Re: Snow Trac In Delata Junction Area
Alyeska probably had 30 machines representing the whole line of manufacture. I only saw newer Snow Trac, 3 belt, and Snow Masters that were 5 belt. Since the pipeline did not go into operation until '76 it is unlikely that they had any of the older design. Once Westermaskiner ceased production they auctioned off the entire collection and switched to Tucker Sno-Cat's. Of these they purchased 44, making it possibly the largest single sale the Tucker Corperation ever made. All of their original fleet bore manufacture dates of 82/83 I believe. This would be a good question for Glacierparkbus as she has some affiliation with Tucker.
Al Gartz, then the Snow Trac dealer for Alaska, purchased all of the machines at auction. I understand he gave in the naborhood of 2500$ each for them. He had a good German mechanic working for him that dressed up each machine. All of the Alyeska machines were equipped with the ambulance dual rear door set up.
I owned one of the alyeska ambulance Snow Tracs and it had been well cared for. It has been thru at least 2 owners in Northern California since. At least one of those owners was a member of this forum.
I did come across one of the trailers at a pump station many years later. It had the very distinctive "Herring-Bone" cleat impressions on the wood deck of a Snow Master that had lived on it. I made a point of digging thru all their service manual collections at each of the pump stations and ended up with several Owner/Operator manuals that never did make it to the sale.
Al Gartz used one machine for plowing snow around the Delta Junction area, and had another for Hunting. One time he had a carb/fuel system problem. Being a serious beer drinker he punched a tiny hole in a beer can and used that to run the cat. It would only run a short distance. A search party was sent out looking for him, did not locate him, and he made it back 'under his own steam'.
After he sold out the dealership to Bill Bolunis of anchorage, he kept quite a collection of spare parts, enough for himself and one associate. When people appraoched him looking for a part he would just tell them he didn't sell parts anymore. When I approached him one fine 30 below day in Delta Junction I had the alyeska machine in tow, a matchbox toy, and one of the articles I got generated in VW Trends. He said he didn't sell parts, but that if I came back the following summer he would sell me the entire collection. At this point he gave me a huge stack of Snow Trac flyers and sales literature, a whole suitcase full.
The following summer I purchased his parts which included a brand new set of tracks for a 3 belt snow trac, about 30 tires and lots of undercarriage components, wheels, hand cranks, ST25's, and 7 or 8 gasoline fired cab heaters. I thought it was a pretty good deal for 3500$, as the 2 new tracks were worth that much each. The tracks were in the original crate. The parts filled a 8 foot bed pick-up and the cab. Northwest Tell, out of Whitehorse, Yt, was without question the largest user and single biggest customer of Westermaskiner. In all, the Canadian railway, which owned the Canadian phone companies of Northwest Tell, and BC Tell, purchased almost a quarter of the entire production, including the last machine produced by Aktiv. They gave 30,000 for that last Snow Master according to the purchasing agent. Between Northwest tells parts collection which I bought the same year, and Al Gartz's collection I had one of every part in "New-Old-Stock"(N.O.S.). There are times that I regret having sold the complete collection. And I have no doubt that many of the owners who are members of this forum would have appreciated that. I used the NOS parts as templates to manufacture replacement parts. The factory service manual collection that Al Gartz gave me included some factory blue prints.