Trucking Digest

Having just had an excellent holiday in Scotland I guess taking a run up to the land of my Father in Euro Truck was inevitable. Here’s Corbieres heading south across the Firth of Forth with a load of wooden beams from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. This is an area of the old maps that will need rebuilding as the Scottish parliament has authorised another bridge across the Forth because the current bridge was being overwhelmed by the level of traffic. Resembling the Millau Viaduct in France, it is now open to traffic. Tragically, Italy has seen the failure of one of its bridges this week with significant loss of life. It will be some time before the cause of the collapse is known but it seems likely that similar pressures of traffic to those in Scotland may be part of the cause. I show this shot of the Morandi Bridge in Euro Truck with my thoughts firmly with those who suffered loss in this tragic event and my best wishes for the Italian people…

Much of my driving this week has been in American Truck and I’ve been battling the curse of New Mexico. What curse you may ask? In New Mexico I find that there is an added risk that coaches, trucks and the ai in general will drive into you. But I also note that it seems more likely to affect some trucks than others. I’ve been driving the Kenworth W900B which is one of the GTM mods and it’s a big truck. In fact I have to say it feels bigger than the W900L that SCS provide as standard in the game. Now that’s a bit strange as the W900L should be longer with a lower hood than the W900B (unless I’ve missed something somewhere). But the W900B seems to be very wide – so wide in fact, that I was driving down a curving road without a trailer in Clovis and a passing coach clipped my rear fender despite me being on my side of the lane lines! I wonder if there’s a bounding box issue there? But I have also not experienced similar issues with the in-game W900L. If you look at images the W900B looks a very big truck…

Anyway – time for a change. We all know the wonderful Freightliner FLB that is currently in the careful charge of modder Harven. Harven has now released the Mack R600 truck on the Steam workshop. I had to try that one 🙂 Initial impressions are good although the set-up of seating and steering position seems to be a bit ‘clunky’ currently. The finish of the truck’s appearance is great… The interior is either charcoal or a leathery beige which is the finish I went for. Looks great in colour but it also makes a great B&W image…..And how about that arrogant Bulldog and proud MACK emblazoned on the front…

You’ve probably recognised this as the ‘Rubber Duck’ truck and it is a variant of the Mack that starred in the film. Sure looks like we got us a convoy 😉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss