I have a question that has been bothering me.... They say that the loads they are pulling are 400,000lbs. First of all, those trailers look like 50 ton units becase they are tri-axle. Second of all, if they can pull that much how could they get a permit for those loads. They are divisible. That being said, is it possible????
Well I couldn't tell you what there trailers are rated at but as far as permits, the roads are all private so they don't need them. Hell you wouldn't even need a CDL to drive on them I don't think.
I noticed the truck rear ends seem much bigger then conventional rears plus the tires looked larger also. But then again my eyes arn't what they use to be Maybe there built like those KW's that are up in B.C. and Alaska
I could be wrong but isn't the road they travel a private road maintained by the Pelletier's.
i think alot of the roads they travel are private but it seems as if they are on public roads at some point. I did see the rear ends are much larger on a couple of their trucks. Never seen a Western star set up that heavy
when they are driving on the paved road it is still private no weight limits, that kw has plantiere drives on the rears, in some of the pics on the wall you can see a picture of the triple trailer that they hauled with a big v8 mack in mid to late 80's
Thats paper company woods up there hundreds of thousands of acers heck half of maine.
I think the biggest land owner in minnesota is potlatch.
they are hauling over 400 thousand, each of those off road trailers can haul over 200 thousand. there are no weight restrictions on the golden road cause its privately owned.
After some research I was able to find the picutres that I wanted, one of the triple and one of the double, hope you like it. when you meet on of the 12ft wide trailers going about 60mph you really wish that you had another pair of shorts.
those are impressive loads
Woah! not me.......no way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you meet one on The Golden Road you look for a hole in the brush to hide. It's some impressive to see them coming and watch them roll by at 60 mph. The Golden Road runs roughly 100 miles from Millinocket to St. Zachary in Quebec. It's paved for 15, maybe 20 miles? from Millinocket, from there it's gravel. There are hundreds (thousands?) of miles of private road in Northern Maine. The roads owners maintain them and in the case of the Golden Road, it is gated and requires visitors to pay a fee to enter. There was an article in a trucking mag a few years ago that covered the specs on The Pelletier Fleet. Interesting reading. Everything is speced heavy and for rough work. They do it up right. BTW, on edit, at the end of the Golden Road in Millinocket they cross Rt. 11 to get to the mill, but it's still private. They also have a fleet of trucks running all over Northern maine on regular roads moving wood products. You see their trucks all over rt. 11. Well worth the trip up if you have never been.
The best part of being a road mechanic is that we have cust. that work up in that region, and you don't have to pay, been all around that region and it is great, one of the best part sights iI have seen
I've camped all over that region. My wife and I love Lilly Bay and Canada Falls. I try to get out toward the St. Zacharie end of the Golden Road to visit the maple operations. Long ride, but worth it. Someday I'm going to go up there in the spring and visit them when things are running.
In the 1 st picture with the triple trailers, the truck looks a little heavier on the passenger side . Wonder if they ever had any roll overs while hauling that much? It just seems impossible that the rig had enough guts to pull that much weight. (200 tons)
Hi all, I ran the Golden Road for a few years in the late 80's early 90's. Back then we hauled spruce and fir down out of the woods to the pulp mill in Millinocket, now they haul all the wood north into Canada. There were three big outfits working back then, H.O. Bouchard, Gardner, and Pelletiers, plus a bunch of smaller contractors. I would regularly haul 120k+ on my highway truck, 400k was the road limit for doubles and we ran way over that quite often. Pay was percentage of the load so we used to put some pretty good packages on. I quit running the Golden Road and went to Alaska when the bottom fell out of the paper market and they closed the mill . Rick
How does that work when they haul into Canada on a bush road.....is there some kind of border/customs point there?
Milton Cat is going to be holding some workshops in April and some of the Pelletiers brothers will be there. I might go just to meet them!
Did they get rid of Bonecrusher? He wasn't my favorite driver but he used to be in dang near every episode, haven't seen him yet this season. Also, the only regular mechanic I see is Donnie. They must go through a lot of mechanics because I almost never see the same guy twice. Donnie seems like a helluva mechanic if he could get his ass to work.
They did get rid of Bonecrusher, he now works for another big outfit out of Jackman, and he likes it from what I understand. They have alot of mechanics but they don't want the spot light, they just want to work.
Thanks for info, I was wondering where the Crusher was, I am curious to see how the new Macks had taken the beating out in the bush. Bonecrusher got one, but they bought 2 Macks right? The oldest brother have one if I´m right, but that haven´t been seen in the show this season yet.
yeah it seems that they are more worried about showing the trailer fab and sales rather than any of the other stuff. I like the show but that is getting a little anoying, I have met alot of the Brothers and they are not like that in real life. And I don't know if anyone else noticed but Peraly07 was on the show 2 episodes ago.
My favorite parts of the show are when they focus on the shop, not so much the new trailer shop but the regular shop. Jeff is probably my favorite guy on the show, Eldon and Larry crack me up too, though. I keep seeing a black Peterbilt 388/389 in the background but they always change camera angles as soon as it enters the shot. Wonder if It's one of theirs and they plan to highlight it in a future episode or it's just somebody else's truck they work on.
The last episode i saw had a new Western Star Tractor. They haven't shown or mentioned the new Mack tractors. Would like to see how they are holding up
Well Danny rolled his over so it's outta action. I don't know about the other one.
I belive that the black pete is on of their odd truck hade it for some time, just not the typical Pellitier purple.
Those roads are private and really well maintained, and those trucks have the right-of-way over everything. I spent quite a few years with a few friends of mine traveling those private roads. We were searching for the original Maine heavy woods haulers,Steam and gasoline Lombard log haulers. We met a bunch of the guys that worked there and made a bunch of friends. it took us quite a few years but we eventually gathered up enough log hauler parts to assemble a running steamer, and a running gasoline machine. The old Lombards would pull up to 300 tons of wood on sleds and usually dumped the wood onto the lakes or ponds of northern Maine.One of my old time friends was related to Grover Morrison one of the early heavy haulers. Don
I saw the black pete almost everyday last fall go through our jobsite on rt.11 or the brownville rd as its know locally. The driver looked like the one that goes by Playboy. It had no lettering except for a Pellitier decal on the cab guard. The Pellitier trucks always came trough our jobsite slowly and you could tell the were paying attention. That is a good thing when you are working in one lane and a 100,000 pound log truck is going by you less than 4 feet away. They were filming a couple of times when they passed through, very cool to see that in real life.
Most of the gates are manned part of the day, for trucks only. I know the one at St. Zachery and St. Aurelie you have to have a pass to get through. Been to both, neither allow you to cross w/o a permit, commercial use only. The big maple outfits are all near the end of the Golden Road on the Quebec border, almost all of them enter through there as most are from Quebec.
I'm sure this will affect the Pelletiers, I hope it doesn't put them under, though. http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=Portal+News&id=225851&v=article-2008 Judging by the way the Discovery channel bumped to the season finale to Sun at 11am, I don't think we'll be getting another season.
They sell most of the wood over the border anyways so it will effect them but not to much
The mill deal is not dead. They got a 60 day extension and the state held a hearing the other day on taking over the hazardous waste dump on the property to make the deal a little sweeter. Someone will buy it.