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A hundred years ago (1980's) I was working for a company that had two trailers, a goos neck weighing in at about 16000 pounds, and a TT weighing in at 15000 pounds. They were laboratories and had some heavy gear for compression testing and such. We had a satellite operation out of Carson, CA and the TT was out there along with a 1997 ford 1 ton dually with whatever diesel was at that time. I had to fly out and haul it back.
I hooked up and took off on the LA Freeway, enroute to 29 Palms for the New Year Holiday. As I entered the freeway I put my left turn signal on to merge and the trailer brought me almost to a screaching halt. Someone had wired the turn signal to the brakes. Made it to 29 Stumps and fixed that. Left on 2nd of January for Texas.
Coming out of Calif. I was having problems and was constantly shifting from 3rd to 4th to 5th just trying to maintain speed. I could not for the life of me get the rig up to past 45 MPH and then it would slow down again and I'd be shifting again. This went on for quite some time. As dusk came on I noticed the lights of an 18 wheeler way behind me and expected he would pass me up soon, but no, he must have had a real heavy load, right. Shift, up, down, up, down and getting frustrated.
And then, I reached the sign. "Welcome to the Contenental Divide."
That is one tough grade that gives an optical illusion of being flat.
On the down side, it was fun. Then when I stopped I noticed a broken hanger on a tripple axle. Spent Sat and Sun in New Mexico until the shops opened and got it weleded Also added an anti-sway bar and what a difference that made.
Also, many years ago, my F-I-L (rest his soul) lost the brakes to the MH going out over the Rockies and used one of those run-away ramps. Quite and experience I hear.
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