Ice Truckers
 

cool new show coming this sunday on history chanel, about guys driving across a frozen lake called the ice road, really dangerous, was just wondering how much those guys must make .

Re: Ice Truckers
 

About CDN 350-400 per day, whose US equivalent is nearly the same, what with the US dollar having tanked vis-a-vis the Canadian dollar over the past few months. But the rules & regulations are enforced with extreme strictness....any minor infraction, if detected, could cause the road marshalls to evict you from the ice road, sometimes forever. Mind you, these marshalls aren't cops...they're in the pay of the diamond mines & the others that build the road every year....for more info, ask WildKat....she runs the ice every year : you'll find her posts in the women's forum.

Just so you know, these are not ICY roads...they are ICE roads, meaning that they are made of ice....in the summer, they turn into huge lakes, & in winter they're turned into roads. So, you have these ice roads which are 3-4 feet thick in winter, and underneath is water. Mighty dicey driving, I can assure you....certainly not for the inexperienced, or the fain of heart.

It was on last year and it was so interesting that they made a whole series about it,......I sure hope its better than T-Bone and the naked trucker :roll:

It should be, these guys run on stuff that would make a billy goat say....."you want me to cross that :lol: ,....on that road??"

And they haul super B's on that stuff !!

I had a dream about ice trucking last night. Might be due to the commercials I've seen for the show.

I remember pulling into the 'truck stop' and it was unlike any truck stop I'd ever been in. Rowdy like a bar, pool tables, lots of women, including a coed shower... :P

Very strange dream. I've haven't driven a truck or even dreamed about driving one since August 2005.

I saw the commercials for this last night also while watching Modern Marvels:Truckstops. I accidentally fell asleep near the beginning but from what I saw they were really glorifying a few things. I'm going to finish watching it tonight, thank you DVR. I'm also going to fire up the DVR for Ice Road Truckers 8) 8)

not all of it is over a lake or large river etc, alot of ice roads are built over solid ground instead of building a permanent road.

yeah some of its built on solid tundra, but the roads over the lakes,.....I don't know about that. I remember how much the ice flexed on Lake George when we ice raced cars on it,.....now add a bit more weight, and I'm not going near it.

I have spoken to a couple of drivers who have driven the ice roads. I am not sure that I am ready to drive over frozen water. :shock:

Give me this $$$$$ and i will drive anywhere

What Mackman,.... you got a monkey in that K-Whopper?????

i watched it for the first time and i was like wow them guy's are crazy but i believe after a while of driving i would try it at least once and see how it goes

I don't think I could ever get past the cracking sounds :shock: .

If you ever were in the North you'll find that Muskeg is hardly solid-Like walking on a sponge.

I'd drive a company truck,not my own though. :)

I think I remember one guy on the show saying that a year's worth of wages can be made in about two months. That's pretty good incentive to head north, in my opinion.

Also, I think they said it's a thirteen hour drive from the yard to the mine furthest north, and it looked like they drove it in one sitting. Do they not have the same hours of service that we have?

Thats what they said,...1 years wages in 2 months.
I think that since the road is private (mines pay for the roads),.....maybe DOT has no jurasdiction, and they can drive whatever hours they like. Isn't the speed limit like 20 to 30 mph??
I would however make sure my truck was in tip top shape, and had a hell of a lot more lights that some of those trucks.

I watched the first episode....for the money that they say they can make, they don't seem ot be investing the moola in newer rigs....the trucks sure looked very long in the tooth

with the danger of losing your rig at any moment :shock: , i woudn't use a new rig either! :P

Well, for that kind of money, i never have to leave a pavement! :lol:
I've been driving over frozen swamps, but not lakes! :wink:

the speed limit is 19mph loaded and 25 empty

in response to yoopr i`ve been to yellowknife with freight before, i`ve worked on drilling rigs where 35 below is a warm day and i`ve met many people employed with robinson or landtran on the ice road, hundreds if not thousands of short ice roads are built to move drilling rigs and equipment, sometimes only a few hundred yards and alot of em are built over solid ground because its not worth it to build a permanent road, the one on tv just happens to be the biggest.




and good luck getting a job up there if your not canadian, i`d like to try it some day *hugs his canadian permanent resident card* :lol:

Well, you don't get rich spending money when you don't have to. 8)

I wouldn't use a new truck, but the one I used would be set up for the climate, with back up systems.
The two thing I saw so far:
1.Lack of visibility ( high powered lights on the side of the roads, or some type of system to keep them on the road in a whiteout).
2.A back up air compressor since it seems that air systems are vulnerable in those parts.


I know hindsight is 20/20 but after all the years of running those roads,....it seems that some of this stuff is to be expected.

We've been waiting to watch it and, for the first time, we get to watch it tomorrow- it's on Sunday's right? Sorry, I skimmed all the other posts so if I'm repeating, sorry. We've heard about it over and over on the XM but our satellite system was messed up and now it's all fixed (at least for the time being :wink: ) and we get to watch it.

The really sad thing is that we're at home and the receiver etc is all in the truck and it's a real pain to swap it to the house and we're going to actually go sit in the truck and watch it with the truck parked out front. Sad sad sad. :roll: gotta do what you gotta do!

History channel Sunday night at 7pm Eastern time.

the new episodes are at 10pm eastern on sunday

right , the rerun from last week is on at 7 pm eastern time and the new one is on at 10pm eastern

Crud- I wish I'd have known about the 7 pm thing! We checked it out at 8 thinking they might run an older episode but 7 didn't even occur to me!

Well- it was a great show! Can't wait to see the ones I've missed and the ones that haven't aired yet! Man am I glad we got our dish fixed!

I have watched it a couple times and it is interesting. I DO hate to hear the truckers having every third word "bleeped out". :x Just makes us all look like a bunch of foul mouth idiots. Not that I can't and don't on occasion swear like a sailor when the need dictates, but I think those guys just f---ing this and f---ing that is just STUPID. You are on national TV. Grow up a little.

Just my decimal point zero two cents worth.... 8)

I did it once.
I picked up an airplane wing at Carlsbad,CA and took it up to Yellowknife in the middle of Febuary two winters ago. If was a nice day, only -27C (-17F) I forgot all about it. I was driving along, the highway was barricaded, and I was detoured through the bush and onto the MacKenzie River. It's about 1-1/2 miles across the ice. A super-b tanker was in front of me grossing 139,000lbs so I figured my gross of 43,000lbs had a better chance. I let him lead. everyone stays about 1/4 mile spacing, just in case. They have speed limit signs of 25kph. I rolled down my windows a crack and killed the radio so I could here the cracks and hissing. Once across your back onto the highway. In the summer there is a fairy there.
If you want to try it once, that's how you do it. Get a load to Yellowknife. No experience required. To go beyond there would be a different matter. Main point is don't speed, this is one of those places where speed truely does kill.

I watched the re-run episode last night. Was un-impressed with several things. First and foremost was the tanker that spun-out on the hill. :? Why the heck would you put a set of singles on the back axle of a stuck truck? If your only gonna iron-up on only one drive axle, you hang the crap on the front axle. That way, while your spinning the iron to shreds, all that dirt your kicking loose, goes under the rear-axle, and provides traction for it.

Second thing I was not impressed with, was the grader operator pulling that truck out. :roll: Who taught that joker to "Yank" on a stuck truck like that?

Seems like the "BBR" mentality has gone through the roof, out there on the Ice, since they decided to make a TV show out of a job.
Next thing you know, their gonna be sending TV camera crews out with the loggers. :lol: :lol: :lol:

You know what they say,....


"That's entertainment"!!! 8)

Every truck driver shoots a gun out the window when another driver gets too close :roll:

the only way that grader was gonna move a b train uphill was to yank on it ya friggin rocket scientist

Excuse me Brian.......You have been doing this how long? You have been pulled out...how many times?

If that were My truck...and I saw that being done to it...I'd be giving the Owner of that Road maintaning company an ear full and a half.

I have had trucks weighing 60 to 80 thousand pounds, buried to the frames in mud, and not allowed a Dozer or Grader operator to yank on the unit's like that. I didn't even own any of them. A steady pull, with both units working together, works better, and is safer, than yanking the way that operator was allowed to yank on that Train.

I have spun out on Blewett Pass, in a Gas Tanker, weighing 105,000#, have slapped on a set of single chains, and pulled out of the situation, without the assistance of a grader.


You are right...it isn't Rocket Science.

on the show they said they get $1,500 a load, and the double loads and extra wide they get$2,500-$3,000 per load, and the top guys get about 40 loads in 2 months, so i guess they make about $60,000 gross in 2 months, also there is a chance you might die.

do it on an ice covered 8% grade in -30 weather where the driver already started digging in and i`ll give you everything I own :roll:

I worked in the oil fields back in the 70's and watched a grader snap a wire rope like that pulling out a tanker ... the wire rope stretched and then snapped ... the end went through the windshield and decappeted the driver ... happend in a second ...

http://www.ourbigtruck.com/ourbigtruck.jpg

You are on dude. Schedule us a Truck date for late January. Maybe you can arrange for the film crew to be there.

WAIT...Just exactly how much do you own? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Okaaay..you don't own all that much.

Maybe you could get a job with say...Mercer Trucking, over in Spokane? I could fly up to Washington in late January and meet you on Stevens Pass.....say 2/3's the way up the west side. You will need to make sure it is a B-train...Mercer has a few of them...and load it down good and heavy, get the full 105K on it and make sure it has a decent number o fchains hanging on the rack....or should I bring the set's that I have down here in Texas up with me?? You stop the truck on the steepest, nastiest portion of the road..and I will chain that sucker up, and drive it away, while you stand there and watch. I won't even make you buy the plane ticket..or pay me for teaching you how to properly chain up a stalled truck on a steep, slick grade.

You will however, have to buy me a Hot Cocoa up at the Ski-lodge. Heck..for 2 cups of Hot Cocoa I could teach you how to drive that Train up to the maintenance shed behind the lodge and turn it around up there. I've only delivered a couple 30 or 40 loads of fuel up there...over a few seasons. 8) 8) 8) :shock:
Yes Brian...I have spun out on Stevens..while chained up. I just put on new chains, and eased on up the hill. I have also spun out on White Pass, on Manastache Hill, on Sherman Pass, and on Cabbage. Not once did I need to be "Yanked" out of the situation. LOL..believe it or not..I haven't spun out on Snoqualmie...but then...I know the trick to getting over "The Qual". (Psssst...you don't drive in the right lane-----stay all the way to the left going up through the curve......don't tell anybody else though!!!)

Brian..It has absolutely Nothing to do with how much force is applied, when it comes to getting a truck unstuck. It has everything to do with the manner in which you handle the equipment. To much throttle, with to low a gear and to little traction, just makes things worse. Had that B-train driver put that first set of singles on the front axle...or better yet..had he put chains on both axles..he could have walked that truck right out of that situation, without the grader, and with out making all those other trucks sit on that ice for 4 hours, as was stated on the program. He didn't start digging the holes he made, until he spun that back axle with chains on. Had he put those singles on the front axle..he would have still spun a bit...but he would have been spinning that gravel back into the rear axle...and given it traction...instead of throwing gravel under his front trailer.
Was that hill an 8% grade? Hard to see it as such on the tube.

You run on out to Stevens Pass...stop on the westbound shoulder, on the west slope, about 2/3's the way up, right there where there is not much of anything but space and tree tops. That stretch of the road is about 8% grade. Then ask yourself why the state made that section of road so much wider than the rest.

Maybe someday I can tell you about the company that had that set of trailers (which we have discussed so well here), when they were brand new. And why that company bought them in the first place. I do know what name they fuzzed out on the show, so that it couldn't be read.

How the hell did you manage to spin out on Sherman? :P
For me the worst hill in the winter was 4th of July Pass-I never spun out on it but UPS always seemed to and they were always ahead of me :P

Lest we forget that brian knows everything about trucking.... :lol: :roll: :lol: