Yesterday I received this picture and story from the contact form on HUSKIDRIVE.com. I knew everyone on here would enjoy it so I used it to this weeks Pic of the Week. The photo and story was submitted by Tom Hynes of Grand Ledge, Michigan.
"In the mid 1980’s the Upper Peninsula Power Company (UPPCO) in Michigan was burning coal in its J.H Warden power plant. The coal was shipped by Great Lakes freighter to a dock in Dollar Bay (near Hancock) and trucked south roughly 35 miles to the plant in L’Anse. I don’t recall all the details but it seems like there were at least three trucks and they normally ran 5 days a week. The rigs were standard 11 axle Michigan “gravel trains” (Michigan allows up to 164,000 pound loads on 11 axles without a permit) but were painted quite distinctively with lime green trailers and bright red tractors.
On August 11, 1986 what seemed like half of Hancock was stuck in a traffic jam when one of the coal trucks broke down on the s-curved hill leading off the lift bridge on the Houghton side. Once I made it through the traffic backup, I pulled over to watch the truck get rescued. Within minutes another coal truck showed up from the dock, minus its second or pup trailer. A little maneuvering was done, a massive chain hooked up, and the mighty Brockway truck proceeded to pull three fully loaded trailers of coal and the disabled Freightliner tractor from a dead stop up the six percent grade. Fortunately the turn off for M-26 was directly ahead so they didn’t have too far to go before the grade leveled off and they had a shoulder to pull over on. But it was still an amazing sight watching that well-used highway tractor pull such a huge load up the hill."
