Well good, let's see you do it and post it on youtube.

 

and now why were you able to recognize a mariah carey song?

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

Yeah, I'd say so.. I have spend a lot of hours practicing, and at over twice his age Im still no very good at it.

 

and I complain sometimes when I have to drag a pup or I have to back the 40' end dump into some narrow, dark places!

 

Saw it happen in upstate NY, guy had a 379 Pete and was hanging out the door looking while he was backing up, fell out. Couple broken bones, broke some parts on the truck and trailer when it slammed into the dock. I think the guy was lucky that it didn't kill him.


Gimme the truck and trailers, I'll supply the camera. B-trains are ALOT simpler to back up, as previously stated in this thread. You're backing up the ***-end of one trailer to move the front end of the one behind it, as it shares the same set of axles. It's not a dolly attached with a pintle hitch that moves on its own. I've had my CDL for 2 years, pulled mostly 53 ft vans, but got a crash course in double/triples in Cali last spring. It's impressive, no matter how you look at it, backing up two or more trailers, but a B-train is alot nicer and more predictable.

 

Im going to have to agree dollys are a whole lot more difficult to back up. More points that articulate. It takes alot of skill to back those rigs.
Most drivers of pup doubles here in Jersey are straight ahead only. Drop em where you stop lol...

 

You pull chips for Waslh? I pass your trucks every day on the hills. Your co. needs to put some power to those trucks.
All kidding aside I use to pull tripple 27" dry vans & never could get the hang of backing up doubles to hook that 3rd box unless the dolly was within a few feet of the 3rd box.
Just give me 4 axle truck & 4 axle trailer I can back my tanker around our shop. I'll bet when that guy is going thru those round abouts everyone yields to him.

 

Now that's a youtube vidoe I want to see!

 

I do, but haven't worked for them for over a year since the timber industry has slowed down.. I worked part time for them for years but only in the summer. I was a career Firefighter and drove before i got that job. Started working for them after being hired @ Portland Fire. Only did it in years when there was a budget crunch and not very many extra shifts. I have worked every summer for them since '99 when I retired except for last summer and it is beginning to look like not this summer either. Puts a real cramp in my play doh.

You won't get an argument from me about those rigs having no power. Couple summers back I ran doubles quite a bit. Most of the time fully loaded and only 355 horses under the hood. That rig was very dependable but also very slow. That's the Ole Man. He has this idea they are getting better fuel mileage. Billy (Jr.) says their records bear that out when I challenged him on it. I didn't agree with him and since I drove a lot of different rigs I could make a comparison since some do run better. It turned out I was right but not by as much as I thought. The shorter hauls hurt the mileage more than the low HP. It was still better with more power but like my brother says "They don't let the facts get in the way of what they want to believe."

That's his truck at the top of the page I posted. #407, double stack Mack, no shack on the back. He has over 750,000 miles on it AND the original clutch. He has put all but a few miles on it. He's the #1 driver and has been there almost 36 years. That's the only truck he's had I haven't put some miles on at some point. I don't think anyone but him has ever hauled a load with it.

Walsh just won the bid for the garbage haul form PDX to Arlington. I know they're happy about that. They have been trying to get something else besides timber related hauls for years. That's why I've hauled chipped up tires, chips, sawdust, hog fuel, bags of poo and probably some other stuff I don't recall over the years.

I can't really back doubles very well but have done it. Not pretty though. I saw a guy put an A train on a Weyerhauser dump in Longview about 10 years ago. I wouldn't even attempt that. They have A, B and C trains and I have had them all at one time or another but never have them long enough to get good at backing any of them. Well, probably a B train if I had it for a couple days. Just need to get used to turning the wheels different than a semi. You T&T guys can put those things just about anywhere.

BTW, I see you post over on NW Bombers, too.

 

I hate to ask a stupid question, but please humor this city boy. What the heck are A, B and C trains!?

 

Not a stupid question at all. If you haven't been around that type of equipment in some manner you wouldn't likely know about it.

I'll try to answer your question the best I can. Basically the A, B and C refers to how the front and back trailer(s) are joined together.

An "A" train uses a converter dolly that has a single hook on the front of the tongue and a fifth wheel for connecting the trailer behind. The hook goes into a pintle hitch on the back of the front trailer. It then hooks into the next trailer with the fifth wheel. I'm guessing the A designation comes from the tongue being shaped in the form of an A.

A "B" train has a deck on the back of the front trailer with a fifth wheel on it to connect the next trailer. Eliminates one joint in the hookup. These are commonly able to be backed up similar to a Truck/Trailer combo.

A "C" train is similar to the A train except the dolly is a double tongue unit with an eye on each tongue for a pintle hitch. The dolly axle also steers. They just had a tie rod with heavy springs to keep it straight yet allow it turn some so the tires would not scrub in a turn. There was also an air switch on the tongue to lock the steer axle in the straight ahead position to allow them to be backed up similar to a B train. Not sure all of them are equipped that way but the ones I have pulled were. I think they are probably called a C train because the tongues could be seen as a big C maybe? Just my guess on that.

HTH