mrsmackpaul - I fell in love with that trailer as soon as I saw it. I had never seen anything like that before the Carthage show. It would be a pretty rough ride, I recon you'd know if you ran over a penny! Somehow I don't believe today's Sterlings will hold up quite as well as that example.

monser - That winch would be a hard item to come by, because any one of us on here who happened to stumble upon one would probably never tell you because we'd all want it!

Neil - It wouldn't surprise me. The trailer is sure built like a locomotive!

carrara - Maybe you've answered my question about the cable system. The Rogers pictured didn't have the brake handwheel and I assumed that the sheaves near the wheels were so that they wheels could be winched up and down, but couldn't see how the up and down mechanism would work. No doubt you're right that the wheels don't move and that is really the brake system. Pretty good setup, you'd need a driver, a mechanic, a couple of hostlers to load, unload and chain down and a brakeman to ride the trailer. Quite a spread.

Thinking about that reminds me of a story told to me, I believe, by someone who frequents (or frequented) this bulletin board. He was an old tanker driver based down in Riverside or San Bernardino. When he started driving tankers bank in the early 1970's, the company he drove for still had one old truck and trailer which was only used when they were really busy. The truck was a three axle with tank on the back, gas rig with vacuum brakes. When they were really busy, they'd hook up the pull trailer tank for that unit. The pull trailer had a rope which ran through rings on the side of the truck tank with a handle which hung right outside the driver's door.

With the vacuum brakes on that rig, you always approached a stop cautiously, as it took a while to slow everything down. When you were going down grade, or needed to stop quick, you mashed the brake pedal to the floor and reached out and yanked the rope. The rope was connected to a long lever which came up from the trailer underframe and applied the trailer's mechanical brakes. He said that actually, the trailer brakes worked probably better than the truck brakes, you could just about lock the trailer wheels. It just took a little concentration to handle braking, steering and keep your left hand yanking on the trailer brake to get her slowed down.

I think doing all that while hauling 7,500 gallons of gasoline, and probably while smoking a cigarette, is just a little more excitement than I need in my life right now. Ah, the good old days when men were men, huh?

Pete.

Hey GarlicPete,

Your story put a smile on my face...yea, vacuum brakes...I remember the days. When I started driving trucks I spent a lot of time in a good work horse, a 1948 International dump with gas power. It was a good truck. It would haul a big load, but as you stated...stopping took a bit. You know I learned something while driving that truck...The seat sprink popped through the seat cushion, or lack of cushion, and I complained to the mechanic. He got right on the repair of it. He took the seat out and sent it into the upholstery shop to get fixed. He then installed a 18" rock in the cab for me to sit on for a week until he could get time to put the fixed seat back in the truck. The Spring wasn't that bad after all.... ROFLMAO...

Yeah, 7UPuller. What you don't know is they just stuck the seat in the back of the shop, then put it back in after you rode the rock for a week. As far as your rear end knew, it seemed to be a new seat! Saves money and keeps the operator happy!

Just so you know who you're working with, check the seats of some of our stuff at Santa Margarita. Some of those may be the same rocks you rode. The proof will be if we match your rear to the hollowed out spots in the rock. If it matches, we'll know it is the same rock.

Pete.

So do fella's reckon that winch was used for pulling loads on it dosnt look strong enough to me ? or is it for the brakes

I would think the sterling would have super light steering looking at were the trailer king pin

have you blokes looked at the Rodger Bros face book page you can see a photo of that style of trailer being made when they were new
www.facebook.com/pages/Rogers-Brothers-C...am&ref=page_internal

Paul

mrsmack - I think that winch would do the job. I used a winch like that on a big Federal tow truck that a friend had. There is such a gear reduction that the winch could pull just about anything while you were cranking with only one hand. He had the tow truck hooked up to another big truck tractor and you could lift the front axle of the towed truck off the ground without even working hard on that crank. It took a lot of crank revolutions, though, to reel in a foot of cable.

The Sterling must definitely been just for show. It wouldn't take much weight on the trailer to have the Sterling looking at the sky the way it is set up. That trailer really needs something like our 1914 White Five Ton to pull it around anyway.

That Rogers site is really neat. I hadn't seen those pictures. That was some operation back there 100 years ago! Still is, from what I understand.

Pete.

Hi, MrsMP.
That style of winch and others a LOT like it used to be used in boat yards for winching boats out of the water on slipways. As Pete said, SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWW, but powerful. Sumpin pretty similar used to be used on hand-powered cranes on platforms in railway sidings across DowNunder way back when for handling heavy(??????) items into and out of railway trucks.

Hi, Garlic Pete.
Was there anything on that trailer ti indicate the vintage?

A kew-ree-yuss mind would like to know.

I didn't see anything other than the really cool builder's plate that carrara mentioned. I notice in the facebook pictures on their site the photo that shows construction of those trailers is marked as "1930's or 1940's". I doubt that anything highway with construction features including those huge rivets and steel wheels with hard rubber tires was built as late as 1939 in the production numbers indicated by those pictures. I also noticed that another picture on their site was marked as 1915, but it showed very simple single axle trailers with wagon type wheels on friction bearings.

The lowbed trailers are very reminiscent to me of Garlic Mom's 1914 White, with similar very heavy cast steel wheels with hard rubber tires. Just looking at construction methods and styles, I feel these trailers are much more likely to have been built somewhere between 1912 and about 1926. 1926 was the end of the Model T and beginning of the Model A and by then, just about everything had pneumatic tires and suspensions built for speeds in excess of 10 miles per hour. This trailer, as an example of the heaviest haul stuff available at the time, probably would have been the last design items to acquire suspension and pneumatic tires, but I would speculate that even these probably would have been built for higher speeds and longer wear by 1926 to 1930.

I suspect that Rogers archivists are about ten years late on their date markings of the two photos on their facebook page.

Pete.

here's a picture of one of those trailers cropped up on the Mack truck forum all credit to whom ever it comes from got permission before posting photo



Paul

"mrsmackpaul" wrote:

here's a picture of one of those trailers cropped up on the Mack truck forum all credit to whom ever it comes from got permission before posting photo

Paul

What a cool photo. I bet that rig got some looks in passing by. It cool to see the stack on the Marion folded for travel. I wonder how many power lines had to be lifted in them days? The telephone numbers on the trailer and crane shows how modern the owners of the shovel and truck were.

Hey Mike, Did you ever move the B.E. backhoe that started this post?