This is the framework that holds these huge drums being moved to Montana.
The little dolly wheels are towed until them need them to disperse the weight when they cross the bridges over the Clearwater River.
One of the "pusher" trucks. Notice the bar between the truck and the framework.
This is the best I could do to get the whole thing in one shot.
Here are two of the loads sitting side by side.
The tractor pulling the first load. The barrel of the second load is actually sitting on the far side of the truck. Beyond that is the barrel of the third load.There are four of these big "things" sitting at the Port of Lewiston since May waiting transport to the oil fields of Montana. The were barged up the river from Portland to Lewiston and then were supposed to be trucked up Highway 12 to Montana. But alas, the environmentalists got involved. They have been fighting it through the courts ever since. Just last week the judge ruled in favor of the shipper and tonight at 10:00 pm the first load heads up the road (I almost drove down there to watch it depart). You would have thought it was the end of the world and that Highway 12 was the most scenic route in the lower 48 United States. All the fish were going to die and the birds would fall from the sky.
I stopped by this afternoon to look at the loads and stopped to talk to the guy in the red pickup sitting along side the load. Come to find out he is the project manager for moving the loads. Here is what he told me. They travel about 16 mile per hour. The Highway Patrol stops all traffic at intervals of about 5 miles as the trucks move up the road. They will make it almost to Orofino tonight. The load weighs just over 300,000 lbs. With all the tires it puts less weight on the road than a normally loaded semi. Notice the "pusher" truck in one of the pictures. They always have one truck pulling and one pushing. If they need it another truck pushes the other pusher truck from the rear. When they make the final pull up Lolo Pass they will have two trucks pulling from the front and two pushing from the rear. I commented about how big the job was and he said that when they finish these loads they head to Los Angeles where they move a 1.2 million pound rock to down town LA to some museum. I'd hate to pay their insurance bill. Just thought you might be interested.
