Hauling Monster Caterpillar D11: Troubleshooting Heavy Haul Moves 210,000 lbs Down the Highway!

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]CMT Ventures is moving this dozer >> [music] >> north to Fort McMurray.

[00:00:05]>> The idea of a D11 doing 90 100 km/h down highways is very foreign concept for a lot of people. We're about to expand some people's understanding of heavy haul with this video.

[00:00:20]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> In Calgary, Alberta at Finning Canada.

[00:00:54]So, this is heavy metal equipment's D11T. It came out of the States.

[00:00:58]Came here to Finning to receive a few things. Some of those things were a ladder. They corked the tracks. They put a pilot up top.

[00:01:07]Fire suppression. They modified some of the catwalks that fit around the back.

[00:01:11]So, a few things to get it ready for the oil sands, which is where this is tracked ends up in the oil sands, where it'll do big bulldozer things such as working around rope shovels, hydraulic mining shovels, ripping, that sort of thing.

[00:01:24]It's pretty rare that you see these big tractors on the move. So, today we're with CMT Ventures capturing how they move this tractor north up to Fort McMurray.

[00:02:13]>> [music] [music] [music] >> This is a CMT steerable dual lane transporter.

[00:02:39]This is built by Aspen Custom Trailers at Leduc, Alberta.

[00:02:43]So, this is an 88-wheel trailer for hauling up to 125 tons. So, this is what we're putting that D11 on. And right now, they're just working on splitting the trailer so they can walk the tractor up onto this deck because they're hauling it with the undercarriage, and it'll sit right up on top here.

[00:03:00]You've got a steerable dolly in the back. And what's neat about the steerable dolly is on the highway, it'll steer itself. But when you go into tight corners, such as in cities or in a town where large machines like this often get hauled into a heavy metal shop or something, that dolly can actually be steered from the pilot car. So, if they're going to take a real tight corner, you can work with them to steer the actual trailer around that corner because you've got so much trailer here that you can't simply steer it with one truck up front.

[00:03:29]But because that D11's so heavy, we've got the two jeeps up front help spread out the load, and then we've also got We've also got these here. These are just plug-in wheels, or training wheels as they call them. So, these are additions onto the trailer.

[00:03:45]So, with heavy haul, because that D11 weighs 210,000 lb roughly, you need a whole lot of tires and axles to distribute that weight out across >> [music] >> the pavement. So, that's why they use these plug-in tires and the two Jeeps up front.

[00:05:50]>> This here is CMT's [music] Kenworth W900, a brand new one at that, 2025.

[00:05:55]But, take note how this is a Kenworth, not a Peterbilt. This is the prime mover for this load. There's also another truck at the rear pushing, but this thing does a lot of provides a lot of muscle to pull that D11 down the road.

[00:06:08]And it is so beautifully named Silver Psycho.

[00:06:17]Steerable dual-lane transporter has a steerable dolly on the back. So, once it's on the highway, it'll steer itself.

[00:06:22]But, when you're going around tight corners, like them when they're going to back out of the fitting yard here, they have to make a quite a tight corner. Or, if they're delivering this in town to one of the heavy metal shops, fairly tight corner, you can't steer this whole trailer with just one truck.

[00:06:35]So, you've got a steerable axle on the back, and it's all controlled from the pilot car with this little remote here. You see, you've got on, off, steer right, steer left, extend, retract. So, he can control all the functions of that steerable dolly from this remote from the pilot car in the rear. So, super critical when they're making really tight corners.

[00:06:56]Now, they're just loading up the 11.

[00:06:58]They've split the trailer. They're walking it up onto the trailer.

[00:07:01]And the rear on real fine with the the steering clutches there. Just trying to get that tractor lined up real good so they can center that load on the trailer. So, they got quite a few CMT guys walking around making sure the tractor's right where it needs to be before it goes down the highway.

[00:07:15]Once they've done this, it'll get chained down.

[00:07:18]Got our heavy haul permit. We're ready to go.

[00:08:20]>> So, for the dozer to go on the highway, they put some protective mats around the windows to protect the dozer in case any rocks were to come up from other traffic. You don't want to break that glass, so that's protected.

[00:08:32]But here, it's all chained down.

[00:08:35]Ready to go.

[00:08:37]It's a whole lot of dozer.

[00:08:40]>> [music] >> That's a whole lot of trailer right there.

[00:09:05]I'll make note that we're filming this right now in April, so it's currently road ban season here in Alberta. Alberta is one of the few places in the world that observes road bans. So, they place a weight restriction per axle on loads like this and other loads, tandem axles with trailers, to protect the roads. So, during the spring thaw, when you get that kind of frozen half-frozen ground, muddy ground, you don't want really heavy loads on few axles down the highway because it'll damage the roads.

[00:09:34]So, in order to protect the roads, they put what's called road bands on, so it restricts roughly 75% of the allowable weight per axle. So, instead of hauling 100% of the weight, you can only allowed to haul 75% of the normal weight per axle.

[00:09:48]Doesn't really change anything with these big D11s because you already need a lot of tires and jeeps and dollies and training wheels or plug-in wheels as we've seen to haul these things, but like triple 7s, 395s, that sort of thing, D10s, D8s, the road bands do have an effect, so you effectively more tires to haul the same amount of weight so that the weight is split across more axles and tires, therefore lower ground pressure. So, that's all it is.

[00:10:31]>> [music] [music] >> CMT Ventures Peterbilt 389 named Cotton Candy and a beautiful truck at that. Long hood. When we were in New Zealand, everything was cab over.

[00:10:49]They like their cab overs, but we like long hoods here in North in Canada.

[00:10:53]It's called a fall off load, so that push group, the blade, and the rops that was off the D11 will go on here so that tractor can make weight and height requirements for hauling, but fall off load or just additional load, everything that doesn't fit on the primary load goes on here. But, this truck is their flagship truck. It's won won many awards at many shows and rightfully so. That's that. This is the blade.

[00:11:18]D11 blade blade. I'm a pretty big guy.

[00:11:19]I'm 2 m tall, but as you can see, D11 blade is much bigger than me. And then the push group is just down here.

[00:11:31]So, this is the push group. It's just the two arms that connect the blade to the dozer. You've got your dual tilt cylinders, exhaust stacks. And as you can see, this is a JEL serial number CAT. So, D11Ts, the JELs are the serial numbers for those.

[00:11:51]So, yeah. This is how they split up the load so that that tractor weighs roughly 210,000 lbs.

[00:11:56]And then this is the fall-off load. Push group, blade, rops.

[00:13:58]>> Here we're going to set up the second truck, which is going to push from behind because there's that much weight one truck can't do it.

[00:14:05]So, second truck's getting linked on right now just through a drawbar here.

[00:14:09]And then they'll send this thing down the highway.

[00:14:21]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> says get a wash, a detail, make it as presentable to sell as possible, and then we get one of our equipment inspectors the task of doing a detailed equipment inspection. So, what that consists of is a walk around of the unit.

[00:16:35]That's our 360 walk around videos that are available online.

[00:16:39]And then we go into the more detailed stuff of the features of said machine.

[00:16:44]What that consists of is undercarriage width, bucket type and width, any features being hydraulics or auxiliary hydraulics, hydraulic thumb, or any cameras, sensor systems, really anything that would be a purchasing feature for someone to want to buy a machine.

[00:17:03]We use a 360 camera to capture some nice 360 views inside the cab, and then we take a bunch of pictures to back those up inside the interior just to highlight features.

[00:17:14]>> So, effectively, if I'm a buyer and I'm not able to physically make it to the auction, I can go online I can see photos of the undercarriage, photos of the engine bay, 360 walk around, what size bucket does it have a thumb, does it come with GPS, uh does it have like a fog maker fire suppression system, anything like that?

[00:17:31]>> 100% and that's uh the the biggest thing for an equipment inspector at Ritchie Bros. is just to accurately represent the machine as it is. We're not here to draw any opinions of how good or bad the machine is. We just want to show you exactly what you're getting.

[00:17:44]>> So you have all the photos, all the video. How do you get all that from that phone to the online portal so customers can view it at their leisure?

[00:17:52]>> Uh we have an internal application that uh live feeds all the information into our MARS system that collects all the data for all of our auction events. Uh we would then have a report coordinator go through, verify all the information, make sure things like EPA compliance, um a new thing that we've started doing is uh disclosing the country of manufacture of assets due to the current tariffs in the US.

[00:18:17]Um we have a report coordinator compile all that information and verify the kind of accuracy of the report and then we make those live to the public after that.

[00:18:28]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Water truck.

[00:18:56]But wait, it's not a water truck, it's a water scraper.

[00:19:00]>> Water scraper.

[00:19:01]>> Um brought another really good outfit out of Saskatchewan. They this water scraper, if you will, is uh in getting it's washed. So the customer has chosen to have it washed and the cab cleaned before it goes to auction. So, this is the wash bay. All the water that comes off these machines is recycled on site and anything all the dirt and debris is then separated out as well. So, [music] it's a fully contained site and system.

[00:19:37]>> [music] [music] >> So, we're here at the equipment re-fer building here at the Edmonton auction.

[00:19:48]So, this is where equipment comes to get washed, sandblasted, which is just behind us, and then they send it over to get paint. So, this D6 has just gotten sandblasted and they use a It's kind of like an aggregate, a garnet actually, to remove all the paint. So, this shoots out of that hose with the assistance of air and it actually blasts all the paint off so that they have a nice base layer to apply a new coat of paint. When a customer elects to have their equipment go through this process, it really can drive some value into the equipment and get a higher price in the market.

[00:20:28]So, after sandblasting, after the machines come out of the sandblasting room, it goes into here for paint. So, right now they are masking off all the parts that are not black.

[00:20:39]So, you can see the rams, the dogs, the cab getting painted black.

[00:20:43]And then once they've done that, they will unmask and re-mask the black parts paint the rest of the dozer yellow.

[00:20:50]But, this is pretty much right down to the bare metal.

[00:20:54]This is how the dozer would have been painted originally in the factory. So, this is almost a centennial gray, if I may. It's a very fitting time to say that since it's Caterpillar's 100th birthday and centennial gray was Caterpillar's original color.

[00:21:09]Some of the details they even look out for here is like the rams, they mask all the chrome, mask all the hydraulic lines, they don't actually paint over those.

[00:21:19]>> [bell] [music] [music] >> Example before paint job, they also all offer partial paint jobs if there's certain areas of machine that need to be touched up, but this customer has elected to go for a complete paint job.

[00:21:45]You'll also notice up here there's a bit of glass work being done, a little bit of mechanical work on this tractor. So, Ritchie Bros. really partners with the customer. Painting and fixing it up is one of the ways in which they do that.

[00:22:00]And this D8 with a brush rake, which I might add, which is quite rare. You really don't see D8s with brush rakes here in Canada too often. Believe it or not, this D8 may look big in here, but they can fit all the way up to a triple 7 in this shop. So, if you got triple 7, you want it painted, Ritchie Bros. will do it for you.

[00:22:20]So, as we seen earlier, this D8 got the full paint job. This 330 from contract has gotten the partial paint job. So, we did undercarriage, we did catwalks, we did counterweight, we did bucket and thumb, a little bit on the stick there, and then an option additionally, if the customer wanted, they could buff this to make the older paint match the newer paint. First looks are everything, just like in dating, and beautifying it a bit, some cost cosmetic things is really important to allow the seller get really good value for their machine.

[00:22:55]So, after the paint shop, it's ready for decals. So, this haul truck, I'm going to guess it's a 773.

[00:23:03]We'll get decals up there, CAT decals, that sort of thing. And then once it's complete with that, final once over and then it's out to the auction yard for uh ready for buyers to inspect. So, this and the Komatsu HM400 on the other side of me getting their decals.

[00:23:22]And that's kind of the final step.

[00:23:29]>> [music] >> Come through, been inspected, cataloged.

[00:23:45]Anything the customer requests like washing or painting, it ends up here where it all gets lined up in a nice pretty row.

[00:23:52]So, we're here with Mark to tell us a bit about why they line things up, things how they organize things in the yard. So, Mark, tell us a bit about after a dozer, an excavator, scraper, whatever it is comes out of the guys who've inspected it and cataloged it, what happens to it and what and why.

[00:24:07]>> Really what happens is is that it goes through all the process, gets its lovely inspection, um gets on the web, we can brand it out to the people and and market it to the public. But really at the end of the day, this is what we see as our final product. So, uh what we want to do is have that impact when the customers come in through the through our yard and come into our site, we want everything lined up in perfect order, uh in sequence order, which means that they're all kind of in numerical order.

[00:24:28]It's easy for the customer to find the piece. Um it really is impactful just to show the the sheer amount of like lineup that we have, dozers, and and uh other heavy equipment.

[00:24:37]>> Yeah.

[00:24:42]Section from this side of the yard, which is the north side, we've got the heavy yard, which is dozers, rock trucks, we got excavators, scrapers, wheel loaders.

[00:24:53]And on the south side of the yard, we've got all our uh light vehicles. so we've got vocational trucks, winch trucks, oil and gas stuff, on-highway trucks, cars, vehicles, that sort of thing.

[00:25:05]This is all So, one cool thing about this auction is although this dozer may have spent the greater part of its life working here in Canada, there really is no telling where this thing's going to end up.

[00:25:22]After the auction, it could be in Saudi Arabia, it could be in Australia, it could go to Africa, or it could very well stay here in Canada and and continue pushing dirt, but that's one of the cool things about Ritchie Bros.

[00:25:32]global reach is if you got a piece of equipment, they can find you a buyer anywhere in the world, so I got 10 bucks that that D6 right down there is going to go to South Carolina.

[00:25:58]Not only does Ritchie Bros. sell construction equipment like D6s, 336s, that sort of thing, vocational trucks, they also sell a mining class iron, so D10T. What's interesting about this is this is an RJG serial number, so if you ask any dirt contractor who buys D10s, they'll tell you that out of the T series, so the T and the T2, the RJG serial prefix is the most highly sought after tractor, pre-emissions tractor.

[00:26:27]Lot What a lot of people don't know is that Caterpillar puts the initials of the engineering team lead or one of the engineers on the team that designed this tractor in the serial number. So, RJG is the initials of one of the engineers that actually worked and helped design this tractor.

[00:26:50]So, what makes the auctions here at Ritchie Bros. really unique is that they're all unreserved. There's no reserve bids.

[00:26:57]Everything sells on the auction day.

[00:26:59]So, here at the Edmonton facility, they have six major auctions per year. And the spring auction, which is this one, is one of the main events. So, right now, at the time of filming this, which is end of March, early April, they're at about 7,300 lots. So, and that could climb, but the spring auction here is one of the largest in Canada.

[00:27:19]So, while all the equipment you see here in the yard is a big part of Ritchie Bros.' big spring auction here at Edmonton, there's also an offsite component. So, a company called Trio Drilling is selling roughly 1,000 pieces of equipment offsite. So, in the event that it's a large piece of equipment, say like a big haul truck or big hydraulic mining shovel, or it's just a large realignment of a fleet, something that doesn't make sense logistically to bring it here, Ritchie Bros. partners with those companies to help them sell their stuff where it is. So, for the Trio's case, 1,000 pieces of equipment makes more sense for them to sell it in their yard and have it all inspected.

[00:27:54]The process is still the same. They Ritchie Bros. still goes, looks at it, inspects it, photographs it, catalogs it, but the offsite component of these auctions is a huge part of what Ritchie Bros. does for their customers.

[00:28:13]So, this is what roughly 50 years of progress looks like in the motor grader world. 1969 Cat 14E.

[00:28:24]2013 Cat 14M.

[00:28:27]So, not only is this a fine example of what progress looks like in the motor grader world, but it's also example of some of the vintages of equipment you can find at Ritchie Bros., especially the big spring auction.

[00:28:39]So, maybe you're a farmer, you got some property, you want to something kind of old and trustworthy to to clean up the road or take out in once in a while, then maybe a 14E is for you, but maybe you're a highway contractor, you're building some roads, and you want something that you can throw GPS on and look pretty out there and for everyone driving by and get yourself a 14M.

[00:29:01]In theory, you're supposed to run this thing standing up like this so you can see down to your cutting edge, work the steering wheel, and work your your rack here, but heaven forbid that on these older motor graders you find yourself a stubborn object like a rock or something and end up kissing the windshield with your forehead, but this is how you run these old motor graders. So, got the rack out here, but this is how it was back in the day. No heated and cooled seats in these things. So, this is the M series grader, a little bit nicer than the 14E, depending on your perspective [music] on life, but joystick control versus the mechanical rack.

[00:29:37]Beautiful line of sight. You don't have to actually stand up to run this thing like you did with the E. You can sit down like this, all your joysticks, super nice cab, but again, just an example of some of the different vintages of equipment you can find at Ritchie Bros., especially the Big Spring auction, it brings a lot of equipment out. You got newer stuff like this, but you also got more vintage pieces like that 14E.

[00:29:57]>> [music] >> Uh the Broda Group, uh Prince Albert, Saskatchewan based uh business, long time frequent uh flyer around the Ritchie Bros. operation. We're standing in front of a nice Cat 160M all-wheel drive motor grader, and then we actually have some of their uh big rigid frame uh haul trucks that are going to be selling uh in the Edmonton sale, but sitting from uh sitting in our Saskatoon yard.

[00:30:25]So, obviously some logistics involved in that decision. Those are those are cumbersome, big, heavy assets to move, so maybe we can just sell them right from where they're sitting.

[00:30:33]>> This is here in the yard in Edmonton, but if they were to sell it offsite or through Marketplace-E, what's the difference between those kind of options?

[00:30:40]>> Yeah, this would be sold live unreserved auction here in in Edmonton. We have assets that will sell in Saskatoon from the Broda Group. Those will be unreserved timed auctions. We we've had some success marketing and selling some unique equipment, scrapers, haul trucks on our marketplace e by now make offer platform, our listing service that lives on IronPlanet. That's our sister company. Experiences of all our all of our channels to help them >> [music] >> transact equipment.

[00:31:12]>> We're here with Mike. We're looking at a bucket truck which I haven't really spent much time around, but Mike tell us a bit about the consignor, [music] tell us about the piece of equipment, why it's here.

[00:31:22]>> So this is coming from Michaels Canada.

[00:31:25]They are doing a major realignment with us. They've pulled out of the utility power line space and trusted us to sell the remainder of their wire line power >> [music] >> fleet.

[00:31:37]>> Yeah, Michaels big company, they do a lot of pipeline work.

[00:31:39]>> Tell us a bit about when you say realignment, what does that mean? For someone who might not know when you say a realignment of a fleet, what does that [music] what does that mean?

[00:31:46]>> Uh, they're just going in a different direction and uh pulling out of that space, [music] not no longer using this equipment. So um it's a way for us to phrase it as they're going to be selling these types of assets.

[00:31:58]>> And how does that work for the customer?

[00:32:00]What does the process look like [music] from taking this piece of equipment from their yard to now the Ritchie Bros.

[00:32:05]yard?

[00:32:05]>> They de-decal it, de-identify it, and deliver it 15 minutes to our yard from where their [music] current location is and uh trust us to market it, photo it, present it in the way that uh does them justice.

[00:32:19]>> What has that got to be, a 50, 60 ft in the air you can go with this?

[00:32:27]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Heavy equipment of all flavors here.

[00:32:46]There's also crushing [music] equipment, such as this spread of cone crushers and conveyors.

[00:32:52]So, Ritchie Bros. sells a lot more than just [music] heavy equipment like bulldozers. They sell crushing equipment. They've even sold land in the past, vocational trucks, campers, aqua trailers. People often associate Ritchie Bros. with just heavy equipment.

[00:33:08]Clearly not, as evidenced behind. This stuff is coming to us from a great home, good friend of ours, Suncor Sand and Gravel.

[00:33:16]Been in business in the McMurray region since 2002.

[00:33:19]And as you can see, they're doing a bit of a realignment realignment here.

[00:33:23]They've got a couple cone crushers, [music] jaw crusher, screen plant, this stack pack conveyor here, as well as a couple other pieces.

[00:33:34]That's all part of their crushing spread. This particular cone here is a higher valued asset, um, you know, with being a Metso cone. Metso is definitely top-of-the-line brand. You can have all different types of brands, but Metso's [music] definitely, you know, the higher end. Um, so this is for crushing big volume, high production spread here, for sure.

[00:34:04]>> Adam, this is not a D10 or 336, so tell me about this, and is this in the auction?

[00:34:09]>> It is in the auction, yeah. Um, so a lot of people might not realize that Ritchie Bros. often sells classic cars.

[00:34:16]Uh, we have a showroom inside that's currently under renovation. However, usually it's filled up every auction we have four, five, six classics in the sale.

[00:34:24]Um, it's not Barrett Jackson's, but they tend to do pretty good.

[00:34:27]Um, this particular one here is a 1972 Chevy C10 with a 454 in it That [clears throat] came out of Slave Lake and uh, yeah, see what it does on auction day.