Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/751

 Hauling a Seven-Ton Truck Out of the Mud

A special wrecking truck did the trick after four other trucks working together had failed

��A MIRED truck had backed off the edge of a back-fill pile at a swamp and half buried itself in the mud. Four other trucks working as a unit arrived on the scene and broke a seven- eighths-inch chain in trying to extricate it. Then a special wrecking truck main- tained by one of the New York city service stations appeared. It pulled the mired seven-ton truck out of the marsh and up a ten-foot embankment.

The wrecker, which consists of a conven- tional truck chassis with a worm-driven winch and crane boom mounted in place of the body, backed up to the edge of the pile, had its rear wheels chocked and pulled the mired truck out alone by means of a block and tackle.

One block was attached to a chain drawn around the front spring horns of the mired truck and the other to a bar anchor driven in the ground, the free end of the block rope being attached to the chain cable run- ning over the truck crane and then to the winch drum.

��the free ends were snubbed around two other anchors.

In this way the mired truck was hauled up the embankment without further delay and without subjecting it to further dam- age. The entire operation took up less than an hour — after the wrecker was put on the job.

���The seven-ton truck backed off the edge of a swamp and half- buried itself in the mud

��At left: Attaching the chain to the mired truck so that the en- gine can draw it up

��Pulling the mired truck up the embankment. Note the curved blocks behind the wrecker's rear wheels to prevent it from slipping

The truck engine was then started, the winch revolved and the cable wound up, thus bringing the truck out of its marshy resting place.

As a precautionary measure to keep the mired truck from twisting around, a second rope was tied to each of its rear wheels and

��Trees in the Forest One Week — Houses the Next

WHO would think that trees growing in the forest could be converted into houses within the space of a week? Yet, that is exactly what happened in the cantonment at Louisville, Kentucky. The administration buildings were constructed from lumber which was felled in a Missis- sippi pine forest on Saturday, kiln dried on Sunday, transported on Monday and Tues- day, delivered at Louisville on Wednesday and converted into houses on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, just one week from the day the trees were cut down, the houses were completed.

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