That’s a good looking rig there Danne, fantastic toy for a bloke that was only 20. I was the same age when I got my globetrotter and like you I was the only person that ever drove it.
Who was on the Scania.
Those gray Fergy tractors get every where. There’s one works in a field down the road from me. NZ is full of them, they are still highly regarded, and sell for silly money.
Jeff…
Hi Jeff! Its my mate Tomas on the Scania,as you could see no sleepercab but he had a nightheater… we had about 20 trucks like this at our depo and only four had sleepercabs and this was about 1996-7ish…
Yeah they tracktors are popular in at the wintages shows here 
Reg Danne
So what was the idea of not having sleeper cabs was it a load space, or weight thing, or just a tight wad that was in charge of buying trucks. Given that they thought you needed night heaters someone would have thought that the drivers would be out overnight so it doesn’t make sense not to have sleeper cabs.
How many nights out a week are you having now ?
Jeff…
You are ringt about load space back then they said you must have 8,4meters load space on the truck and at least 10 meters on the drawbar (is that the right Word?)
About my truck and no night heater i think it just was most local work when new,but it change a long. the way…
To day they have sleepercabs on every truck bigger then 18ton. And now Its a fleet about 150 lorry of diffrent size. Cranes,dump,skip,pickup trucks and units for steelhauling.
And for how many nights out i have now,well maby 1-2 a mounth at the most. But we do alot of houers,we Max out every week so to say 
So are you on Timber now? Dont get many nights out then?
Reg Danne
Hi Danne, yes draw bar trailers or Super dogs in Australia.
The timber work is interesting, we do a shift change at 1 am and 1 pm so nights out, we are working 5 landings at the moment and they are all different distances from the paper mill, which is owned and operated by Norske Skog. It’s up to the driver to do as many loads per 11 hour shift that he can get in. We usually do 1 load from about 100’ks and 2 from 40 to 50 k’s per shift. Loading usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes and the mill end about 10 to 15 unless it’s busy.
At the moment there are 5 trucks and 11 drivers, each truck does 12 shifts per week, they buy sleeper cabs as the resale value of day cabs isn’t very much, the weight difference is about 250 kg between the day and sleeper cab. There’s no space saving as the engine comes right to the back of the sleeper. On the day cab it sticks out about 600mm and is covered with an insulated sound cover.
The one I was on last week had 1.5 million hours on and is going to get replaced soon, there were stories that it might be a Volvo, one of the other local timber operators has been running a few for a year or so and they are becoming more acceptable here.
Jeff…
Well that impressiv,you run them trucks hard. As for the Volvo i could just say i hope you get one,we are about to change my old fh and it was my pick my boss Said. So after a test run in a Scania R730 i was sold this the real deal. But then i whent out in a FH750,the ishift is fantastic! So a Volvo is on the way
But we will have to wait and see how it work at 110tons… Whitch will be max weight on it.
But dont you miss the longhaul? I miss my time doing the north of Norway,just love the mountin road and the snowchaings… I must be kinda pervert but i really like the winter driving up there
Reg Danne
We were talking to the boss today and he said if we don’t stop whining about the new trucks we’ll be getting Hino’s.
I was working a new landing the other day and the access road it very steep. I was coming down the wet gravel road fully loaded at 3 in the morning sliding with all the wheels locked up. The Safety mob didn’t think that was a good idea, now the rear trailer is chained to a dozer and that acts as the brakes. The section is only 100 mts or so it doesn’t take to long, and it’s another job for the dozer driver.
We were hoping the forwarders were going to haul it out for us but there’s 2500 tons and they said there was to much work in moving it to a lower landing…
All good fun…
I do miss the long haul, but that was a different time and I didn’t have a wife and kids then. I always said if I got married I would stop doing it. If I could be that age again, single, and at that time in history then I would go in a heart beet.
As for now I drive 4 days a week and airbrush for 2 or 1 and a bit, and I’m home with my family every day…
I did long haul in Australia for a while and it’s pretty unregulated, so your expected to go 18 hours every day and do your own servicing at the weekends. That situation is pretty wide spread, if your not willing to sell you sole then you don’t last long.
Jeff
Good fun eh well its kinda fun isnt? The more difficult it gets the more i like it
We say at work that we can do everyting it is just a matter of time…
Never done timber but maby some day when heavyhauling gets boring i give it a go…
Carting timber was never my life long ambition, I did some in Scotland many years ago, but that was rough as guts compared to what they do here. The company I work for doesn’t go far, we don’t need to as the local area is totally forested with pine. They have just done a massive refit in the paper mill which has given the local area job security for the next 15 years ( hopefully, but you can never tell ) Most shifts we do 2 or 3 runs so between 40 and 120k’s each run, some of the forest road are up the side of steep mountains so it’s crawler gear up and down, and that takes time more than anything else. It all seems to be very safety driven, before we even get access to a coup safety have a crew up there assessing everything, and give recommended travel times for each job, if you go substantially under their time they want to know how you did it, so there’s no rush for a run.
Jeff…
This is Swedens biggest rockdrill on wheels
Some trouble whit the hight but it whent ok 
Getting out and about there Dan. Good to see your still moving.
Jeff…
Well Jeff,got to make a living you know
How is it down under then?
We got snowed out for a couple of day, health and safety shut us down. First week back we did 2 gear boxes, 2 diffs and split a trailer in half.
So about the same as usual.
One of the gear boxes ran a rear seal about 6 months ago so it was operating on borrowed time.
The other gear box… A tourist got lost in the forest in a camper van and met a 73 ton B double on a 5 in 1 gravel section. The tourist pancaked and stopped in the middle of the road baulking the truck. The driver tried to re start in crawler and spat the gear box out of it; it split the casing.
We always complained that the diffs in the other truck were whining, but the garage said no just keep going, so we did.
The driver noticed the trailer was a bit wobbly coming through the forest and when got out to have a look noticed the chassis as split up to the top rail.
Jeff
Wow,that Sounds like a crap week for your boss eh…
Whent to pic up cat980 a couple weeks ago,it had broken down thay said. When i got there it looked ok at fist but then i looked closer…
You can’t argue with the fact that it’s broken!!!
Jeff…
Well Jeff you arent the Ohly one on bad gravel roads
This was the only road opend to new windpark or what you call it. The main road cloased for some reason…
Nice Dan! looks like fun day out in the country side. I hope you didn’t spill that mug of coffee trying to get up some of those banks.
Jeff…
Some nice footage there Danne I’m just curious about that fourth axle on the Volvo, does that steer as well or is it just a boogie axle?
Patrick
Thanks for that Patrik! The fourth axl is a stearing axl and i can regulate the pressur on it aswell With a knob on the dashbord. It is kinda of a beast With that long wheelbase… Ten years old and 1.2 million km on the clock so she is starting to get tierd to say the least… But she still puls like a train and our FH 660 is struggeling to keep up
Reg Danne
