Fun with wide machinery (pics)

[DaleK]

Followed Dad home today and took these. Remembered why I'm not impressed with how the roads have been maintained around here. The shoulder to the right drops off as soon as you hit the long grass, can't trust it to take a tire on equipment and there are boulders hiding in the grass that you can't afford to hit either. This is the GOOD road that we live on, everything else is more narrow.





This is just a gratuitous shot of the new duals I had put on my planting tractor three weeks ago. Probably still wouldn't have half of the crops I have planted in the ground yet without them.

[Old Vet]

I agree it is fun to take a combine with a 24 foot header down the road any road. I have driven it 25 miles and have only a Toyota radio areal to show for it. The driver never stopped I guess he was listing to a tape when I took it off. I did this 4 times each year for 5 years.

[DaleK]

I've never seen anyone leave a header wider than 18' on here. Somebody'd get killed for sure.

I have one road I have to go down where my 12' discbine touches the sumac in both ditches and it's supposedly a 2 lane road.

[fantasymaker]

It occurs to me this might be a good reason for narrower equipment!
Around here farmers don't have to worry about size and weight limits, no permits needed. But that rule was put in place way back when a farmer might take a 12 foot wide disc a mile down the road once or twice year.
Now the equipment is just bigger and bigger and the farmer more and more obnoxious.
I cringe every time I see some fool out on the US highway putting along for miles with a 100 cars behind him and running oncoming traffic off the road.
I just know that one day there's going to be legislators in a wreck caused by that and we are all going to get shut down and forced to get permits etc.

Ive seen a 48' header on a 16 foot road! It wouldnt even fit between the CROPS on each side.

[Old Vet]

I only went 3 miles down a US highway but the rest of the way was on back roads. Every time I meet a car I would move over as far as I could and give them 1 lane to pass by getting into to 45% angel and If I had 1 car behind me I did the same to them. Most would wave when they pass because I would not hold up traffic.

[fordson major]

Originally Posted by fantasymaker

Now the equipment is just bigger and bigger and the farmer more and more obnoxious.

when the people in cars disrespect that a piece of machinery out weighs them 10 to 1 you can expect the farmer too be obnoxious!! rigs i played with were legal size and ya they were the two lanes of some two lane roads!!

at least you don't have the cityits we have over here Dale!! next time we head up to parliment hill you can come with us!! gonna take the 9482 (other wise known as the smurf!) in her working clothes, not a cop will come near it!! ; >)

[Ross]

Thing is if you can't process your acrage fast the weather's gonna kill your farm. Take it up a notch from hobby and quality means make or break, so dropping a hayfield fast is pretty serious stuff. I'd love to truck along with a 7 foot haybine and an old 69 square baler but that kind of effort won't feed my cats at the end of the day. Well these days.

[RonM]

Our 12 row corn heads fold, but our Draper heads are 40 ft.we have to sometimes take them off just to change fields... Then I head down the 2 lane road with a 9400 JD and 36 ft folding disc and baskets, lots of fun, just so much fun out there with all the crazies....

[Ross]

I do understand trailing behind a combine or a wide set of cultivators is irritating, but passing them like an idiot is really taking your life in your hands . I had some fool pass me on the right just as I was about to swing 1500 pounds of loader right into his path. He gets to live but he owes me.

[Old Vet]

A neighbor hit a tractor with 2 trailers with 6 bales of cotton (A bale of cotton weighs around 2000 lbs)behind it and the tractor driver did not hear it until a car stopped him. It killed the man that was driving the car that hit him. It was sad around when we found out about it but the man was drunk and the police did not charge the tractor driver with anything. The man used to be a farmer until that time.

[Cheribelle]

I'll never understand people being in such a big hurry they are willing to risk their lives. Very very sad.

[fordy]

..................I put the blame squarely on the mfgers of large equipment , they should have engineered a quick disconnect system into their equipment so the farmer can move his machinery by loading pieces onto a tandem , dual axle gooseneck pulled by a one ton or f450 truck ! Then , simply road the tractor from one field too the next , use Fe loader too unload trailer and reassemble . Any large scale farming operation should have a 30 foot or larger gooseneck and a small f450 size truck anyway . , fordy

[sunflower-n-ks]

The neighbors wide field equipment folds up on both ends. It fits in a road lane. I think someone said it is 30 feet. He plowed my garden in one swipe. Sure looked BIG up close. Your tractor looks a lot wider than his though.

If I see some farm equipment coming toward me on a road and he is having a hard time staying in his lane, I look for a pull off before we meet and let him pass. I get big waves for my effort. I give waves to the farmers that pull over when they get a chance to let me pass when I am behind them also. Roads here are too narrow to safely carry the big farm equipment that is on them.

[fantasymaker]

Originally Posted by fordy

..................I put the blame squarely on the mfgers of large equipment , they should have engineered a quick disconnect system into their equipment so the farmer can move his machinery by loading pieces onto a tandem , dual axle gooseneck pulled by a one ton or f450 truck ! Then , simply road the tractor from one field too the next , use Fe loader too unload trailer and reassemble . Any large scale farming operation should have a 30 foot or larger gooseneck and a small f450 size truck anyway . , fordy

WHAT HE SAID!

Ever notice that sometimes the same working widith equipment folds up so much different? I swear some pieces are wider folded than working!

[oregon woodsmok]

I doubt that anyone moves farm equipment too many miles on the pavement. Those tires cost too much to be wearing them out running on asphalt.

Farm equipment comes right along with living in a farming area. If you don't want to live with farmers, don't move out to an area where you are surrounded by farms.

If you have to drive fast, stay close to the freeways. Oh wait, most of those freeways move about 3 MPH during rush hour.

By the way, love that country western song about the "man up on the tractor" driving slow and blocking traffic. Can't remember who sings it.

[Old Vet]

I don't know about other areas but in Arkansas you can move farm equipment without a permit or limit on how wide on any roads except the freeway. And yes I would go to another farm that we had that was 25 miles away. It was either that or buy equipment for that farm and let it sit while we were not using it.

[Ross]

I don't know about loading it on a trailer but yeah it would fold up narrow enough if the manufactureers were forced to build it so. My bro used to work for a custom manure spreading outfit. The train he had to pull was legal but consisted of 5 trailers and was nearly 75 feet long. Why is this legal? I'm all for farmers using public roads but things can be better all round.

[salmonslayer]

Originally Posted by oregon woodsmok

I doubt that anyone moves farm equipment too many miles on the pavement. Those tires cost too much to be wearing them out running on asphalt.

Farm equipment comes right along with living in a farming area. If you don't want to live with farmers, don't move out to an area where you are surrounded by farms.

If you have to drive fast, stay close to the freeways. Oh wait, most of those freeways move about 3 MPH during rush hour.

By the way, love that country western song about the "man up on the tractor" driving slow and blocking traffic. Can't remember who sings it.

Kinda what I was thinking. We are in the middle of the first chance anyone has had to cut hay this year and our narrow little road is filled with farm equipment moving slow from one field to the next. When I get stuck behind one I just dream of someday being able to have such equipment and I thank my lucky stars that I live in such a rural area.

[rambler]

Originally Posted by oregon woodsmok

By the way, love that country western song about the "man up on the tractor" driving slow and blocking traffic. Can't remember who sings it.

Craig Morgan. 'International Harvestor'

Yea, took the bean planter over the 5 miles to plant the 4 acres my sister used to own. That's always a fun trip, tho our roads are better than in the pictures! No way are trees allowed in the road ditches, big hazard, anything tarred and over 35mph speed zone is going to have a clean road ditch and be 50-60 foot wide from the center line to each side.

I do have to go down a steep little tar road with no shoulder, across a river and there is 4 blocks of residential I need to go through - easy if no one is parked on the street, difficult if they are parked on both sides. And a railroad creossing which used to be ok but they rebuilt it without extra width, so I gotta use both lanes there, no driving down the shoulder area - they didn't make one!

My bean planter is a 15 row (plus 2 skip rows) at 15 inch spacings on a 3pt bar, so it comes out about 23 feet wide. Most of the way is pretty easy going, but the few obsticles mentioned plus gotta think about mailboxes and impatient drivers.

I can see both sides of the debate. I wish everyone had to spend 30 minutes driving a loaded semi and another 30 minutes driving a tractor down the road as part of their driver training, and they would get a new respect for what they are sharing the road with. There are many foolish car drivers, and to be fair some poor semi & tractor drivers as well. If we try to get along it works much better.

I feel for the town folk who mean well and pull over in a driveway to let you go by with a big farm implement - they don't realize I gotta swerve around the mailbox so that _won't_ ever work out where they parked woulda been better to meet on the road where I can hang over the road shoulder... They mean to be friendly, they just don't understand what I need to watch for from my seat.

--->Paul

[Paquebot]

We've got some monster pieces of machinery on our local prairie and I saw one several days ago that actually had more in one unit than we ever had on the whole farm combined! If I'm meeting them, I show signs of giving them a wide berth long before we arrive at that point. If overtaking them, I'll either stay back until they have a safe place to move over or simply wave them on. The roads are mostly laid out in mile grids so it's not a matter of having to follow them for 5 miles before coming to an intersection. And with lots of the roadsides in this area also serving as major drainage ditches, one mistake by either of the parties could be very interesting. And seeing as how I drive an old Ford pickup, they figure that I'm one of them, which I am!

Martin