A few days ago, I received an email from an individual responding to the rollagon post. I am continually amazed by the power of the internet and blogs, in particular, for connecting people, information, and ideas.
A big thank you to Mr. Blackwell for adding his first-hand knowledge and experience to my original post and for allowing me to share his email with everyone.
Dear Kimberlee,
I was looking for pics of the Rollagon to show my son and ran across your blog. Best pics that I have seen. I worked on the Rollagon back in the ‘70’s at FMC in San Jose , CA. We were building under contract to the original inventor. It was probably the best project that I have ever worked on.
There are a couple of interesting stories that I can attest to being true.
The first relates to the rumor that a reporter volunteered to be run over by one of the original Rollagons. I say original because the first ones did not have the powered trailer, only the back deck. But back to the story – A reporter from the one of the gossip newspapers, I think it was the National Inquirer, did not believe that the ground pressure was less than a human walking on the tundra. The arctic contractor invited him to visit the work area to see for himself. He did and they ran over him. I wasn’t there but our project rep was present and sent pictures back to us engineers as proof. BTW- this same project rep was very safety conscious and always wore steel-toed boots in the shop. He found that they were not so great in the arctic when the steel almost froze his toes.
The other story is one only an engineer could love. The Rollagon used what was called a powershift transmission. It had a clutch for every gear and could run all gears in forward or reverse. This was very fortunate because at the first road test it went backwards when it was supposed to be going forward! It turns out that the drivetrain engineer overlooked the fact that the air bags were driven by a set of rollers as is shown in your photograph. He forgot that forward for the roller was backward for the air bag. Again, it was fortunate that the transmission worked all gears each direction so it was a simple matter of swapping the output direction and all was right again.
One big drawback to the original Rollagon was the lack of cargo space. You can imagine how limited it was as the only cargo space was the deck behind the cab. As a result we designed the powered trailer. This was quite an accomplishment when you think that it had to be coordinated with the front power unit for speed. This was before computer power was cheap and easy. The electrical engineer, Craig Joseph did a masterful job of designing a reliable non-computer-based controller that worked at arctic temperatures. Somewhere in my collection of photographs I have a picture of the Rollagon with the trailer loaded with stacks of 55 gallon drums. Unfortunately, I can’t find it so I was quite pleased to find your pics. Thanks for sharing.
I don't know if you are still in the arctic, the date on the page was almost a year ago.
Don Blackwell
For more information about rollagons, try clicking here or here (scroll down for article).
Dear Kimberlee,
I was looking for pics of the Rollagon to show my son and ran across your blog. Best pics that I have seen. I worked on the Rollagon back in the ‘70’s at FMC in San Jose , CA. We were building under contract to the original inventor. It was probably the best project that I have ever worked on.
There are a couple of interesting stories that I can attest to being true.
The first relates to the rumor that a reporter volunteered to be run over by one of the original Rollagons. I say original because the first ones did not have the powered trailer, only the back deck. But back to the story – A reporter from the one of the gossip newspapers, I think it was the National Inquirer, did not believe that the ground pressure was less than a human walking on the tundra. The arctic contractor invited him to visit the work area to see for himself. He did and they ran over him. I wasn’t there but our project rep was present and sent pictures back to us engineers as proof. BTW- this same project rep was very safety conscious and always wore steel-toed boots in the shop. He found that they were not so great in the arctic when the steel almost froze his toes.
The other story is one only an engineer could love. The Rollagon used what was called a powershift transmission. It had a clutch for every gear and could run all gears in forward or reverse. This was very fortunate because at the first road test it went backwards when it was supposed to be going forward! It turns out that the drivetrain engineer overlooked the fact that the air bags were driven by a set of rollers as is shown in your photograph. He forgot that forward for the roller was backward for the air bag. Again, it was fortunate that the transmission worked all gears each direction so it was a simple matter of swapping the output direction and all was right again.
One big drawback to the original Rollagon was the lack of cargo space. You can imagine how limited it was as the only cargo space was the deck behind the cab. As a result we designed the powered trailer. This was quite an accomplishment when you think that it had to be coordinated with the front power unit for speed. This was before computer power was cheap and easy. The electrical engineer, Craig Joseph did a masterful job of designing a reliable non-computer-based controller that worked at arctic temperatures. Somewhere in my collection of photographs I have a picture of the Rollagon with the trailer loaded with stacks of 55 gallon drums. Unfortunately, I can’t find it so I was quite pleased to find your pics. Thanks for sharing.
I don't know if you are still in the arctic, the date on the page was almost a year ago.
Don Blackwell
For more information about rollagons, try clicking here or here (scroll down for article).
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