garbage to Ohio and Indiana. At least the bury the garbage!

O.K. off my rant.

I watched some show on Nova last spring that was talking about drug addiction in Appalachia, home of Power Trac and Lo Trac. They were talking to a mine owner who said he had many positions to fill that paid 60K per year, but could not get any high school graduates to pass the drug test to fill the positions. I'm pretty sure I saw a few Lo Tracs on that show. (There, its Power Trac related, now).

 

[MossRoad]

Talked to Terry today.. He said this bad boy is indeed 6 wheel drive, although they made a 2 wheel drive as well..
...l

Did you happen to ask why they stopped making it?

 

[Marks481]

Full coal trains going east passing full coal trains going west. Crazy!

Reminds me of living in Oregon when I was a kid.

Going over the mountain passes, I would frequently see fully loaded logging trucks passing each other headed different ways (on a highway over the mountains that was like 70 miles to anywhere).

Guess they each had a different idea of who was paying the most for lumber.

 

[Gravy]

Yeah, I can imagine mining taking off with energy needs and all. Speaking of mining, I've mentioned this before, but will tell it again.... Here in South Bend, Indiana is one of the busiest rail corridors for freight in the country. Two major lines come out of north eastern Illinois, cross in South Bend and one continues to Detroit and the other toward the east coast. Very often we will see MASSIVE and LONG coal trains made up of what appear to be new cars, loaded to the tops with coal, PASSING EACH OTHER IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS! Full coal trains going east passing full coal trains going west. Crazy! The only reason we can think of is this... the dirty coal from out east gets shipped west where there are fewer pollution restrictions while the cleaner coal from out west gets shipped east where there are more restrictive pollution restrictions. So the dirty stuff is shipped west and the smoke drifts east over the midwest, new england and south east Canada. The clean stuff gets burned in the east where it moves north, then out to sea. Kind of like the same thing the eastern seaboard does by shipping its garbage to Ohio and Indiana. At least the bury the garbage!

O.K. off my rant.

I watched some show on Nova last spring that was talking about drug addiction in Appalachia, home of Power Trac and Lo Trac. They were talking to a mine owner who said he had many positions to fill that paid 60K per year, but could not get any high school graduates to pass the drug test to fill the positions. I'm pretty sure I saw a few Lo Tracs on that show. (There, its Power Trac related, now).

And on to my rant.

I get to have the delightful experience of visiting Grundy VA 3 or 4 times most months. I can tell ya folks, it's an experience. Grundy is about an hour from the PT factory.

First, the good stuff: Most people there are friendly and helpful. The worst I have met were just kinda grumpy.

That might have been different if I weren't white. In the 9 years I've been traveling there, I think I may have seen 2 non-white people. I've recently learned this from a trusted co-worker who was there: as recently as the late 70's there were official signs posted at the town limits saying something like " N*gg*r - be out of town by sundown". There were lynchings that never made the news.

That just doesn't give me warm fuzzies.

I could hope that things have changed in the years since then, but there are other things that bother me.

In about an hour's drive between Bluefield and the mining communities around Grundy, I'm struck by the percentage of billboards saying "Get your GED - We can help"... "Pregnant? We can help!"... "Domestic Violence? We can help"... "Substance Abuse? We can help"...

Then, once I get there, I'm reminded that the old country songs about the coal country "where the sun comes up at 10 and the sun goes down at 2 " weren't exaggerations. The ridges are really that steep and the valleys are really that narrow. If you need decent natural light, you plan your critical work to happen around noon.

Everything is coated in coal dust. Even the kudzu that covers and chokes out nearly every tree, slope, or slow-moving vehicle is coated with coal dust.

Most of my working career has been as an auto mechanic. I'm used to grease and grime...

Well, I thought I was. I don't even know where to begin. Every mechanic I have seen in Grundy looks worse by 10 AM than I ever did at the end of my worst day in Texas. Those guys must never get to be anything but filthy for years on end.

An astonishing percentage of the mechanical shops lack the creature comforts that I am used to. In the coalfields, they evidently don't hold with those newfangled luxuries like floors, walls, electric lighting, and heat. I'm not sure an OSHA inspector would recognize many of these places as a possible business.

I am not exaggerating - there are a number of active mining related businesses that I see on every trip that operate in a "building" consisting of two tin walls and a tin roof over a dirt floor, with light provided by the missing end walls. The stock sits on the dirt floor or outside in the mud and rain and snow. The REALLY weird thing is that many of these businesses have obviously been profitable enough to have survived for a century or more in the same building.


Ahem...

So anyway, I guess I've been living here long enough that PT's business model doesn't surprise me much. By the standards of the local coal mining community, PT is on the cutting edge of progress. PT has computers (even if they don't answer emails). Some of their clientele doesn't have indoor plumbing.

I personally find it pretty impressive that PT manages to keep a customer base that covers such a broad range. They cover most everything from Interweb addicted suburbanite to turkey-huntin', moonshine-brewin' hillbilly. In this part of the country, that IS diversification.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Did you happen to ask why they stopped making it?

He said it wasn't much of a seller...

 

[woodlandfarms]

Reminds me of living in Oregon when I was a kid.

Going over the mountain passes, I would frequently see fully loaded logging trucks passing each other headed different ways (on a highway over the mountains that was like 70 miles to anywhere).

Guess they each had a different idea of who was paying the most for lumber.

I learned it is related to what the application for the lumber is (Plywood, Beams, Paper). But yeah, frustrating to see when you are on the outside looking in. But I have spoke with guys who run transport operations and at the big corporate level they are watching to reduce waste as much as possible. Don't know much about coal trains but your idea of dirty coal and clean coal seems logical enough.

But here is one thing that to mee seems like a lot of waste. Fed Ex. All packages get shipped to Memphis. I fedex a package across the street and it goes to Memphis... go figure... Maybe in the past few years they have upgraded that but I don't think so...

 

[MossRoad]

But here is one thing that to mee seems like a lot of waste. Fed Ex. All packages get shipped to Memphis. I fedex a package across the street and it goes to Memphis... go figure... Maybe in the past few years they have upgraded that but I don't think so...

Fed-X does a lot of local shipping that never leaves the area. So does UPS. The Fed-X 727 leaves South Bend, Indiana every night around 11:30 and flies to Memphis. The UPS flies a 757, I belive out of South Bend around the same time and flies to Louisville, KY, I believe. There are also two small single engine Fed-X planes that feed South Bend every day. So they do use small feeders to feed large feeders to feed HUGE feeders in Memphis.

 

[MossRoad]

Gravy,

We notice a lot of the same things when we travel south east OH, VA, WV, KY. I have many relatives in those areas. Really behind the times in a lot of ways, until they whip their smart phones out of their overalls.

As far a racism goes, unfortunately, it is alive and kicking up here in Northern Indiana as well, although not nearly as prevalent as when I was a kid. I see it more in people my age and older and less in people my age and younger (mid 40s).