More Great ST4 Stories & Dealer History

[Lyndon]

Rudy Robinson owned Twin Pines Equipment in Boston Mass. and was the Importer for Snow Trac for "the lower 48". Almost every Snow Trac in the US came in thru Twin Pines. This does not include the 550 machines that went to Alaska, those came in thru a sucession of 3 dealers and are another whole story. Rudy had a big camp in Maine on Lake Milinocket and after he retired and sold out his business in Boston his daughter Lisa was the ST4 parts dealer. I toured there facility in the 90's before they sold out. They had a Snow Master Gromer with the short cab, that was #2311 making it one of the very last machines ever produced. Anyway Lisa mentioned that Northwest Tell and B.C. Tell used Snow Trac's. Some time later I called up the Bombardiere regional headquarters in Calgary, Alberta and their parts guy said that I should get ahold of Rory Corneil of Northwest Tell, and Harry DeWent of BC Tell becaused they new alot about Snow Trac's. Rory and Harry were both "Head Engineers" with their respective phone companies. Rory knew more about Snow Trac's that the factory that made them and he and his team of a dozen mechanics maintained some 200 machines at their main facility in Whitehorse YT. They didn't get their machines and parts thru a dealer, they delt directly with the manufacturer in Sweden. They had parts made IN Canada, such as the brass drive sprockets and the tires. I was working on the Trans Alaska Pipeline and just missed the Big Auction where they (NorthWest Tell) had just auctioned off most of the Snow Tracs and a container of parts. The machines went for about 2800$ each, Canadian. I could of cried. But Rory told me that a Power Lines Construction outfit out of Grand Prarie had purchased several machines and that they did regular subcontracting to NorthWest Tell and that NW Tell had given the contractor a truckload of parts. NEW parts! The power lines contractor was Vallard Construction, and the owner was Victor Budzinski. Over the course of the next 2 years I must have called Vallard Construction 100 times, maybe more. I was begining to think that I would never get thru to Victor. He was always away. They built power lines in:BC, the NorthWest & Yukon Territories, Alberta and Saskatuan(Spelling?). I figgured that the secratary was just blowing me off when one day a new secretary says:" Victor's not here, would you like to speak with his brother Bill?" YES!,YES! Most Definately! Bill Budzinski was a bit curious as to how I had tracked them down? In a word "Rory Corniel". As it turned out the machines they bought didn't work out that well for their application and yes they would be interested in selling a machine. In the end I purchased 5 machines and all the parts from them, but that's "a hole nuther story".

 

[Lyndon]

Initially I just bought one Snow Trac from Victor & Bill Budzinski of Vallard Construction. That was ST4 # 196, which currently belongs to Earl Lasher and has the destinctive honor of being one of the oldest, best maintained operating ST4's in the US. Earl had just bought a New 4 Wheel Drive Dodge Turbo Cummings diesel pick-up and had it fitted with a fancy custom built Alaskan Camper. We hooked up my trailer and drove up thru Banf National Park on the 4th of July Weekend in 95. Neither of us had ever been so far north to a place where they have nearly 24 hour days. Bill had indicated that we would save some time and cut off about 100 miles by taking this unpaved road which turned out to be a disaster! It rained and the road turned into a foot of mud ruts. by the time we got to Grand Prarie Alberta it was 2 AM and our truck and trailer was mud brown from top to bottom and from end to end. The next morning we had breakfast with Victor & Bill and they directed us to a car wash. Vallard Construction had some interesting equipment besides the ST4's. They had Snow Cat Line Trucks. These were a fairly large Nodwell Track Rig with a Bucket Truck Line Truck Body fitted to them. And they didn't have one, they had 5! They also had Bucket truck bodies like the Power companies use fitted to Formost 6X6. These units are like Army Trucks with Monster Truck Tires, but they bend in the middle to turn(Articulated steering) like a front end loader. They also had a 110 foot crane mounted on a Nodwell Super Chieftan. The Super Chieftan is probably the largest off road Track Rig built. It's a Tractor Trailer in which the Tractor and the Trailer are Tracked and all the tracks are driven.They are really HUGE Muskeg Tractors. The Grousers are 5 to 6 feet long, and tires are tractor trailer tires! It's big enough to set a loaded "over the road" tractor trailer on to it's trailer.You know like a Kenworth with a 50' Box. We took some great pictures. For many years Bill Guthrie of Sales Unlimited in Weiser Idaho kept one of the pictures of the Superchieftan Crane front and center in his office. On our way home we decided to take the longer paved route. US customs gouged us for 400$ of Import duty which later we found out was incorrect. Swedish products brought from Canada into the US are Tax Exempt! A year later I bought the remaining 4 machines and all the parts. They were shipped to my place in Washington in (2) 28Foot trailers and arrived on Thanksgiving. Each trailer had 2 ST4's stuffed with parts, and more parts packed on and around them. Many of the parts were in packing and bags that had the old Westermaskiner Logo or the newer AKTIV logo. It was the "MOTHER LODE" of NOS(New Old Stock) Snow Trac and Trac Master parts.

 

[mtmogs]

Those are great stories Lyndon! Thanks and keep 'em coming. So Vallard got rid of all of their snow tracs? I know a guy who lives in Grande Prairie and I can ask him if he's seen any of these machines up there.

Do you know about how many of the 200 or so at the CNR headquarters in Whitehorse are accounted for today? It might be fun to take a drive up there and do some sleuthing, and of course have a big trailer and a checkbook along for the ride.

Also, are there any snowcat shops in/around Calgary that might have a snow trac or 2 lying around? I'm up there about every other week and it would be fun to poke around.

 

[Lyndon]

I used to do exactly that. What I found before the phone company closed up their maintence shop was that various of the mechanics remembered WHO bought what at the Auction(s). There was a second Auction some years later where they sold all but the last one or 2 Snow Masters. Theres a Buffalo Farmer west of town that has several of the Snow Masters, another guy bought one and it was sitting in his front yard and the kids broke the variator (ST25 "C" casting). It's been sitting there since. Another guy bought 3 of the older Snow Trac's (# 170, 171, & 173) at the first auction and they are sitting way in the back of his junkyard, later he bought a real nice Snow Master that I believe he uses for Hunting and had since gained 2 more Snow Trac's....... Rory retired, his replacement has also since retired. There was talk of buying a Helicopter to do the service work and much of the old radio equipment was being replaced with Sattellite stuff.

 

[Lyndon]

Along the "ALCAN" (The Alaska/Canadian Highway) there were some 40 Microwave sites that originally each had their own Snow Trac or Snow Master. Some had a one bay garage at the base of the mountain tha the snow cat lived in. Others had a larger 2 bay garage that also housed a pair of generators. At some Radio sites these generators were on the mountain top along with the radio gear. The NorthWest Tell guys had all sorts of neat stories about them like: the machine that a Marmot ate the plywood floor out of, and hauling a 1000 Lb crankshaft for a LeRoi Diesel generator set. One of the sites was so hard to get to that they installed an areal cable Tramway. The buildings are still there but the Lift has been removed. Replaced by Satellite. There were Phone company headquarters in St. George and Kamloops that also had lots of snow tracs and snow masters. I see the machines from time to time but they are getting scarcer.