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TRUCKING INDUSTRY's STORY * USA - Heavy haulage in the 1880s - twenty mule teams in Death Valley
For a six-year period in the 1880s...
some 9,000 tonnes of borax ore were dragged out of Death Valley's mines by 20-mule freight teams like this...
... A 20-mule team consisted of 18 mules and a pair of horses - one of which was ridden by the Teamster (or Muleskinner). According to the Twenty Mule Team Museum in California, each train was 100-foot long, and carried ten tonnes of the ore... That's ten tonnes from 190 feet below sea level to an elevation of 2,000 feet in temperatures in excess of 130 degrees. That's exhausting work, and it would be a good few years until trucks were able to do this...
... And in complete contrast, this is how it's done today. I photographed this heavy haulage operation in the Nevada desert earlier this year. It was part of a three-truck convoy on its way to a nearby gold mine. I would be very surprised if this police-led convoy was travelling at anything less than 70mph... Story and Picture from Road Transport/Big Lorry Blog, by Will Shiers (London,UK) - -June 30, 2008 Labels: trucking industry stories
posted by Unknown @ 5:07 PM
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