The Long & Winding Road

Wine RevoveryEveryone would like to have a wine cellar but 200 feet down is a long way to go to get a glass of your favourite merlot.

When a rig load of wine went off the highway in slippery conditions carrying a full load of bonded wine, it left the crew at Big Rig Towing a particularly interesting challenge.

First a recovery truck was winched down to the site to off load the liquid cargo. Then, some of the locals were engaged to help with the move.

All in all a full day’s work by the time the rig was recovered.

Time to put the feet up in front of a fire with a favourite glass of the grape.

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Propane Roll Over

Propane RecoveryWith any propane recovery and tow the first thing that has to happen is the propane has to be recovered and safely moved from the site.

This fully loaded Super B of propane rolled over near Rimbey on highway 771. While no one was injured in the incident, it took one of Big Rig Towing’s rotators and a 50 ton tow truck to right the rig and move it safely from the area.

To see the how propane can react in one of these situations see the video.

Big Rig Tanker Safety >>

Ice Pack

When you carrying 6000 lbs of meet you want to make sure it’s good and cold in the back. When you think that meat can begin to rot in less than 3 hours when not refrigerated, I guess going off the road into a snow bank isn’t such a bad idea.

Unfortunately for the great crew at Big Rig Towing the entire rig had to be shoveled out before it could be towed out.

A couple of hours of heavy snow hauling did the trick and got this busted rig back to the shop for repairs.

Luckily none of the beef was spoiled just a few blisters and a couple of sore backs.

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Gas Leak

The weight of an explosive does not directly correlate with the energy or destructive impact of an explosion, it can depend upon many other factors such as containment, proximity, preheating, purity and external oxygenation (in the case of gas leaks and BLEVEs).

BLEVE is an acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion.

In the case of this super b full of propane that would not be a good thing, even if the rig is miles from any inhabited area.

This roll over near Rimby took Big Rig Towing an entire day to offload its cargo of propane before it was safe to right the rig and get it back on the road.

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The Ditch

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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Rock and Roll

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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Man on a Wire

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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Rotator

photo 4A 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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The Slider

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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ATV

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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