Thanks Lyndon!
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Alaska Cat Trains
- Thread starter Lyndon
- Start date
In answer to your 2 earlier questions Mile: The Cat Trains run on large Skiis. 2 Skiis front, and 2 rear. They are on a "truck" assembly that rotates or pivots just like on a freight train. These are cross connected by cables that run in a big X from the front to the rear so that as the front truck turns right, the rear steers left. This makes the whole chain of cars follow in the same track instead of straightening out from the pull of the dozer. If the Dozer makes a sharp turn the Cars follow along just like there were tracks. Each Ski is about 15 Feet long and over a foot wide. >
They leave the engines running all the time. In the Arctic either you leave it running or you plug it in. As there is no place to plug these units in they are left running all the time.
They leave the engines running all the time. In the Arctic either you leave it running or you plug it in. As there is no place to plug these units in they are left running all the time.
It finally made it down to -30 today! The whole Mobilization of the Geophysical company was quite a Circus. There were almost a hundred units, Cat Dozers, International Harvester Tractors, Tucker Snow Cats, Hagglunds, Nodwell's, & Foremost as well as the camp units. I had to run out to a module some 10 miles away from my office to inspect a dual generator control panel and they had our road system tied up several places. The Tractor trailer units followed one of our gravel roads to an Ice Road then went off road across the frozen Tundra. The Cat Trains took off directly over the Tundra. It was quite a show!
No, no Kitten or Yetti. They might have been in danger of getting run over! Nodwell/Foremost has a great site but I couldn't figgure out how to do the Linc. Perhaps someone that has a little more computer savy than me can. Do a search for FOREMOST, scroll down until you find the Oil Field stuff. They have a fabulous collection of machines, mostly tracked but some big wheeled units too.
EDIT BY BOB:
Here are your links . . .
FOREMOST HOMEPAGE - http://www.foremost.ca/index.php
FOREMOST OIL RIG PAGE - http://www.foremost.ca/index_oilfield.php
FOREMOST TRACKED VEHICLES - http://www.foremost.ca/index_vehicles.php
EDIT BY BOB:
Here are your links . . .
FOREMOST HOMEPAGE - http://www.foremost.ca/index.php
FOREMOST OIL RIG PAGE - http://www.foremost.ca/index_oilfield.php
FOREMOST TRACKED VEHICLES - http://www.foremost.ca/index_vehicles.php
these are Nodwell & foremost "Rigs"View attachment Nodwell Cheiftan.bmp
I think those are some of the coolest rigs ever designed!
Thanks Lyndon. I figured they ran them but wasnt sure. New tech and all.
There's a COMMANDER C that ARCO keeps in their firehouse in Prudhoe that has a 110 Foot bucket truck set up. It's outrageous. It has the largest outriggers I've ever seen. A Commander C is similar to the Chasis the above photo of the bus sits on. The 6 Outriggers are each as big as a sheet of plywood (4 by 8, Feet!). I've only seen it out operating in the snow once in the 14 years I've been working here. Unfortunately it's a 40 or 50 mile drive from where I am to that area and it's not likely I'll get a chance to get pictures any time soon. BP has the same 110 foot bucket truck set up on a Nodwell Super Chieftan, 4 track rig, and at Phillips/Conoco's Kuparuk facility they have a Tucker Terra with a small bucket truck set up like Phone companies and Cable TV outfits use. It and a series of Mattrax equipped trucks are out operating fairly regularly. We are not allowed to take pictures with anything but Listed, UL Approved, Class 1, Division 1 Explosion proof camera's(Oil & Gas Hazard) and they are fairly spendy. My Department , about 75 workers has to share just 2, which limits photography oppertunities.
Lyndon, do you know what latitude/longitude the camp is at. or did they just move. We were going to zoom in real time 1meter and see if we could get a snap shot. Do they store all the track machines in the summer at one central location?
First Find Prudhoe Bay. I've done it with Google. Most of the development is going on in the Western area heading over toward Barrow. Alpine is just south of Barrow. Just south of that is Nuiqsut a native village. I don't know the longitude and latitude, but we are right on the edge of the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort Sea) between Prudhoe Bay and Barrow. My specific facility sits right on the coast.
The entire Fleet of Tracked Snow Vehicles and all the Cat Trains get stored outside in Prudhoe Bay for the Summer. They will be fairly easy to locate as they are all grouped together. Last years storeage location was near the Deadhorse end of the "Haul Road" which is the Eliot/Steese and Dalton Highways that runs along the Trans Alaska Pipeline, 500 miles from Fairbanks to Deadhorse.It's all one road that starts out in Fairbanks as the Steese, changes name to the Eliot at the turn off for Central & Circle in Fox alaska, It's the Eliot highway all the way to the Manley hot springs turn off where it becomes the Dalton. The highway's Northern terminus wraps around the North end of the Deadhorse Airport and should be easy to find. But right now they are here, at Milne Point.
Thanks for the great shots Lyndon. That's quite an operation. That's an interesting track system on the sesimic support vehicles. Are the tracks belt-type or moulded rubber?
Working over in the Canadian arctic, we don't use too many snowcats. The main reason is that terrain and trees make overland travel prohibitively costly, so we shoot seismic in the summertime. The seismic operations are almost entirely heliportable. The roads that are built are just those built to drill sites. The natives, here called the Sahtu, love the roads and wish we would build more as they help with access for trapping and hunting. The cat trains that are used are just a few dozers that haul equipment, including drill rigs, from the Mackenzie river sometimes up to 70-80 km into the bush. There are several Nodwells and perhaps a foremost rig or 2 around.
We don't have a summer road to this area, and this makes life interesting. Drilling is done in the winter. All the rigs and equipment are loaded on barges in Fort Simpson, NWT by early October and floated north to a staging area on the east side of the river. Once the river is frozen over in December, water trucks continue to thicken the ice to a minimum of 3' to make an ice bridge over the Mackenzie. Usually by early January, the bridge is complete and the rig and support equipment can be skidded by cat to the drill site. The catch is that drilling needs to be complete by the ides of March so the rig can be packed up and hauled back across the ice bridge before breakup. Otherwise the rig will be stuck at the site and acrue costs at ~$50k/day until the next winter!
Each exploratory well costs ~$15-45 million depending on drill depth, type of completion, and distance into the bush. It's amazing to me how cheap gasoline and diesel are considering all that goes into finding and producing crude. I know that Lyndon can appreciate that.
Working over in the Canadian arctic, we don't use too many snowcats. The main reason is that terrain and trees make overland travel prohibitively costly, so we shoot seismic in the summertime. The seismic operations are almost entirely heliportable. The roads that are built are just those built to drill sites. The natives, here called the Sahtu, love the roads and wish we would build more as they help with access for trapping and hunting. The cat trains that are used are just a few dozers that haul equipment, including drill rigs, from the Mackenzie river sometimes up to 70-80 km into the bush. There are several Nodwells and perhaps a foremost rig or 2 around.
We don't have a summer road to this area, and this makes life interesting. Drilling is done in the winter. All the rigs and equipment are loaded on barges in Fort Simpson, NWT by early October and floated north to a staging area on the east side of the river. Once the river is frozen over in December, water trucks continue to thicken the ice to a minimum of 3' to make an ice bridge over the Mackenzie. Usually by early January, the bridge is complete and the rig and support equipment can be skidded by cat to the drill site. The catch is that drilling needs to be complete by the ides of March so the rig can be packed up and hauled back across the ice bridge before breakup. Otherwise the rig will be stuck at the site and acrue costs at ~$50k/day until the next winter!
Each exploratory well costs ~$15-45 million depending on drill depth, type of completion, and distance into the bush. It's amazing to me how cheap gasoline and diesel are considering all that goes into finding and producing crude. I know that Lyndon can appreciate that.
Attachments
Looks just like the area around the Arctic Circle when you come up the pipeline to Prudhoe. Once you get past the Arctic circle the trees vanish. Nice pic's! Good one of a Nodwell/Foremost Wheeled Rig. The Geophysical Guy's have a lot of those. This is where our Western GECO guy's relocated to: 
This morning it's -45. One of the things about being that cold is that when I go out to start up the truck, the seat is like a piece of IRON or a Marble Slab. The other noticable feature is that the oil in the differentials is so thick that the truck acts like the brakes are dragging. Once you let off the gas the truck comes to an imediate stop.>
This next pict is more of the Geophysical guy's equipment. There's a small Cushman Truck with tracks riding along on the roof of a Sled/Box, like a 'spare tire'.>
This next pict is more of the Geophysical guy's equipment. There's a small Cushman Truck with tracks riding along on the roof of a Sled/Box, like a 'spare tire'.>
mtmogs said:
What I find astounding is how LITTLE enviornmental damage there seems to be around these drill sites. In your photos there are straight roads cut to the site and everything else is left unharmed. In Lyndon's photos there is just snow and ice and whatever is under it is obviously preserved. Whatever is on the ice is taken in, and then removed so at the next snowfall it is back to its natural state.
So what is it that the rabid enviornmentalist groups are so upset about?
Well maybe so, but it was just an observation that there seems to be very little damage to the enviornment. Obviously the trees cut down can grow back. But they seemed to have only cut what was needed so there is very little damage to the surrounding area, habitat, etc.mak2 said:
The Environmental stuff is a BIG concern here. The Alaska Oil operations are under more scrutiny than almost any other oil operation in the world. So the Oil companies response to this is: "Make it so!" Instead of fighting the environmentalists they have turned the place into a Showcase. We try like hell to keep the entire North slope operation "Hospital Clean". Besides the independent environmentalists groops like Greenpeace and the Audubon Society, we have 17 Federal and State agencies overseeing this operation. Instead of trying to 'Hide' or 'cover-up' stuff, we just do it RIGHT so that there's nothing to hide. Groops of environmentalists are actually bussed up at cost to the Pipeline and the Oil companies, run thru safety orientation at great cost(Like 30,000$ @ Head), fully equiped with arctic gear, safety equipment like hard hats, FRC's (Fire Retardant Clothing), and toured around. We Favor doing the work off Ice Roads and in the winter specifically to keep down the environmental impact. I am one of roughly 400 Full Time Inspectors here which provides me with a unique perspective on this subject. When we fuel up a vehicle we place a small drip pan directly under the fill. Every vehicle parks over a "Duck Pond" which is a 4' By 4' containment. If a loader leaks even a single drop of red Hydrolic fluid it's "STOP THE SHOW!" The machine is imediately loaded on to a low boy and hauled to the shop, the spot is photographed, cleaned up and hauled to a recycling facility. Once equipment get's old they auction it off and replace it with brand new stuff. No old drippy equipment is allowed in Prudhoe or anywhere along the Pipeline.
Prudhoe is 350 Miles North of the Arctic Circle, there are NO trees north of the Arctic circle. Just Tundra. We are actually a bit further north than the Canadian Oil Fields. Here our Ice roads rest on solid Ice(permafrost), with no layer of water in between. We can run much heavier loads over as there is little or no chance of breaking thru the Ice. This differs widely from the Ice roads crossing Lesser & Great Slave Lakes on the long haul up to Yellowknife and the surronding mines. The Alaskan operation a much larger one than the Canadian, with more men and more machinery. Still in the 14 years I've been here we havn't lost a single piece of equipment thru the Ice. However the Canadian operations are growing rapidly and will soon become the larger operation. If one includes the Canadian Mining operations they are easily equal if not bigger than the Alaska Operation.
mak2
Active member
Wow that looks like a really "cool" place to work. Bet you have heard that before. I have not read all you post, just the ones earlier about the histroy of some FBI machines or something. Are you a geologist or what. -45 seems a bit chilly at work, I might call in sick or something that day.
Seems to me this operation would cause much less of an environmental inpact than say a war in the Mideast over oil. And no Bob I am not saying GW went to war over oil, but if there was not oil there our national intrest in the area would change greatly. This is one of those subjects netiher the Dems or Republicans get right.
Anyway the reason I was posting before I got off track, I was seriously curious how they got that Cushman down while out on the trail.
Seems to me this operation would cause much less of an environmental inpact than say a war in the Mideast over oil. And no Bob I am not saying GW went to war over oil, but if there was not oil there our national intrest in the area would change greatly. This is one of those subjects netiher the Dems or Republicans get right.
Anyway the reason I was posting before I got off track, I was seriously curious how they got that Cushman down while out on the trail.
LYNDON,
Where do they do the auctions at? I would like to place a bid on one of those Nordwels or some type of huge tracked rig!
Where do they do the auctions at? I would like to place a bid on one of those Nordwels or some type of huge tracked rig!
.............You do not even need to wait for an auction just Bid to me all I can say is No.
B_Skurka said:
Forgive me for stepping up on my soapbox. The oil industry is paying for past sins, and from a reputation that they created mostly by themselves. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and, speaking from lots of personal experience in the oil and gas biz, the environmental movement is the more deceptive party regarding resource development. Either way, when the public is misled, it is not served well.
Lyndon is right about the North Slope being a showplace, but most domestic development nowadays is as clean as possible. It's just easier and better to do business that way. Below is a pic of a completed gas well in the Northwest Territories. This in fact is the same well I showed being drilled in the prior pics once the rig was skidded out of there and the site reclaimed. To me, this is far less offensive than the 200 or so 100m wind turbines that would clutter the landscape in order to replace the energy coming from natural gas from that little valve assembly (called a "christmas tree") you see there on the ground. Okay...I'll get off my soapbox now.
