September, 2018
Toy trucks!!
Look at these toy trucks! I had to bend WAY down to get these photos from this angle. An afternoon walk into the small town of Logan Lake brought me to a City Park with these toy trucks … what fun!
Ok, you’ve probably figured out by now that these machines are not toys, but are the real deal … and BIG deals at that. They are huge!
The tires alone are more than 11 feet in diameter (that means they are more than 11 feet tall, think about that). The photo below is a photo of me standing next to the tires on the “dump truck”. This is no toy machine!
I could have walked into the mouth of that loader on the left in the photo above. Heck fire, I probably could have set up a small apartment and then just lived in there.
Interesting information on the sign above. Although these tires are huge, the air pressure is only 100 psi (the air pressure in each of my travel trailer tires is 65 psi). The weight of one of these truck tires (just the tire, not the metal wheel that the tire mounts on) is about 7 TONS … the weight of the metal wheel AND the tire is about 10 TONS. There are close to 16 MILES of reinforcing wire in each tire (hence the weight, I would presume). Retail price of one tire back in the 1980’s was approximately $46,200.00 each, although the company here that purchased them (more about that below) got them at a discount … a mere $24,420.00 each. There were only three manufacturers of replacement tires of this nature in the world … Bridgestone (Japan), Goodyear (Kansas, USA), and Michelin (Spain). This particular dump truck had 8 Goodyear tires on the back axles and 2 Michelin tires on the front wheels. So 10 tires … at $24,420 each … a full set of replacement tires cost the company $240,420.00, not including tax, shipping, the cost to install the tires, etc.
The sign above was in front of what I called the “dump truck”, but what they called a “haulage truck” or a “haulpack”. This truck was 20 feet high, 24 feet wide (it would block three lanes of traffic on most highways), 54 feet long, with a gross weight of 422 TONS.
The Highland Valley Copper mine (who donated this equipment to the town of Logan Lake) is the largest open pit copper mine in Canada, and it’s one of the largest open pit mines of any kind in the world. This open pit mine is located just west of Logan Lake. It’s so large that it can be seen from outer space. On my way out of Logan Lake at the very end of my visit here and on my way home, I drove by the mine on the main highway and practically drove off the road when I realized how big it is. It’s about 16 miles long and 4 miles wide. It is freaking huge!!
From this mine, still today, copper and molybdenum, with trace elements of silver and gold, are removed from the earth and are trucked to Vancouver, BC, where they are shipped overseas, mostly to Japan and China, for processing and production of steel. Good things come from this mine, of course … like loads and loads of copper. But bad things come from this mine (and this sort of mining) as well. I’ll leave that discussion for another day.
The two pieces of heavy equipment in the photos above were used in the mine and were replaced with newer and bigger equipment in 1990. It’s amazing stuff.
Later that afternoon I returned to the Logan Lake Municipal Campground, to my wee little travel trailer with it’s 27″ diameter tires weighing in at about 39 pounds each. I think my rig is just right, don’t you? 🙂
Ann,
Nice toy trucks. If you were to put these tires on your truck, you wouldn’t ever have to worry about ground clearance! I posted something in fb that I am sending to you. I tried to put the images in the post in the comments section, but it wouldn’t let me.
Good news, the math problem today didn’t require me to take my shoes off today, WooHoo.
I never thought of doing that! Hoo boy, I love it. Talk about a “high lift” axle … that sure would be one. What a truck I would have then. Ok, I’m going to do it Bob. Will have to find me a shop that will do it. On my way out the door right now!
Wow! Those tires are huge. Pretty neat picture of you standing next to them.
Yes, I think your rig is the perfect size.
Besides being huge, those tires sure did smell like tires! Usually, the tires we use in our everyday lives are small enough that our noses aren’t right next to them. In this case, however, you couldn’t miss the smell … whew! 🙂
The copper mine is the largest open-pit mine in the WORLD? Boy I learn so much from your blog. I wonder about the compressor they need to fix the tire pressure in those tires? Sheesh. And I agree with Bob: these math problems are like mental gymnastics if I haven’t had my coffee yet.
It’s billed as the largest open pit mine in Canada … and one of the largest open pit mines in the world. I remember when I first arrived at Logan Lake campground and looked west and thought … “oh, there are mountains with snow on them over there, but it’s awfully yellow snow.” Turns out that wasn’t snow but entire mountains scraped bare down to dirt. Sad to see, but I sure do like my stranded copper battery cables and other copper wires in my truck and my trailer and back home in my home, etc.
Oh, yes the compressor … I don’t know how long, but I’d bet it would have to run a long time to fill up those tires. I joke that I know people who are full of hot air, but these tires just beat all, don’t they? 🙂