I had to pick up the caterpillar at a location near Leslieville, Alberta. The caterpillar was equipped with a dozer blade and a pipeline ripper. Usually the dozer blade and ripper would have been taken off the caterpillar, and loaded on the second truck, but this time it wasn’t. This caused my unit to carry a heavy and oversized load. I wasn’t too pleased about that, even though they had an overload permit. However, I loaded the whole unit intact, against my better judgment.
I was given directions by the caterpillar operator to go across to Rimbey, and head north. The destination was Zama, Alberta. So, off I went. Between Leslieville and Rimbey is an open top steel bridge, over a large creek. When I crossed the bridge I felt the trailer bounce. I stopped as soon as I was off the bridge to check my load, and to see what had caused the odd motion of the trailer.
I immediately noticed one of the chains that stabilized the caterpillar was broken, and the caterpillar had shifted over to one side, but it was still on the lowboy. I started the caterpillar, and drove it back into the proper position on the lowboy. I chained it securely down once again.
I walked to the bridge to see what caused my trailer to bounce, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was no bridge left! The far end of the bridge, where I entered, was off the cement pillar and had dropped down about 30 feet. At the end where I got off, one of the beams was off and the other was still on the cement pillar. I felt really fortunate that I had gotten off the bridge without upsetting the truck and all.
From there I drove to Rimbey, just two miles away, to try and get help to close the road. I was relieved when I was able to locate the town constable. I told him what happened, and that I needed barricades to close the road before the bridge. He wasn’t willing to do anything. I could tell he didn’t think it urgent so I asked him to get in his pick-up truck and I’d show him what had happened up the road. After much debate he finally decided to come and have a look, and believe me, his attitude changed when he saw the mess at the bridge.
I told him I was worried about a school bus load of children ending up in the hole in the road. He agreed the road would have to be closed with barricades, and since it was 2 a.m., we had plenty of time to close the road before the bus came. We drove back to Rimbey, and he said he would look after barricading the road himself. I was anxious to carry on with my trip because I still had eight hundred miles to go. However; the trucking adventure I had just experienced stayed on my mind for the rest of the cold, snowy trip.
