TeamsterGrrrl

Losing the argument, so now you resort to personal attacks. And lies at that... My pension is totally funded by investments made when I was working, and no currently working Teamster funds my retirement. My health insurance is totally unconnected from the Teamsters. Sorry HeavyGunner, but you just attacked a fellow forum member, and with lies at that!

Sorry Rowdy, the Supreme Court is the ultimate authority and they decided that mandatory health insurance is constitutional.

Sounds like you've been watching Faux News too. Congress members never had a "Cadillac" plan, they were covered under the same "cafeteria" plan as the rest of the federal workforce. The ACA now requires that they buy their insurance through the ACA, or they can try to buy it on the individual market or get insured through a spouses coverage, COBRA, etc..

Although double and even triple frames are still available for the Granite, for the past couple decades the manufacturers have offered 7, 8, and 9 millimeter single rail frames as upgrades to the usual 6 mm. standard frame. For most construction trucks this is more than adequate and eliminates the problem of rust developing between the rails of a double frame.

Sorry, but you've been watching Fake News. Fact is, way more people gained health care coverage than lost- We have a higher percentage of Americans than ever insured, and the republicans are about to blow that with TrumpCare.

The Alcos provide almost as good a visuals as the steam engines, what with their overfueling and resulting black smoke until the turbo caught up. Minnesota Commercial used to have some Alcos, enjoyed the show they put on back when I spotted trailers all day at the USPS Annex next to their line!

Speaking of "B Units", haven't seen any of the Sante Fe B unit GPs lately... Are they all gone?

Sounds like you want to replace "Obamacare" with "Rowdycare"... Won't work, take away the subsidies, protections against insurance company gouging, etc. and no one over 50 will be able to afford real insurance, if they can even buy it. As for self insurance, even the big companies that self insure buy re-insurance to cover themselves from catastrophic losses. Even if the typical 20-something has been able to stash away a couple thousand dollars a year in an HSA, One injury will probably quickly blow through that HSA and force them into bankruptcy.

Mack was smart enough to deliver more than promised, unlike some competitors whose products made a lot of noise and smoke but less forward progress.

Most of the blame for the "implementation" of the HN80 goes to Daimler, who built most of them.

And while I understand how you republicans enjoy blaming America's only black president for everything possible, what you call "Obamacare", the Affordable Care Act, was created by the republicans as their alternative to the Clinton health care plan. Sorry, but those of you bigots that ignore history don't get to rewrite it.

The legendary "free markets" are pretty much just that, a legend that seldom occurs in nature or the economy. The closest we see to free markets is when a new technology like the automobile or personal computer arrives... A century ago there were hundreds of auto manufacturers, and remember when dozens of companies made personal computers? But after a few years the biggest companies hog the market, and today about a half dozen companies have most of the auto market and the personal computer market is pretty much controlled by Acer, HP, Lenovo, and Apple. Same in the classic monopoly, telecom, where even after the government broke up AT&T, "Ma Bell" has regrouped and just two companies control most of the market and with another two they control almost all of it. And who controls most of the health insurance market? The "Blues" and United have pretty much run off any competitors!

Because Mack used to be a pretty honest company.

Sorry, but when you're a bargaining unit of one or just a family, your "free market" doesn't work for you. Haven't you noticed that big companies and the government can buy most anything for less?

Have you ever considered that the insurance companies are ripping you off? Take a look at the real costs for a start- SSA says that the real cost of Medicare for a 65 year old is around $400 a month, and would be cheaper for younger folks. The Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan is paying about $400 a month for insurance that meets ACA minimum standards and FEHB's higher standards, and the median age of a Fed is 47. For that price they've got about a half dozen insurance companies bidding for our business in most states, and usually at least another half dozen "premium" plans offered for a higher price. If you're paying more than that, you're insurance company is taking advantage of your lack of bargaining power and ripping you off!

Is there a non compete clause with IVECO or whatever they're calling themselves this week that keeps the Ford Cargo out of North America and Europe?

Yup, seen a 100+ ton loaded railcar moved with a 40 HP tractor...

On the flatlands of the midwest the 285 and 300 Maxidynes would run with the Cummins and Cat 350s and even 400s at times. The secret... Mack quoted net power at the wheels, and the powerband was an incredible 1200 to 2100 RPM. While everybody else was shifting gears, you just kept your foot in it and went over the hill! Back when I was tabulating the results of the Truck magazine road tests I noted one anomaly- Engines with broad powerbands like the Maxidyne did better than their HP ratings suggested, and engines with narrow powerbands like the Volvo F7's did worse than expected. And again, Mack's honest ratings helped too- For example, the last six cylinder Mack Maxidyne was rated for 370 HP, but that rating was at 2100 RPM governed speed, at peak power at around 1700 RPM it actually put out 405 HP. Volvo's replacement, the MP7, has a 405 HP rating, but actually puts out no more power than that 370 HP Mack engine it replaced. And while the highest Mack HP rating we saw in North America was only 500 HP from the E9 V-8, given Mack's more honest rating I suspect that engine would give Volvo's MP10 a run for it's money, and the higher HP E9s offered in Australia and in the Renault Premier would probably embarrass the 605 HP MP10.

I've been paying about $100 a month for the same plan for 20+ years now, coverage improved a bit under the ACA.

First off, Mack underrated their engines, so a 460 HP Mack is pretty much the equal of a 505 HP Volvo. The measure of performance we need here is HP/Ton, for example the minimum requirement in the EU for decades has been at least 8HP per ton. Using that formula at 63.5 tons the 505 HP Volvo engine is adequate, but using the same 8HP/Ton formula we need 600 HP at 75 tons. In terms of real world performance, years ago I did a regression analysis on dozens of Truck magazine road tests as they used the same route for every test and controlled well for other variables. I found that under 8HP/Ton performance measured in time to complete the route really fell off, performance pretty consistently improved as HP/ton increased up to 10HP/ton, and any increase above 10HP/Ton produced diminishing returns. This jives with research Cummins did around the same time that showed that at 33 tons performance improved in the flatlands when the truck was upgraded from an NH250 to an NTC350, but a KT450 improved performance little beyond that unless the truck was running in the mountains. So in conclusion, 8HP/Ton is adequate if your run flat roads with low speed limits, but 10HP/ton is better.

A 400 HP engine is plenty and even 300 HP will do the job at the U.S. federal maximum weight of 36 metric tons (80k pounds). But double that to the 75 ton or more weight of a Michigan train and 600 HP is needed and 700 HP would be preferred.

Scania must have given Oshkosh a pretty attractive price on those engines, perhaps the traditional VW strategy of buying market share? Wonder if they're testing a Scania V8 in an International conventional yet?

They still had some Astros at UPS in Minnesota in the early 90s, but the F models and Diamonds were gone, and I've never seen a UPS Emeryville in the midwest. I think rust did in the steel cabs in the rust belt, last of the 60s Mack F models were gone from the Hostess fleet by 1980, but I've heard they still had a few running out of the Dallas bakery in the late 80s.

Gearing. What's the top speed at that weight?

Crime requires intent, and the township board doesn't intend to steal from or defraud anyone, they're just dumb at times. As for Social Security being a Ponzi Scheme, if so they're not doing very well at it- For eight decades Social Security has been paying out benefits exactly like they promised they would!