DLD Construction: 20170713 Concrete Pumping, Two Trucks

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I have crossed the tracks so I'm south of them, but I turn around to note the arrival of an inbound (eastbound) commuter.

2:54 There is a ready-mix truck at the entrance of the M&M site, so that means I should be able to see the concrete pump truck in action when I get there.

2:55 I turn around again and face the tracks because I hear bells ringing.

2:56 The new signalling system they installed a couple of years ago lowers the gates long before the train arrives. I had crossed main by the time an outbound commuter pulled into the station.

2:58 The truck (1702) that I saw from a distance at 2:54 is now almost all of the way down the dirt ramp.

For this pour of part of the north wall they have enough room in the floor of the building for two trucks. Thus one can be unloading while the other is getting in position and doing its on-site high-speed mixing of additional water.

2:59 There was a third truck (1733) being cleaned out at the wet dumpster.

The truck on the left is 1733 coming from the clean-out area and heading back to the mixing plant. The one on the right is another loaded truck (1637) that has recently arrived. After 1733 is gone, 1637 will back in and stop at the top of the ramp.

"The truck in the right foreground is a loaded truck that has just arrived. It continues to rotate in a mixing direction. Of the pair of trucks in the background, the one on the right is empty. That is why you see it first rotating in the unload direction at a high speed to get rid of the last little bits and then switch to the mixing direction. Then the one on the left will switch from the mixing direction to a slow unload rotation because it has already added additional water while the other truck was unloading." (new window)

3:07 And another load (1701) is coming.

But first 1637 that was at the top of the ramp pulls out onto Main Street...

...so that the newly empty truck (1588) can come up the ramp and...

...also come out onto the street. While it was on the street, I noticed that this one has been converted to use natural gas instead of diesel.

1588 backs into the clean-out area. We see 1637 to the right and we see 1701 still setting on the street. I walked a ways down the sidewalk away from the construction entrance so that I could get this shot that has all three trucks. Note the fence section with the "Sidewalk Closed Ahead" sign. When trucks are moving in the entrance area, I stand behind that fence so it will show up in some of the pictures. When there are no trucks moving, I can stand on the sidewalk at the entrance.

One advantage of the trucks pulling onto the street is that I can easily catch details such as how they store the extra chute extensions.

So 1637 is now moving into position at the pump's hopper on the right in the background and 1701 has parked on the top of the ramp. Remember, the empty 1588 is over at the clean-out area.

And then another loaded truck (1698) arrives.

By this time they had removed the fence across the lane on the street so that he could back into that lane. Truck 1701 is still parked at the top of the ramp.

This is to emphasis that while we have two trucks down by the pump truck, and two loaded trucks waiting, the truck 1588 is still being washed out. (Note the man with the "high visibility" T-shirt in the background.)

2:59 So 1702 is now empty and needs to go to the clean out area. But 1588 is still there! It is becoming obvious that, when they can run two trucks side-by-side at the pump's hopper, then cleaning a truck out becomes a bottleneck. 1701 at the top of the ramp is in the way of 1702 getting to the clean-out area.

So 1701 pulls out into the street.

Way far out on the street so...

...1702 can pull out into the street and back into the area leading to the clean-out area.

3:15 1701 will come back off the street and back down all the way to that empty hole on the left.

3:18 1588 is clean so 1702, which had been parked in front of him, has pulled out onto the street at the right so that 1588 can leave southbound behind the guy in the yellow shirt. 1702 will now back in all the way to the wet dumpster for its cleanup.

3:18 Now there is no longer a truck parked at the top of the ramp and the pour along the wall has progressed far enough that I can see the boom, I take a video to capture the boom movement.
"You can see the truck on the right unload as the truck on the left is doing a high-speed, on-site mix of extra water. But my main motivation for taking this video was to capture the subtle boom movements has the pour progresses along the form wall."
(new window)

3:21 They have finished one form and are now pouring into a form I can't see. It is probably a ledge along the wall like the forms we see in the right background on top of the south wall.

An overview of the entire site.

3:24 Another loaded truck, 1736, arrives, so it is time for another truck rodeo. Truck 1698, which was parked in the street lane, moves to the top of the ramp to make room for 1736 to park in the street lane.

3:24 One reason I take videos of the trucks is that you cannot tell the status of a truck with a still picture. I assume I'm taking this because 1637, on the right, is doing a high-speed unload to finish emptying itself.

3:26 Truck 1702 is clean and leaving.

1698 has pulled off the top of the ramp onto the street so that the newly empty 1637 can pull onto the street and backup into the clean-out area

We see the hole that 1698 will back into once 1637 has backed into the clean-out area.

This catches the backup of cars on Main Street during a "small rodeo." Can you imagine how far traffic was backed up in both directions when they were juggling six trucks at the site?

3:26 Here is 1698 backing down to the hole by the pump, 1637 being cleaned out, and 1736 is in the on-deck circle. (Actually, it is a street lane rather than a circle.)

It is a test of a driver's skill to back down that ramp with a full load because so much weight is on the back axles that significantly less weight is on the front wheels. I have seen the front wheels slip on the gravel when the brakes are applied.

3:28 This video is redundant with the above video so I did not upload it. All of the later times that I caught them pumping concrete, they were back to having only one truck at a time at the hopper.

The pattern was becoming repetitious at the M&M site so I had walked over to the Forest site. While I was still on Forest, a westbound train came through starting with locomotive #8193.

#5135 in a faded and/or dirty paint scheme before they used before they switched to the current "swish" design. (BNSF paint liveries)

#7256

#6571

And it is a domestic intermodal.

If it was a mixed freight, I would have walked on up to the tracks to take pictures of the freight cars, but intermodals aren't worth the trouble and disk storage.