Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
ATA now supports longer and/or heavier trucks

Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by farmer03 I figured it would come sooner or later. The argument about slower trucks uphill is not all that valid. They make engines nowadays with up to 625 hp. With the proper gearing you should be able to pull that 150,000 lbs uphill doing a wheelie. But all jokes aside, heavier and longer trucks=more payload which in turn equals more $$$ for the truck/fleet owner. I doubt it has anything to do with improving the overall domestic whatever you are trying to argue. It'll just enable more imported crap to be shuffled about with one truck. [/quote] Truck gearing is established for a certain speed. The ratio governs the "Sweet spot" sure you can make it do a wheelie under 150k gross on a 12% Coal Road upgrade but your max speed will be 2 mph. And fuel consumption would be around 20 gallons an hour. At these rates would be out of fuel, waAAY behind schedule and not even out of pa yet. Seriously, certain trucks handle upgrades fairly decent speeds. Anyone can go uphill, it's the DOWNGRADES that kill. I shore dont want to have to lug 150,000 pounds down Big Savage or Spotted Wolf in a roaring winter storm complete with ice or have to thread it down Fancy Gap without smoking before the scales at the bottom. Weight, power, gravity and stability is the name of the game. Increase the weight, beef the componets and increase your shop bill. Increase the length and still cube out of toilet paper before you reach gross weight. Any combination of increasing is a bad idea. What we need to do is increase the freight rates, ease the draconian shipping and receiving scheduling and advocate and excecute a fundemental change in how professional drivers do thier jobs with the dispatchers and everyone else involved. I can go on and on pushed by 15 years on the road but I better not. I am against this proposal period. However, you want heavier and/or longer? Then beef up and FIX the *** interstate system first.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag