92U 3406
Senior Member
That's what I've always called a float. Scissor neck with a roller at the back.
That's why I love Alberta, you just don't see near the volume of big iron like that in BC.Here are 2 Oil Field Floats, Not Columbia but all the same or close. Most did not have landing gear if they did it was a fold up as oil field trucks had a winch, to pick up trailer or winch up over the roller at back. Growing up in Edmonton watched many of these trailers load up tanks etc over the back with a winch.
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That is what I welded on, never knew they were called floats. I was just a dumb kid back then, just did as I was told.I think that's what they called floats. Usually behind winch tractors for pulling skids, buildings and other platform type equipment on. The pipe roller at the back made it a lot easier. Most of the huge bed trucks had the rollers too.
I hope you are still around to read some of the answers to your questionsI can not seem to be able to find any history of this company on the internet other then a company with the Columbia name down south, is this the same company from Howe St in Vancouver?, I know they made a lot of off hwy trailers and on hwy log trailers but just can not find any history anywhere, Thanks
Just wondering if these rail cars were built for The White Pass R.R. at Skagway Alaska ?Found this Pic on the internet, I have a feeling White Pass is not around anymore. When we built these containers, they were shipped out by train. These look exactly like the ones I worked on, but not 100% sure they are the same ones.
I don't know, Columbia shipped them out on rail cars, there was a rail spur and loading dock across the street where Costco is now.Just wondering if these rail cars were built for The White Pass R.R. at Skagway Alaska ?
As far as I know they were built to fit container trailers, possibly the same set up as the train cars. Back in those days I kept my nose to the grindstone, People got fired very easily if you were not a Journeyman. I didn't see them load the containers. I did see them testing the containers with a contraption that moved the containers up and down to see how long it would take them to have damage. My job was to weld the extruded parts on the plate at the ends of the open container. we had a jig built so I could rotate the ends for ease of welding.If I remember right the White Pass R.R. is a narrow gauge rail line. So my guess is that Columbia built the tanks to fit on the rail cars there and I think it does run May till September.
Columbia trailers, Columbia-Remtec and Advance were the only Trailer Tank builders I ever worked at, they had the same belief. steel welders were a dime a dozen, Aluminum welders not so much, Journeymen tank builders and Journeymen fabricators were Valuable. I mentioned I was laid off twice before I got on steady. I was very lucky the best tank guy trained me. He didn't say much, I just watched and welded what he wanted me to weld. He was very competitive, he wanted us to be the best and fastest team and we were. he hated one of the other tank fabricators we had. They had worked together at West tank in Regina. I'll explain how we built tanks back in the day, some techniques are still used todayInteresting the apprentice's jobs were more on the line than the journeyman's. A lot of shops the 1st first people laid off are the journeyman because they get paid more. The shops backwards thinking is they're saving money. Often the J welders can things done faster and better.
we did not have a real apprentice system, we had helpers, Production A and B welders, Fabricators, machinists shipping and receiving people, 5 engineers and drafting people. a Journeyman at Columbia trailers had to know 90% of the jobs in the shop and be an expert in one field. We were non-Union but we were paid 5 cents an hour more than our union competitor Willock to keep us that way, we got all the benefits Willock had but paid no Union dues. We never had a strike, The only time we had a walk out was because the new Aluminum shop built for the containers had no heat, that winter was cold. Don Trice who was a Senior welder got us to walk out, I was worried I might lose my job but decided I wasn't going to be known as a brown noser or rat. Fred Denisuk the man who hired me told us if we did that again we would all be fired. Don told him that's a **** poor attitude, next shift we had propane heaters in the shop.I've haven't seen that happen before. Then again most places I've been at were apprentice heavy, so they couldn't boot the journeymen and still maintain the 2:1 apprentice to journeyman ratio.