Just so you know, a penny laid on a railway track cannot derail a train. The possibility of that happening is none existent. A big object like a car or a very large boulder could send a train off track but most derailments are actually caused by breaks or fissures in the rail or defects in the wheels.
While Big Rig Towing is noted most for the recovery of large transport trucks it can also be an asset in any situation where heavy loads need leverage to be put right.
As in this train car derailment, when 168,000 lbs comes of its rails, you need a little more than your average tow truck to do the job.
Don’t try this at home. If you have something that needs towed, lifted or adjusted that weighs more than your family car, best choice is to call an expert in heavy lifting and towing.
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Sometimes it is almost impossible to see where the road ends and the ditch begins. Add blowing snow to the mix and the equation becomes even harder to puzzle out. Under extreme conditions it is a testament to the drivers of big rigs that more don’t end up in the ditch.
When temperatures go below -30 ending up in the ditch, whether its day or night, presents a whole new set of problems. Not just for the driver of the rig but for the tow truck operators as well. Keeping warm and safer while working with thousands of pounds of frozen steel is a difficult process.
Because the human body is mostly made up of water and we know that water freezes at -32 c getting stuck in the ditch on a -40 night becomes more of a rescue than a tow.
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During the recent flooding in Calgary not just homes were flooded but a huge number of vehicles were left stranded and ruined by the rising water.
These two 6500 pound rock trucks were two of the many big vehicles that needed to be rolled onto flatbeds and towed to repaired after water destroyed their engines.
Big Rig Towing gets calls for any number of recovery and towing situations. This tow proved to be one that was less dangerous than some but not without its challenges because of the size of these huge trucks.
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Not all Big Rig Towing jobs are the recovery of crashed or stuck rigs. Sometimes it’s as simple as a big snow fall.
When a parked rig gets a large amount of snow on its roof it can’t just take off down the road. If the truck gets up to speed and a few hundred pounds of snow comes flying off, it could cause damage to vehicles following or worse, sending a trailing vehicle into an oncoming lane.
Not all solutions have to be complicated hookups or rotator coordinated events either.
This snow removal campaign was remedied by hooking up a volunteer shoveller to the rotator and hoisting them on top of the rig to get rid of its snowy burden.
I know someone who won’t be shovelling the walk after work.
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A tow truck rotator is essentially a big crane mounted to the deck of the tow truck and can be used for everything from lifting heavy machinery fallen from rigs that have flipped over or for removing a load from a rig that needs less weight so it can be towed. It can also lift heavy equipment from one place to another to assist in getting cargo off one rig onto another.
Big Rig Towing has a number of rotator tow trucks and an can boast they have the only 75 ton rotator in Southern Alberta. Especially once the weather gets cold the highways become more treacherous. An expert rotator operator can make all the difference in getting your towing situation resolved quickly and safely.
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Big Rig Towing was called to the far reaches of Northern Alberta, and contracted Jamie Davis Towing to assist in a touchy recovery.
Near Fort McMurray, on what is commonly referred to as the Highway Thru Hell, this heat exchanger was separated from its rig and ended up in the ditch. The exchanger unit weighs 60,000 pounds and is worth a staggering $1,000,000.00!
It took two large rotators worked in tandem to seamlessly recover this precious cargo without further damage.
After two day of planning, examining and hard work the exchanger was flawlessly loaded onto a trailer and sent back to the manufacturer for repairs.
The expertise of both these companies and operators saved the exchanger from incurring any more damage and saved the happy client thousands more in repair.
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I don’t care what anybody says when 70,000 pounds starts to slide sideways and is out of control, run!!
This heavy piece of equipment was being loaded onto a trailer when it decided to get a little gnarly.
Big Rig Towing used its heavy crane to hoist it back into position and kept it stable until it could be fully loaded and tied down.
Moving heavy equipment is a job for the professionals. When they say don’t try this at home they mean don’t try this at all if you don’t know what you’re doing
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Your rig is not an off-road vehicle. If you have inadvertently ended up off the hardtop and are carrying a heavy load, you are probably in trouble.
Spring rains and late fall frost and snow make roadsides and fields wet and soft turning them into mud traps.
If your rig gets stuck in the mud, it can be a real hair puller to get it unstuck. Mud likes to suck in and trap axles from forward or backward movement. When you spin the tires in an attempt to free them, they will only sink the truck further into the mud and make the situation worse.
You can try to dig some mug from the front end of the leading wheels and then nudge the rig forward slowly until you gain solid ground but if that fails you can save yourself a whole lot of effort and back pain buy just calling a professional like Big Rig Towing to get you back on the black top.
This trailer slid off the road loaded with a 40,000 pound packer in the Bearspaw District west of Calgary.
Big Rig picked up both the machine and trailer and placed them back on the road and got them back on their way safely and quickly.
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The Deerfoot Trail transects the city of Calgary. A busy 3 lane freeway with a 100 km an hour speed limit, it takes traffic south to north across the city and onto Edmonton. The city of Calgary has a very cool safety feature that is a free service to all those who run out of gas or break down in their cars along this crowded stretch of road.
That’s right, if your car breaks down or has a flat, even if you run out of gas the city has tow trucks patrolling 24/7 and will aid or tow you to one of the safety zones created every so many km along the route.
While this is an awesome service it unfortunately does not include big rigs and other heavy equipment.
Big Rig Towing & Recovery specializes in this type of tow. Even though it may seem benign compared to rescuing big trucks from icy mountain passes or dragging them out of watery irrigation ditches and rivers, hooking up and towing on a busy highway at rush hour can be equally as dangerous as any mountain road.
If your rig is stranded on any Alberta road call an expert like Big Rig Towing and stay safe.