Do not know if this helps. This International Harvester (IH) was at the steam tractor show at Pawnee, OK, a few years ago. I wanted to take it home. I do not know the vintage, but I love the 4 wheel driver, the new diamond tread fenders, and the otherwise general rustiness. My dad always called them "Binders," I guess because the IH company also made agricultural equipment.
Check out the 1974 Autocar loaded with a pumping unit. Two days ago I hauled the unit from Bowden, OK to Sperry, OK. My route was Tulsa I-244 then U.S. 75 North to 86th Street North, then west across Bird Creek. The unit was 14' 1" high so I called to find out the lowest overpass clearance and it was 14' 10" so I went with it. Yesterday I took a trailer loaded with the tower, a beam and put it all together. This load in this configuration would certainly be correct in the Frisco years as it has been utilized for decades. Fun fact, the Bethlehem pumping unit on back was built in 1957. It worked in southwest Texas until a couple years ago. I brought it to Tulsa and built the new base it sits on.
That thing looks tuff. We had a 1960s something International Harvester (IH) pickup truck. That was the most misused, mistreated beat up truck I ever saw. But, it never quit, not one time.
Great information, thanks a ton. That is interesting about the Bethlehem unit being in southwest Texas. So many of the pumpjacks out here are Lufkin. That is also great information about the era and compatibility with modeling Frisco. Thanks for sharing!
Okay it is nearly done. Needs some weathering, will maybe rethink the load. The tanks, even on a lowboy, are nearly 20' up in the air. There are lots of bridges that these will not clear. Maybe the tank needs to be in a wood cradle on its side, shipped one at a time. Paul Slavens can chime in with his thoughts. Speaking of Mr. Slavens, he gave me a great idea regarding how you lift a tank off of a trailer. He said there is a 4" fitting on top of the tank in the center. He has a threaded piece with a loop that screws right into the fitting. He can hook onto the loop and lift it right up. Very cool! It is hard to see, but one of the tanks has the piece with the loop and the other just has a hole simulating the 4" fitting. The exhaust stack needs to be straightened. Another cast resin faux pas. The windshields did not come out very good. At some point in time, I may redo them. Making windows is definitely one of the things that are not fun to me. One other detail, a mirror choice. After doing quite a bit of research on Mack B cab trucks, the mirrors started changing in the middle 1950s to the larger style truck mirrors that are common now. Unfortunately, the cab casting made it impossible to drill holes and attach the larger mirrors on the door. The upper portion of the mirror would have attached on the body above the door, which does not work. Since my layout is late steam or early diesel, with quite a bit of fudge factor, I opted for the early style long stalk smaller round mirrors.
Paul, Nice, neat, awesome thread! The picture is almost perfect except the flatbed truck looks like it broke an axle. Must have fallen into a Texas prairie dog's hole? Correct me if I am wrong, but I never saw tanks as tall as those loaded that way on a trailer. They would have been laying on a side. That tall would not have cleared power and telephone lines. Where did you get the pumping unit?
Hi Sherrel, Yeah, I noticed the rear axles tilted down to the right after I took the photograph. There is some pretty uneven ground out here, just ask Tom! The tanks are actually a very typical 15' tall. The tanks are measured in barrels, and 210 bbl, 300 bbl, etc., are all 15' tall. Hopefully, Paul Slavens will have time to respond and say whether or not the tanks would have been transported upright or on their side. They are very often moved on a gin pole truck at an angle on the flatbed laid up against the poles, and are much lower than upright. Where I live, you can drive for miles and never go under a bridge or overpass. There is not a single overpass between here and Quanah, TX which is about 80 miles north of us. The same going south or west. I cannot think of a single overhead structure other than power lines. Power lines are a different story, and I do not know how high they are. If you read Paul's post a couple of days ago where he transported a pumping unit on his truck, he said that the load was 14' 1" tall. The pumpjack was made by Alexander Models. I would steer clear of their products. It was the most poorly cast model I have ever seen. It took forever to make the thing look decent and fit together. Parts were missing. When I contacted the company via e-mail, they never responded. Walthers also makes a pumping unit in HO scale, as does one other manufacturer, but I cannot remember who. The reasons I bought the two from Alexander Scale Models kits were 1) I had no idea they were such poor models and 2) they are models of the specific Lufkin pumping units that are prevalent here. Thanks for the comments!
As far as hauling tanks, I can chime in for my experience in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City area. Tanks come typically in two sizes here and they are 202s and 210s . 202s are by far the most common size up here. They are 12' wide and 10' tall. We always haul 202s in the upright position and pick them up from the very center of the tank at the top. There is a 4 inch threaded connection that we screw a hoop into so the winch line cable can pick it up. The 210 tanks are 10' wide and 15' tall. We pick them up by running the winch cable all the way around the tank and back to itself about midway and it puts them in a horizontal position for loading. They would approach 17' height on a trailer and would not clear many of the bridges and overpasses in this area. There are exceptions to every rule. One day about 10 years ago, I had to move a pair of 210s about 4 miles down U.S. Route 66. So I just picked them up with the winch cable and they assumed the horizontal position. I hauled them one at a time, hanging from the poles right down the road. Instead of getting permits for the 15' wide load, I just waited until daylight on the Sunday morning. Fun stuff!
Thanks for the information Paul. What about hauling in a totally rural area like where I live? There is literally not a bridge or overpass anywhere within 80-100 mils of our house. Daily we see oilfield wide loads going down Highway 380 through our town. The tanks built for the lowboy and pictured in the last post are 210s. Would there be wooden blocking or wooden cradles to hold a tank on its side? Maybe I should have one on the lowboy in the horizontal position. The most common tanks here are 210s and 300s, which I think are 15' tall and 12' in diameter. A shot of each is attached. Interesting story. The ratty looking 300s pictured were hit by lightening about five years ago. It blew the roof completely out of the far right tank.
According to Texas law, a special load with a permit can be up to 18' 11" in height. The route would have to be planned accordingly, but it can be fairly high and still be transported by road.
Okay, here is a nearly final shot. Sherrel, the truck on the right has been leveled so it will hopefully meet your approval. Someday there will be backdrops, someday.
That is an awesome scene, even without the backdrop! I was so captivated by the scene that I had not noticed the missing backdrop. Looks like a Texas sky more or less to me!
Sorry about all the truck questions, but that is what I am working on in with regards to the layout right now. The latest truck project is an Oskhosh 4 wheel drive diesel dump truck. Until I bought this model in the group of truck stuff a couple of months ago, I had never heard of an Oshkosh truck. It turns out that they were mostly used by the military, and government agencies up north for snow plow work and summer dump truck jobs. Since there is no need for a plow truck in Texas, I might put it with the mine scene on the Colorado portion of the layout as a dump truck. It still needs the bumper, headlights and a few other odds and ends. Here is the question, the frame was left a little long to leave some room between the cab and the dump bed. There is more room than needed, so could there be a tank or hydraulic reservoir on the frame behind the cab? Something like that would look good to take up the space, but I cannot think of what else would go there. The tank behind the cab is not glued on yet, so substitutions can still be made. Many of you know trucks of the 1950s and 1960s, and just trucks in general, way better than I do. Please throw some opinions out there! Thanks, Paul Moore
That is a neat looking model to start with! Curious as to who put it out? I think the tank looks good there for gasoline, diesel, etc. Even one with an oval end too? This is a wild guess, but possibility of the truck having a longer frame is to leverage the front end as to not come off the ground when dumping? There is quite a bit of spacing between the rear wheels and the tailgate end of the dump bed.
