just kind of woundering what the weight limits are per axle. how many axles you are aloud per vehical and combination. here in michigan we are aloud http://www.truckingsafety.org/guidebook/wt_xl1.htm http://www.truckingsafety.org/guidebook/wt_xl2.htm http://www.truckingsafety.org/guidebook/wt_xl3.htm
They think we're a little goofy allowing wt_xl5.htm (scroll to next pages from those posted) with those 11 and 13 axle trucks. Heaviest legal trucks in the US, 154,000 lb gross
Max gross can be 164,000 with floaters on the front axle. I think that most states only allow 80,000 gross, usually net around 22-25 ton, I have herd of people around here leagaly netting 60 ton (50 used to be the norm) with the new lightweight super trains. So are we crazy to haul 2+ times the load with one truck?:beatsme As far as it being harder on the roads with our laws if you averaged it you get 12,615 lb per axle (assuming they are all equal, which they are not) vs 16,000 lb per axle (again assuming they are all equal) so the per axle loads are actually less. Anyway you look at it the same amount of weight is going to be moved, we just do it with half the trucks.:cool2
I'm a bridge guy in my day job. Our analysis does not include the additional weight on the wider tires so the heaviest truck is 77tons. The analysis is for 13,000 lbs per axle less than 9 feet apart. Get them 9 feet apart and you can load them legally to 18,000. Some of those aluminum super trains get them that far apart For the past 25 years or more, MI DOT required 7 trucks be analyzed for analysis and if needed, posting purposes, a single unit AASHTO H15 , a single AASHTO H-20, a double unit AASHTO truck, a triple unit AASHTO, a MI 4? axle single unit, a double MI 77 ton, and a triple MI77 ton. Most times the double 77 ton truck was the one that was the "heaviest". Now we have to analyze 27 different axle configurations allowed in MI. Interesting, some of the single units we did not analyze before are now the critical trucks. Fortunately for most bridsges in good shape, they have lots of extra capacity for legally loaded trucks. (Truckers - think about that when you sneak a bof overload over a bridge w/o limits ) One think to keep in mind, yes the axle loads are only 13,000 per axle on a MI 11 axle, but that's 6 more impact loads in rapid succession than a standard 5 axle truck. IMHO, the number impact loadings do more damage but the "total" is reduced due to the 5,000 lb reduction in loading. The real increase in damage comes from the number of trucks on the road. In other states with 80,000 lb maximums, much more aggregate, lumber, timber, steel goes by rail, many times to the final destination. No so in MI, rail gets very little, lots to the docks and all final delivery by the MI doubles.
It's different now, but back in the seventies I ran an 11 axle Michigan gravel train and regularly hauled 200,000 pound loads. Not many scales or DOT checks in Northern lower Michigan then. That same year I also hauled wood chips with seven axle rigs. The saw mill was always overloading the trailers and I especially remember two loads of green Oak chips at 212,000 and the other at 209,000 pounds. Popple chips went around 100,000 to 150,000 pounds to a full trailer. The mill was supposed to only load the Oak to about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of a trailer. But in the dark, who was going to go out and check? On Saturdays I hauled local and those loads were always full no matter what it was. We went through a awful lot of tires..... In Detroit the slag outfit hauled loads of slag from Zug Island and River Rouge to Plant #1 near Patton Park in Detroit. These loads were often quite heavy depending on the loader operators state of mind and the steel content. These loads were not scaled at the mills but were checked occasionally at our scale. These were seven axle heavy-wall Atlas dump trailers and I remember many of them exceeding 200,000 pounds. The truck boss would get after the loader operators if we found too many of those, but the company was in tight with the city's of Dearborn, Detroit, and Taylor, and they didn't bother us much so long as our big vacuum truck kept the streets cleaned up. Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois steel haulers used to handle some humongous loads, nothing like the smaller loads I saw this last summer on I-94.
I'm not sure it's much different today in northern MI. After Thanksgiving I was up north on a weekend. I saw a double bottom coke trailer with the back doors open loaded with shrink wrapped palletized gray iron castings to just below the top of the sides. They haul castings south and scrap back to the foundry and never cross any scales (I see the same trucks locally on my day job). There's a certain bituminous paving company that used to pay a bonus for overweight loads. I had a bridge repair job back in the late 70's. We had a right lane closed on a 4 lane bridge in the "loaded" direction from the pit. This was the days before construction zone signing and barrier walls. Just a few cones for "protection". We could not get the loaded trucks to slow down. I knew about the overweight bonus system (my neighbor was a owner / broker in the construction trucking business) so I called the bit plant dispatcher and told him in no uncertain terms if they didn't slow down I was going to get the county weigh master and the MI Motor carrier to pull over and weigh every truck on the haul. Didn't have any more problems after that
I used to haul to Muskegon and as I recall, there were no scales between Gaylord and the paper mill in Muskegon. I used to see those trucks you refered to, they were hauling to and from East Jordan Iron Works. They were easy to pass as they were so heavy they couldn't hardly get up a hill.
This is a new development. The castings used to go to GR and Sunfield on flats with removable sideboards and they would put some scrap on for the backhaul. Coke would come by rail to Cadillac & Ludington and to EJ by truck. The company supplying coke to Ludington (Indy Coke) closed up in April. Scrap used to leave the GM GR 36th Street by rail. Now it goes by truck to Padnos - GR and it looks like some goes by truck north out of GR. I'm not sure if to EJ or GM Saginaw. But I saw with my own eyes, the same trucking company trucks in EJ with the castings. The foundry was closed on Sunday but the gates to the employee parking lot were open so I drove in. They had the trailers parked with the doors open facing the parking lot. I was surprised to see them sitting loaded w/o the tractors under them - stout landing gear
In WA we are limited to 105,500lbs for regular permitting and to 250,000 for super loads. We have bridge laws that require you to be quite long to get to max gross. A solo dumptruck is only capable of around 60,000lbs with 5 axels. I will see if I can dig up some pictures.
I can say for sure that it is not to Saginaw. I live in Saginaw. Malable foundry on the south end of town poured its last iron last October. All production has moved from that plant to Defiance Oh. Last I heard Defiance has yet to make a pour on those molds that is usable. Rumor is that production may be moved to Grey Iron. Grey Iron pours iron on a limited basis right now. They have renamed the plant Saginaw Metal Casting Operations, or SMCO. They have switched to a lost foam casting process. They are pouring the aluminum blocks for trailblazers and a few other engines last I heard. They are not even smelting the aluminum for the blocks. There is a smelter down M81 just past I 75 where they smelt the aluminum. It is then poured into a vat, then trucked back to SMCO. Nodular, that sat across from Grey Iron on M 13 is long gone. It was torn down in the late 80s. The only thing that remains on that side of 13 is the water treatment facility. The old Nodular site has been rebuilt into a small industrial park. Stone Transport and Warwak trucking are the only ones on this side of the state moving scrap. Stone transport also has some doubles that have side doors on them. They use these to haul steel coils back from their out of state runs. One of Stones big routes is from Tawas to Oh. They are hauling gypsum to somewhere around Sandusky Oh if memory serves me right. The return trip is with coils.
I didn't think there was much foundry work left in Saginaw. I nearly went to work at Saginaw Steering right out of high school, but worked with my brother in Mt. Pleasant instead. One of my classmates went there though, did his thirty and got out with a nice pension. He's on easy street and I'm still working. Trying to anyway. Another one of my high schools pals worked at the foundry in East Jordon, may still be there actually. Started out grinding flash off manhole covers. I visited with him about ten years after he started, he was still grinding manhole covers........ Geez, Stone Transport has been around forever, don't they have a terminal down on the river towards Bay City a ways?
You aren't kidding about no foundry work in Saginaw. I think Malable on the south end of town is actually slated for demolition next year. Not sure, but Gm has been doing inter company salvage. Next step will be abatement and environmental. Followed by demo company salvage, finally falling to the steel shears. Im hoping to hear back from the demo company I work for soon. We have 2 gm plants in Lansing and 1 in Grand Blanc. We should be pretty busy with all the gm plants that are yet to be torn down. I dont think Stone has a terminal towards Bay City. They have a new yard at the end of Wolf Rd in Saginaw. Right down the road from Sunnoco and Mi Cat. They also have a yard in Flint/Grand Blanc area. From what i see all they have are dumps and scrap equipment, ie roll offs and lugger trucks. In fact I think they are doing all of Omni Sources scrap hauling. From what I understand Stone has one of the largest dump fleets in the Us and Ontario.
Thanks for the "scoop" over Saginaw way. I've seen Stone SB and NB by my office in GR, north of GR but only south of M46, and inbound into the 36th St GM plant. They haul H-1 limestone occasionally to GR from Saginaw / Bay City. Cordes Trucking from GR used to haul scrap from Padnos - GR over to Saginaw and sugar beet lime back to West MI but i don't think they're doing that anymore.