Mythbuster

[Mack 3P]

I saw an episode of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel last night where they attempted to prove or disprove the myth that a stick of dynamite would clean out a mixer drum after the cement hardened. A stick had no impact so they put 850 pounds of dymamite in the drum of a RB mixer. All that was left of the truck was the front and rear axles and engine.

On another episoed they ramed a MR tractor and a Ford cabover into a small car to try to prove the trucks would fuse together from the heat. The Ford and car were demolished but the MR cab was mostly intact.

It is a sad ending for two Macks that worked hard.

[ThaddeusW]

I saw an episode of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel last night where they attempted to prove or disprove the myth that a stick of dynamite would clean out a mixer drum after the cement hardened.  A stick had no impact so they put 850 pounds of dymamite in the drum of a RB mixer.  All that was left of the truck was the front and rear axles and engine. 

On another episoed they ramed a MR tractor and a Ford cabover into a small car  to try to prove the trucks would fuse together from the heat.  The Ford and car were demolished but the MR cab was mostly intact.

It is a sad ending for two Macks that worked hard.

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I agree. They should have used freight shakers instead.

[Mack CF]

I saw both thoes episodes... its crazy how bad that dumptruck exploded.

[MidniteMechanic]

LOL, the freightshakers would have desenegrated with one stick.

[Barry]

I saw both episodes also! Mythbuster's is a good show! Very entertaining...

[twostickmutt]

LOL, the freightshakers would have desenegrated with one stick.

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a fire cracker would have wrecked a freight shacker

[Timothy Maikshilo]

a fire cracker would have wrecked a freight shacker

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I think we're all on the same page with frieghtliner.

All the years I've been driving I've never drove one

I like. Even now my winter job I drive one all over ..

..Can't what till spring when we trade it,Tim

[Lmackattack]

I liked the older ones for there apperace but thats about it. I drove a Rental century class last year and it rode very nice but had no balls at all. dont like the styling at all now. In my opinion it is just a cheep truck that has no real appeal to owner operaters.

[Timothy Maikshilo]

I liked the older ones for there apperace but thats about it. I drove a Rental century class last year and it rode very nice but had no balls at all. dont like the styling at all now. In my opinion it is just a cheep truck that has no real appeal to owner operaters.

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The old frieght shakers had those small windshields and that big dash. It looked like a mole truck. When Consolidated Frieght started building them they were truely the first real road tractor for that time. Driving an old Dimond Reo was different too, the seats were lowin the cab and you felt like a little kid looking over the wheel to see,Tim

The new trucks are all plastic and look more like a car than a truck now a days, Tim

[GearheadGrrrl]

MRs are damn hard to kill- in my 12 years at the Postal Service I have yet to see one totalled. There was even one that lost it's brakes in Kansas City, ran right through a brick apartment building- the trailer broke in two but the cab was still intact!

As for Freightliners, when I worked for Continental Baking our standard tractor was a non sleeper cabover with a Detroit 2 stroke and center point steering. They weren't a bad truck to drive, but the cabs were rattling apart before a million miles. Back in the mid 60s Continental Baking bought a hundred Mack Western FL cabovers though- the Waterloo bakery still had one running into the 1980s and I've heard a few were still running out of the Dallas bakery into the 1990s and probably had two million miles on by then.

[twostickmutt]

MRs are damn hard to kill- in my 12 years at the Postal Service I have yet to see one totalled. There was even one that lost it's brakes in Kansas City, ran right through a brick apartment building- the trailer broke in two but the cab was still intact!

As for Freightliners, when I worked for Continental Baking our standard tractor was a non sleeper cabover with a Detroit 2 stroke and center point steering. They weren't a bad truck to drive, but the cabs were rattling apart before a million miles. Back in the mid 60s Continental Baking bought a hundred Mack Western FL cabovers though- the Waterloo bakery still had one running into the 1980s and I've heard a few were still running out of the Dallas bakery into the 1990s and probably had two million miles on by then.

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remember when they had "crackerboxes" and i think some jellybean whites.

[Timothy Maikshilo]

remember when they had "crackerboxes" and i think some jellybean whites.

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J.J., Men of steel and trucks of wood and a little deaf!Tim

[Terry T]

MRs are damn hard to kill- in my 12 years at the Postal Service I have yet to see one totalled. There was even one that lost it's brakes in Kansas City, ran right through a brick apartment building- the trailer broke in two but the cab was still intact!

I was thinking about the episode of Mythbusters where they attempted the head on of a CL9000 Ford and a Mack MR with a car in the middle. They didn't quite hit head on, but the Ford disintegrated, and the MR was still reconizable as a Mack MR, although I know a couple of very good heavy truck body shops, and I don't think they could have put that "humpty dumpty" back together again!

T.

[GearheadGrrrl]

remember when they had "crackerboxes" and i think some jellybean whites.

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I never saw a crackerbox GMC in Continetal Baking's fleet, but there may have been some somewhere. Just before I started in 1978 at the Minneapolis bakery they sold off the last of the fibreglass White 5000s- these also outlasted the Freightliners being 15 years old by then while the Freightliners generally lasted only 10. The 220 cummins was a pig of an engine though, not tolerating lugging well.

Then again, there may have been some crackerboxes on a sleeperteam run hauling twinkies, pies, and other Hostess Cake products along I 90 between Chicago and Boston- I recall talking to a bakery driver in one a few years before I went to work for the company.

Sadly, the once great Continental Baking fleet is now a mess- First they were bought by Ralston Purina in the '80s who gave us KW anteaters and cheapie Freightliners with the Mercedes light van cab, all powered by the gutless L10 Cummins. Then in the '90s they merged with Interstate Baking which had a motly fleet of just about any truck that was cheap. The company is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the way there going will probably end up going Chapter 7 liquidation.

[twostickmutt]

I never saw a crackerbox GMC in Continetal Baking's fleet, but there may have been some somewhere. Just before I started in 1978 at the Minneapolis bakery they sold off the last of the fibreglass White 5000s- these also outlasted the Freightliners being 15 years old by then while the Freightliners generally lasted only 10. The 220 cummins was a pig of an engine though, not tolerating lugging well.

    Then again, there may have been some crackerboxes on a sleeperteam run hauling twinkies, pies, and other Hostess Cake products along I 90 between Chicago and Boston- I recall talking to a bakery driver in one a few years before I went to work for the company.

    Sadly, the once great Continental Baking fleet is now a mess- First they were bought by Ralston Purina in the '80s who gave us KW anteaters and cheapie Freightliners with the Mercedes light van cab, all powered by the gutless L10 Cummins. Then in the '90s they merged with Interstate Baking which had a motly fleet of just about any truck that was cheap. The company is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the way there going will probably end up going Chapter 7 liquidation.

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the crackerboxes were in the worcester, ma. area (boston). a buddy of mine drove one with a 238 detroit in it and i belive he said he pulled doubles at the time with it running I-90 in the early '60s i wanna say they ran white 3000's too. maybe local delivery trailers. jj

[Mack 3P]

MRs are damn hard to kill- in my 12 years at the Postal Service I have yet to see one totalled. There was even one that lost it's brakes in Kansas City, ran right through a brick apartment building- the trailer broke in two but the cab was still intact!

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The LE and MR have to be indestructable. You would not believe how they get abused by some city sanatation dpts. If the truck breaks down the guys go home, sometimes it's a goal. The plastic park brake switch is made of metal becase it's often broken off. Some guys pee in the trucks which leaks into the "breadbox" where some of the ECU's are located, it's a killer on an electrical system.

[ThaddeusW]

The LE and MR have to be indestructable.  You would not believe how they get abused by some city sanatation dpts.  If the truck breaks down the guys go home, sometimes it's a goal.  The plastic park brake switch is made of metal becase it's often broken off.  Some guys pee in the trucks which leaks into the "breadbox" where some of the ECU's are located, it's a killer on an electrical system.

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Thats probably why the NYC sanitation mainly uses ML's and allot of private carters use mostly MR's. The private carters use Macks and here and there you might see a Pete or a Westernstar. The Sanitation Dept. also has crane carriers still kicking around too.

[GearheadGrrrl]

Thanks guys for filling in some of the holes in my collecting of the history of Continental Baking (CBC). CBC apparently was forced into starting a big tractor trailer trucking fleet as the railroads discontinued passenger trains that had carried Wonder Bread and Hostess Cake in the baggage and mail cars. Interestingly, the height and width of a standard one pound oaf of bread may be about the same height and width as a standard postal envelope so bread could be mailed. At the old Minneapolis bakery we had boxes that we used when we shipped bread or cake by private carrier to the Dakotas, those boxes were the same size as a Postal Service letter tray. This confirms some of the oldtimers stories of shipping bread and cake on passenger trains. Also, like the old Post Offices, many of the bakeries were located right next to the railroad depots.

As for the GMCs, they may have come from a contract carrier that served CBC in the midwest and northeast out of a small town on I-55 south of Chicago. CBC eventually bought them out and they became part of the CBC fleet. Even into the 1990s CBC drivers out of Chicago were allowed to take their truucks home with them while deadheading home if they lived along their route- I suspect this priviledge was provided by union contract or past practice so the drivers from the newly acquired contract carrier wouldn't have to make the long commute to the Chicago bakeries from rural northeastern Illinois. By the time I started at CBC in 1978 all the crakerboxes were gone, and we had but one GMC Astro at the Rochester bakery, bought to replace a totalled out Freightliner when it was the only thing they could find in stock. I don't remember any White 3000s, but I've seen pictures of them in CBC dress. We had a couple White Compact 1500 cabover straight trucks, one with a 6V-53 and the other a 4-71. The 4-71 didn't have quite as much power as the screaming 6V-53, but was a much more relaxed highway cruiser. White disavowed any knowledge of the 4-71 though, and it was ultimately scrapped when the clutch went and a replacement could not be found around 1990. The one with the 6v-53 I last saw around 2000 when some immigrant storekeepers had bought it to haul their own bread. They had a whole rack of bread half sticking out the sidedoor, so I stopped and showed them how the cargo restraints worked before they dropped a load on top of someone's car. Not bad longevity for a truck built in the 1970s...