Wednesday, partly cloudy, clear, windy and cool, 60's. I cleaned all through. David worked for Earl. Gerald got back from Conn. 10:30 pm. Doug left. Clifton, Sue and I went to Louise's at night, but didn't stay. The brakes failed on Gerald's truck on Oak Hill. The Lord was with him again.
Oak Hill is a very steep mile-or-so hill on Route 30 dropping off of Route 7 into the Schoharie Valley ending at the Intersection of Route 30 and 30A just outside of Schoharie.
In 2019, 20 people were killed on this hill when the limo in which they were riding lost brakes and crashed.
Here is a link to that incident: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/nyregion/wedding-limo-crash-schoharie-ny.html
Anyway, here is my incident in more detail than you probably want:
Anyway, here is my incident in more detail than you probably want:
I hit the top of the hill at about 40mph. I was driving a Mack B61 with a Duplex 10-speed transmission in fourth over, loaded with about 25 tons of bark.
The bark trailers were dilapidated, used ones junked by the major truck lines and all had seen better days.
I hit the brakes hard to begin shifting down for the hill and the air brake diaphragms on the trailer immediately blew out leaving me with only the tractor brakes. This is like no brakes at all with a loaded trailer. I shifted down two gears into third over then ran out of RPMs to double clutch the transmission down further and began the terrifying ride down the hill.
My biggest concerns were the stop sign at the bottom of the hill and the cars that might be stopped there and also the cross traffic if I ran uncontrollably through the stop.
I was blowing the air horn trying to warn the traffic and listening in horror to the incredible racket as the large, straight-six diesel engine over-revved and got out of time.
The racket came from the 6" diameter cylinders going up as the valves with half-inch diameter stems were coming down.
From the din, I thought the engine would explode and come through the firewall into the cab. The optimal rpm operating range on that engine is about 2100. I saw the rpm needle go all the way around the gauge and get pinned at the bottom at about 5000 or so rpm.
Fortunately for me and the other folks in the traffic, the road levels out for a 100 yards or so just before the stop sign and the engine still had enough compression to slow the rig enough for me to shift to lower gears, inch up to the stop sign, move slowly through the intersection, and park the rig on the other side of the road.
I called in from a nearby house, (no cell phones at the time) and the dispatcher sent another tractor out to get the load. As I was waiting, my Dad drove by, saw me, and swerved across the road to stop by the truck and was almost hit by a passing driver who blew his horn furiously. We talked for a couple of minutes and he went on to work.
The replacement tractor came. It took about 40 minutes to unhook the trailer from the original tractor (Wow, I just remembered that tractor's number was 40) and hook up to the replacement tractor. We got back to the garage about 11pm that night and I went home to bed.
The next day Reggie Waters, the foreman, asked me what happened in a very accusative way and I remarked something about poorly maintained equipment. He said "You are immediately discharged" and then said something about how I should not have been on the hill anyway and that was the end of it.
I was out of work for about a week then, got a job laboring on a pumping station in Central Bridge with my brother David making about twice as much money in half the time......
The bark trailers were dilapidated, used ones junked by the major truck lines and all had seen better days.
I hit the brakes hard to begin shifting down for the hill and the air brake diaphragms on the trailer immediately blew out leaving me with only the tractor brakes. This is like no brakes at all with a loaded trailer. I shifted down two gears into third over then ran out of RPMs to double clutch the transmission down further and began the terrifying ride down the hill.
My biggest concerns were the stop sign at the bottom of the hill and the cars that might be stopped there and also the cross traffic if I ran uncontrollably through the stop.
I was blowing the air horn trying to warn the traffic and listening in horror to the incredible racket as the large, straight-six diesel engine over-revved and got out of time.
The racket came from the 6" diameter cylinders going up as the valves with half-inch diameter stems were coming down.
From the din, I thought the engine would explode and come through the firewall into the cab. The optimal rpm operating range on that engine is about 2100. I saw the rpm needle go all the way around the gauge and get pinned at the bottom at about 5000 or so rpm.
Fortunately for me and the other folks in the traffic, the road levels out for a 100 yards or so just before the stop sign and the engine still had enough compression to slow the rig enough for me to shift to lower gears, inch up to the stop sign, move slowly through the intersection, and park the rig on the other side of the road.
I called in from a nearby house, (no cell phones at the time) and the dispatcher sent another tractor out to get the load. As I was waiting, my Dad drove by, saw me, and swerved across the road to stop by the truck and was almost hit by a passing driver who blew his horn furiously. We talked for a couple of minutes and he went on to work.
The replacement tractor came. It took about 40 minutes to unhook the trailer from the original tractor (Wow, I just remembered that tractor's number was 40) and hook up to the replacement tractor. We got back to the garage about 11pm that night and I went home to bed.
The next day Reggie Waters, the foreman, asked me what happened in a very accusative way and I remarked something about poorly maintained equipment. He said "You are immediately discharged" and then said something about how I should not have been on the hill anyway and that was the end of it.
I was out of work for about a week then, got a job laboring on a pumping station in Central Bridge with my brother David making about twice as much money in half the time......
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