You sure notice all the abandoned gas stations if you head up north on the Alaska Highway, we are too damm fuel efficient for our own good.Ah, the good old days, when gas stations were 10 miles apart.
These pictures were taken a 5 minute walk from where i live. . The tank on top of truck box is for water to cool the brakes back in the day.
I traveled the Alaska Highway a few times in February when I was working up there in the early 80's. Still was couple hundred miles of dirt then. Seems like fuel was about 100/110 miles apart I was driving a 72 GMC Jimmy then and it would get 13 to 14mpg. The last time I went. My fueling stops had me stopping at the same places as John, a carpenter headed to Fairbanks. We were fueling at the same places so we decided to run together. It was snowing and blowing from about Pink Mountain on. We fueled at Watson Lake and slid into the Watson Lake Lodge (the mounted bear they had in the lobby that was made to look like it was jumping out to the wall was very cool!) The lodge sat on a frontage road, got up left in the morning and made a little mistake... It was still snowing and probably 15 or 20 below we never got off the frontage road and rolled out of town and right onto the Robert Campbell Hwy. About 65 miles out of Watson Lake, a mile past the Tungsten NWT access road I spun the Jimmy into a snowbank. I had packed half my belongings into it and it was heavy to the back. John had went on ahead and had no idea I was entertaining myself in the snow. Fortunately it had stopped snowing and was evolving into a beautiful bitterly cold day. I had a problem... I had a plow frame on the truck and while it had rendered the truck damage free it and the winch bumper and up to the top of the hood was buried and I had a lot of stuff but no shovel. Dumb girl move. I wouldn't go up Alaska Highway in mid July without a shovel now. I am digging out the truck with my hands at 20 below and I'm getting wet from the snow and sweating and while the truck would run for heat. I was slowly working my way to the perfect hypothermia storm. That is where teaming up with John, became one of the better moves of my life. He missed me after a ways and came back to find me. We used his shovel to finish digging me out. The truck backed right out and up the road we went still not realizing we were on the wrong road. We even talked about how we thought the "Hwy" would be maintained better than this. Teslin was our next planned fuel stop which is like a 110 miles out of Watson Lake. We get out a 100 then 110 miles and no Teslin and now I am in front breaking trail in front of John so his car could run in the Jimmy's track. We run onto a sign on a bridge out in the middle of nowhere that said "Big Campbell River" (if I remember correctly) we stop and spread every map we have collectively over the hood of the truck searching for the river. We found it. We figured we were between 130 and 150 miles out of Ross River. I had about a a 1/3 of a tank left and had been in 4wd for awhile. Selected 2wd and set out for Ross River with about about 8 inches of snow on the road. Went around a corner and there was about 20 Caribou just staring at me like I had been beamed in by Mr. Spock. We arrived in Ross River about noon. The truck was past empty and I am fairly sure that with a 72 Jimmy and 20 below you can squeeze thirty miles of fuel out of the steering wheel. We rolled into the at the time only gas station/ fuel bulk /store where I purchased what would stand as the most expensive tank of fuel I ever purchased well into the 2000's. The store owner looked at us and asked where we had came from... I looked at him and said " Watson Lake" He looks at us and says "Really? That Hwy is closed" I just looked at him and said "It's open now." It did answer a lot of questions I had about YT winter road maintenance. We left Ross River and wandered up to Carmacks and then down to White Horse and into Tok. It was a interesting little adventure, I didn't die of exposure and that 150 miles of undisturbed Yukon road and the scenery was worth the the price of admission. I have some images I will try and find. The people who operated the year round fuel stations on the Alaska Highway were a hardy bunch some of them were just about the coolest people you would want to meet. like the guy in Teslin on one trip when I rolled in there late. He was closed. He and his wife reopened the place I got fuel and he fired his kitchen back up and made me a meal. Never knew his name, he is probably gone now but I remember him and his wife fondly. I am sad to hear that those people are abandoning the stations. Seems like a century ago now but it was oddly vibrant back then.
You got pics... Show them. So far yours have been great. Some really cool stuff so far.
I agree Hank keep doing what your doing. Think what would happen if we all had to report to your house to see them!
A job for Truck Shop
bet that woke the driver up
have seen pics. of a 33 day old autocar 85 yr.mdl that had roughly the same thing happen only with 31 tons of coal on it .owner went to dump the load and truck leaned over to much to suit him. when he tried letting the bed back down it hung and drained the oil back into the tank. he did not pump the cyl. back up they then eased a 980 cat up against the bed and down it came totaly ruined the truck