For harvest crew, everything that could go wrong, did
We were moving from Weatherford, Oklahoma, to Plains, Kansas, in 1964, with four trucks and four combines, a pickup, house trailer and crew trailer. Everything was going smooth until I heard a new rattle on my outfit. I pulled over and before I got stopped, Arnie, who always followed behind me, went right on by. Arnie was always supposed to be last because he had the only truck with air brakes and air hose with quick connects to an air tank, in case anybody had tire trouble.
If he would have stopped, we probably could have aired up my flat header trailer tire and made it the last 20 miles to Plains. At the least, he could have called on the citizens band (CB) radio to the boss that I was stopped. Everyone had a CB radio but me, because Bud, the owner of this outfit, said he couldn’t find a 6-volt radio for the old Chevy truck I drove.
Therefore, the whole outfit got to Plains before I was missed. Bud obviously wasn’t happy with Arnie, who didn’t even know why I stopped, because he hadn’t seen my flat tire. Bud immediately headed back with his pickup and house trailer, which was also loaded with parts, tires and tubes.
What it did not have was a mounted header trailer tire, which meant we had to break down and fix the tire, then air it up with the hand pump Bud carried on his pickup. That all took a lot of time and it looked like we were going to run out of daylight. It’s not legal to move overwide vehicles one-half hour after sunset.
I had to turn on the headlights as we got close to Plains and almost immediately met a Kansas patrolman. He was writing the ticket when Bud caught up with me. The worst part was, he would not let my rig proceed. He went up a dirt road right by where he pulled me over and got the okay from a nearby farmer for me to park overnight and then he left.
As I turned right down that road and crossed the railroad tracks, Bud was right behind me – but then he was flashing his lights and honking at me. Bud took the corner too short and slid his house trailer off the roadside. He was soon directing me to back up to pull him out, but it was slow because even in daylight it was impossible to see the trailer well enough to back up.
We finally got close enough to hook a chain from the trailer to the pickup and now the trailer was over the railroad tracks. The only chains we had were holding the combine onto the truck, so we took one off the engine.
Anyone familiar with that old 6-volt starter knows how slow that engine cranked. Bud finally ran up to the cab and said “Let me try.” Our situation looked bad. We had a truck with a combine hooked to a header trailer sitting on a railroad track with a tight chain hooked to a pickup hooked to a trailer house.
Thankfully, Bud got that truck started and hollered at me to get in his pickup … it worked. We pulled up far enough to clear the tracks. We were busy putting the chain back on the combine and didn’t hear or see that train until it was roaring by, right behind the trailer house. We were 60 seconds from one hell of a wreck because Arnie didn’t do what he was supposed to.
Ron Haake, Fort Lupton, Colorado
