Another Trip

When I was on my regular run into the Chini Gold Mine in Northern B.C., I would leave Prince George late in the afternoon. I did this to miss to the logging trucks on the Finley Forest access road which is 160 km north of Prince George on the Hart Highway. The barge that carried the trucks across Williston Lake stopped running at 4 pm so if I arrived after they quit I didn’t have to worry about pulling out to let them by.

On one trip I got about 250 km in on the bush road just below the Messalinka River when it came over the radio that a truck hauling cyanide into the mine was broke down in the middle of the road and traffic couldn’t get by. It was around nine pm, so I pulled into a turn out about a mile from where the truck was sitting and waited to see what was going to happen.

Anytime one of the drivers including myself, offered some advice or tried to make a suggestion on the radio, the driver of the broken down the truck would get a little indignant, so after a while we just kept quiet and poured ourselves another coffee. Around midnight it was apparent that nothing was going to be rolling in before morning so I climbed into the bunk and went to bed.

Next morning I woke up around six and listened to the chatter on the radio. Another truck, owned by the same company had arrived on the scene and the driver went down to see if he could help.

It was lunchtime before a logger came down from the bush with a CAT to skid the truck and trailer out of the way. By the time it was clear there were at least four other trucks piled up behind me waiting to get through.

As I got up alongside the broken down truck I stopped and asked if they'd checked the emergency shut off. The driver was quite indignant as he informed me that he'd checked everything he could think of the night before - so I carried on.

A while later I heard on the radio that they finally got the truck going and the road was clear. When someone asked what the problem had been he was told that the emergency trip had inadvertently shut the engine down.

I felt pretty smug (in an “I told you so” kind of way) as I went on down the road. I knew they had a 12-V 71 Detroit diesel in that old Freightliner cab-over and on rough roads it wasn't uncommon for that engine’s emergency shut off to trip, shutting down the engine. Old Blue, the truck I had at the time, had an 8-V 71-T Detroit in it and I’d been there - done that.

I’d lost a lot of time sitting by the side of the road so when I got to the mine the following afternoon I quickly unloaded and headed for home. It was too late in the week for another turn but that’s trucking and to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with a long weekend at home now and then.

All things considered, this driver wasted a lot of his time and ours that day but hopefully he learned something from the experience. Personally I’ve found that at times like that the advice you get from other drivers is usually based on the best source possible - their own experience.