Truck Fleet

[Canadian PB Kid]

Hey All,

 

What make and year of trucks did my great uncle use for his construction business,  

 

TIA

 

Dave

 

STAY SAFE! 

[dustycrusty]

postwar (late 1940's) International KBs with Schield/Bantam Cranes. The closest is a backhoe configuration, handy for trenching and excavating, the next is set up as a face shovel to work the face of a bank , typically down in a pit digging out a gravel, sand or coal deposit from the surrounding vertical walls. Those small cranes are all cable operated- no hydraulics!

 

Schield/Bantam pioneered these truck/crane combos starting in 1942 and really got going after the war with the massive supply of surplus trucks available. They used Internationals, Studebakers, Whites and GMC as the base and mounted their cranes, sans  tracks on them.

 

My father had a WWII surplus White half-track with a Bantam mounted on it, rigged as a dragline. You haven't lived until you've experienced your old man in the cab of a dragline screaming at you to "STOP, DAMMIT, STOP!" as both that top-heavy crane and 15 year-old you standing on the brakes and pulling the worthless emergency brake lever on the White slide backwards and sideways down the mud-slickened clay bank of a  new pond!

Edited March 27, 2022 by dustycrusty (see edit history)

[Canadian PB Kid]

OK, Thanks dustycrusty, Nice Truck!.... I would imagine it would have been a tad dangerous if and when one of those cables failed..... Would the tandem rear axles been two speed or would one be a tag axle.

 

Dave

 

STAY SAFE!

[dustycrusty]

Those trucks would have both rear axles driven or those front mounted tow hooks would get a workout!