Hill driving in winter north of Fort St John, BC

This is our current student Amanda, who was sent to us from our good friends at Kamber Nitrogen Services to get her class 1 licence. Here we are taking a tractor trailer down a local valley called Pederson's Crossing with a gross load of 60,000 lbs. Conditions allowed us to use selective use of engine brakes today, but most times full engine braking was safe.This hill ranges between an 8 and 10% grade. It is due north of Fort St John, about halfway between FSJ and Peejay camp/4corners. Even though there isn't an official govt' brake check on this hill, Amanda and I stopped at the top of the hill and she learned about how to do a proper air brake function test before proceeding down the steep grades. On a hill like this, winter driving will require chaining up the drive wheels in a lot of situations, although conditions were good enough today that we didn't need to. The truck was a Kenworth T2000 with a 500 hp/1850 ft lb Cummins engine and a 10 speed Eaton fuller transmission equipped with a low bottom end box, and a higher range top end box. We were pulling a 53 foot dry van loaded with concrete blocks. With this combination we were completely safe going down the hill in 3rd gear using only our engine brakes, and could climb the other side in 4th to 5th gear, and Amanda handled it very well.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Semi truck
• tractor trailer
• driver training
• truck driver training
• Jake brake
• engine brake
• Kenworth
• Fort St John
• BC
• Pederson's Crossing
• Oilpatch
• Oilpatch driving
• Oil and gas industry
• hill driving
• winter trucking
• ice roads
• Kamber Nitrogen
• Eaton Fuller Transmissions
• Alaska Highway
• Peejay

[MrWALKINGEAGLE]

My driveway to fort st john chained up a few times for these hills

[safetyfirstpdt]

@MrWALKINGEAGLE Hi There Ivan!! Thanks for subscribing, I'll return the favor! Call me next time you're out here for a coffee and some old time chat!

[safetyfirstpdt]

Thanks!! We don't always get that opportunity, but it's great when we do! I would be doing more myself but it's been between minus 20 and minus 40 here for a while, makes it hard to shoot!!

Thanks for the support!!

[erjamon1]

Welcome back, dude. I was waiting a new video from your students.