Rail road tracks

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Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

Im not really sure what happened to him. I sorta got into a small disagreement with the way some things were done at that yard (mostly employee wise) and went to another one for awhile before going down to oklahoma for basic. By the time I came back up this way things changed so much that most of the long time scrappers had to shut down or move on since they were to stubborn to change their ways. We now have 96 gallon "mini dumpsters" as garbage cans and are only allowed 1 for trash and 1 for mixed recycling. Any extras or debris outside the can and you pay out the a$$. So curb shopping pretty much stopped in my area. And now that pex pipeing is getting big you dont have as many copper thieves around either. Its pretty much just us honest and innovative guys out doing it now.

And the rail road stuff i was getting was where an old railroad used to be but they not only tore the tracks up but also made it a paved bike path. In high school id walk down it with a wheel barrow collecting stuff people dumped down there. There just happened to be some old spikes and plates burried in the weeds still. Not a whole bunch but like one or two here and there spread out for miles.

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When in doubt go with your conscience, the old Kettle Vally RR in British Columbia had been unused for years before a contract to take up the track was tendered for bids, Amix win the contract. The crew had piled about 40 tons of track in one location then forgotten about, I had dealt with Amix over the years and decided to approach them on it. Luck was with me due to distance they signed off, giving me tittle.

The farmer nearby gave me some added work by making be moved the track to another location before I could prepare it into number one which required cutting, reason given by the farmer was that he had just spread nitrigen ferliser on the nearby field, no big deal I move the pile of track then torched it up.

After cutting I had prepared the track had a scrap yard from Penticton with a self load come out to pick it up, they had supplied the liquid oxygen at cost then also charged me $10.00 a ton for cartage. on the steel. Since rhe steel was free with a minimum of labor I came out all right on the deal.

This had been the second time fir me that Amix had signed off of forgotten scrap, the first lot was left by a crew way up Harrison Lake near Port Douglas.

https://s29.postimg.org/cc7riv71z/harrison.png

There's quite a bit on the bay.

I'll admit that I have a tie plate in my utility truck that I use as a hi-lift jack base on softer ground :D

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Originally Posted by alloy2

When in doubt go with your conscience, the old Kettle Vally RR in British Columbia had been unused for years before a contract to take up the track was tendered for bids, Amix win the contract. The crew had piled about 40 tons of track in one location then forgotten about, I had dealt with Amix over the years and decided to approach them on it. Luck was with me due to distance they signed off, giving me tittle.

The farmer nearby gave me some added work by making be moved the track to another location before I could prepare it into number one which required cutting, reason given by the farmer was that he had just spread nitrigen ferliser on the nearby field, no big deal I move the pile of track then torched it up.

After cutting I had prepared the track had a scrap yard from Penticton with a self load come out to pick it up, they had supplied the liquid oxygen at cost then also charged me $10.00 a ton for cartage. on the steel. Since rhe steel was free with a minimum of labor I came out all right on the deal.

This had been the second time fir me that Amix had signed off of forgotten scrap, the first lot was left by a crew way up Harrison Lake near Port Douglas.

https://s29.postimg.org/cc7riv71z/harrison.png

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Did you just email them or talk on the phone? I know an area where the tracks i was talking about got piled up along with all the spikes tie plates and switcher machines. Along with countless other stuff. Ive been thinking about getting it for awhile but i try as hard as i can to not take stuff without permission if i know someone lays claim to it. Its more over grown with weeds now than when i first stumbled upon it and i lost my three bigger trucks but its deffinately something i could handle if i got a hitch on my newer taco. I got torches and grinders and woul probably get a cut off saw with how much ****s there if i could get it.

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Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

Did you just email them or talk on the phone? I know an area where the tracks i was talking about got piled up along with all the spikes tie plates and switcher machines. Along with countless other stuff. Ive been thinking about getting it for awhile but i try as hard as i can to not take stuff without permission if i know someone lays claim to it. Its more over grown with weeds now than when i first stumbled upon it and i lost my three bigger trucks but its deffinately something i could handle if i got a hitch on my newer taco. I got torches and grinders and woul probably get a cut off saw with how much ****s there if i could get it.

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When I lived in the lower mainland BC I dealt exclusively with Amix Salvage and got to know the CEO, The Harrison scrap deal the full story, was originally my find, which looked to be abandoned logging equipment mostly marshaled into one localized area.

I tracked down the owner who had at one time operated a full blown logging camp on the shores of Harrison Lake, the site now known as Lineham's, who incidentally assisted me with information enabling me to track down the owner of the equipment I was after.

The old guy now in his 80' wanted $25,000.00 big ones up front, which was very reasonable but for a kid in his twenty's not going to happen. I could have gone to Dad bank but the price on interest free money comes at a high price.

Anyhow I festered on the Harrison scrap it always in the back of my mind a year or so later made a trip to Edmonton to visit wifes family. hooked up with an old friend and over drinks of home made brandy laid out the Harrison deal, complete with demolition and transportation plans right down to cost and profit.

Six months later Nick from Edmonton makes a BC trip to meet up with Henry Larson the old scrap owner who drove us up the lake in an old short wheelbase land rover, me being the youngest sat in the back over the wheel wells what a horrible ride.

By the end of the day a deal had been made, cash exchanged hands, Nick went back to Edmonton seemingly to forget about the scrap for another couple of years, Then I get word that he sold the scrap to another Alberta guy who turns out to be a smart dude. He gives Nick $5K with a promissory note to pay the balance upon removal of the scrap.

The new guy gathers up a crew , equipment and trucks then heads towards BC, at the first weigh scale they come to on entering British Colombia they find out they do things differently here, the trucks by BC standards are not road worthy. It was a check mate situation trucks could not move forward or even go back into Alberta.

With the fines and impound fees the new guy tossed in the towel.

But the charade is far from over, the new guy and Nick have an agreement that the later tries to have the courts to enforce but the original bill of sale holds water, Nick loses the court round. The scrap hoard sits idle a few more years.

Another round in court, due to the lapse in time with out the terms of the bill of sale being fulfilled the courts rule in Nicks favor which it turns out is no simple matter as he now has to hire the Sheriff's dept to make a rip into the Harrison site to post seizure notices on every piece of scrap at three different sites. Because I'm living in BC have been asked by Nick to proxy on his behalf to show this uniform around.

Scrap sits for two more years before Nick makes a deal with Amix which is cash and a gravel truck located on Vancouver Island which is a story in itself.

Amix is a large company with trucks river tugs and barges, thiey embark on a plant to bring a barge up the Fraser River then head up the Harrison River which brings them onto the lake, only problem is the barge is much to wide to transverse a railway bridge at the mouth of the Harrison.

This water route if they had pulled it off would have been a money saver for sure but now they have no other option than to use trucks and let me tell you it's a long rough ride into the site, Amix by now had perhaps lost money on this deal, they cleaned up the main site leaving other bits scattered further beyond behind. Things like old Adam;s graders, cats and logging winches.

Once I discover they had left stuff behind I contacted Ed Jackson the CEO of Amix, he gave me the remainder of the scrap putting it in writing, one thing I've learned over the years you can never count on scrap prices. At the time I had acquired control over the remaining scrap the price had dropped to $20.00 a ton.

All I had was a cool piece of paper that could have ended up costing me a world of trouble had Forestry demanded a clean up as I was now legally responsible. Luckily for me a year or so later scrap prices rose again to an appreciable level, I loaded up my truck with several bottles of oxygen and my trusty old Harris cutting torch and made the long drive into the site only to find everything was gone.

The watchman at the logging camp told me all about a scrap guy than had come in about six months earlier and did a big clean up.

A day in the life of a scrapper gone bad.

The gravel truck on Vancouver Island, Nick eventually made a trip from Edmonton to claim his prize and naturally I'm up for the adventure.

Leaving early in the morning we take the two hour ferry ride over to the Island, drive for another half hour to where the truck is parked, the battery''s are toast we jump start the truck form my truck which is propane powered with an airline tapped into the vapor port. Yes you can inflate flat tired on beater vehicles using propane. The importance in the propane comes into play latter in the story.

We have the gravel truck running with a permit, Nick drives the gravel truck with me following behind we reach the ferry terminal just as it's taking on vehicles and passengers for the mainland we use the lower deck, I'm parked behind.

We had up to the coffee shop for a breakfast and tell old war stories, soon we arrive at the Tawassen terminal, everyone is leaving the ferry but the gravel truck wont start. Nick is asking me to charge the air lines with my propane so we could push the truck off. I tell him I'm not that crazy there are signs all over the ferry instructing campers to turn off propane bottles during the trip.

The ferry decks are now empty of Island traffic and they want to load mainland traffic heading to the Island I have to leave, I wave at Nick as the ferry disembarks once again for the Island this is the last trip of the day. Nick spends the night on the Island finds some new battery's then makes the morning trip once again to the mainland and yes they charged him for each crossing.

The Harrison scrap deal soured from beginning to end, Nick however did the right thing by me in that he gave me a finders fee.

alloy2 you should write a book!

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Originally Posted by hobo finds

alloy2 you should write a book!

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Where would I start,

Born and raised in British Colombia, after marrying an upper valley girl we had moved to Edmonton to distance ourselves from family and which I had considered at the time unfavorable politics, these moves eventually ended up laying the ground work that saved my bacon during the recession of the 80's.

Still in BC just before the recession took hold of the economy I had purchased a truck cab and chassis that I had installed a flat deck onto, the truck was then painted company colors of an outfit I had singed onto to haul freight, my license plates covered an area from Vancouver to Hope BC. The plates covered a 150 mile area in any direction from the registered place of business.

Stupid rule, I choose to use a friends address from Chilliwhack which gave me further operational coverage to the east of Hope ans still giving me all of Vancouver and the North Shore.

The truck freshly painted in Country Freight Lines colors sure did look pretty but the company was experiencing a loss in freight leaving me without work, after three months of this pack our things up and made another move to Edmonton.

My thoughts were that I could put the truck to work by signing up with one of the many hot shot services which would had had me delivering stuff to the oil drilling rigs, that recession I had left behind me was like a wild fire cresting the tree tops had followed me from the west coast, the effects now reaching the oil fields of Alberta, no one was taking on new owner operators.

Nick who I had met from another time living in Edmonton when another buddy and I were involved in a large scrap deal we had secured at the Fiberglass of Canada insulation plant, from this deal is how I had met Nick when we sold him loads of steel trusses and I beams.Perhaps another time I'll write about my first business dealings with Nick that lead into a life long friendship.

Nick and I are like two peas in a pod, anyhow he made sure that I had work to do at the wrecking yard,then one day this gravel box arrives on a fire damaged truck from an insurance auction sale. Nick like a father starts with suttle hints that my truck would make a nice gravel truck. The conversion, installing the PTO, wet kit and box took about three days to completer.

Because of my previous residency I was able to obtain an X plate for the truck this plate gave me full provincial coverage allowing me to work anywhere, fist week after the truck had been converted I found work in a small northern Alberta town which bordered BC,

As you may have gathered by now I had never owned or operated a gravel truck, the job was pretty simple we would get a load of road base from the pit located about 20 miles distant, once in front of a box spreader with the back tires against rollers snub the brakes just enough that the truck wont roll ahead of the spreader box attached to a cat that would push ahead as the gravel unloaded from truck into the spreader. Nice easy job/

I had the misfortune of making the last load before we would reach the BC border where our work ended, the spreader already on its way to a new job site the foreman waiting on that last truck to arrive. to which he would instruct the driver to do a spread. I told him that I had never done a spread, he showed me how to set the chains then instructed me to back up then gain speed forward to about 30 mph then on the drop of his hand trip the gate.

Well that part went well until I noticed in the mirror not a speck of gravel had departed, so I back up, opps left the PTO in gear all the time I'm backing up the box is raising higher and higher, when I reached to where the foreman was standing I put the brakes on. The load gave way breaking the spreader chains, what we have is a nice big pile of gravel at the foreman's feet, he takes his hard hat off and tosses it onto the ground. It's all I can do to keep from laughing when in keeping a straight face told him see I told ya.

Don't know what the fascination is that woman have in truckers, her name was Wanda a nice looking blond who captured my heart, empty truck heading to the pit for a new load I'm full out at 76 and a half miles per hour when a u-joint goes, to avoid doing a bunch of unnecessary damage to the drive-line I spiked the brakes locking everything up. When the truck came to rest no damage to the drive line and one embarrassed woman who had peed her pants.

Break up, the northern job is completed I'm not asked to accompany the crew to the new site, Wanda heads west and I'm heading back to the city to where I'll be dispatched by another company to a new job in the south. Same type of job road base then paving, I hate paving you sit in line waiting on the other trucks to off load into the paver. Same deal the paving machine has rollers that you back into then apply just enough brake pressure to keep from rolling ahead of the paver.

The upside to paving is that your using half the fuel but your ton miles pay goes onto a hand bag, hauling base I was averaging $800.00 a day using a couple hundred in fuel, asphalt $400.00 day with half the fuel. Fabulous outfit to work for payed out every two weeks which is unheard of for contractors.

Truck had a small diesel coupled to a 5 and 4 transmission pair, normally that gives you 20 forward gears with 4 reverse. On some transmission combinations like what I had in my truck you can split and **** giving you a half gear in between.

These transmission 5 and 4;s on the axillary transmission you can install whats called a power tower to run large winches that will pull mega tons, to use the winch the auxiliary remains in neutral winch speeds from the main transmission power the winch.

Below is a power tower sitting atop an auxiliary transmission.

https://s27.postimg.org/95prh2nqb/power.png

**** man thats a long story.

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Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

**** man thats a long story.

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The older you get the longer the stories get and the more you have to choose from. Mike

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Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

**** man thats a long story.

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I haven't read it yet but I will.

I would guess I have 30 plates and spikes from an abandoned RR near me, waiting on more heavy melt to take it in, will let you know if yard says anything.

I bought my next to last house from a gent who worked for the railroad. Misc. iron and railroad equipment everywhere. When I tried to cash it in at the local scrap yard I got rejected. Very embarrassing.

Yeah it sorta sucks cause I could fill up about 50 semi's with the tracks I know of that havent been used in more years than I've been alive but until I can get end use certs approved by someone with authority It'll just be a distant dream.

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Originally Posted by hobo finds

alloy2 you should write a book!

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I've decided to write a book it will be composed of short stories, due to the nature of my past it will be published as fiction.

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Originally Posted by alloy2

I've decided to write a book it will be composed of short stories, due to the nature of my past it will be published as fiction.

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I say go for it. Write a Memoir, even if it is hard to believe. Be sure to get yourself a good editor, it will be well worth it.