These pictures were taken yesterday afternoon of a semi trailer parked in the Northern Steel transit yard. Three customised full size vans to be sold to people to use as small motor homes. This customisation process of full size vans was extremely popular at one time with specialised shops operating in Regina and Saskatoon the carried out the conversions to turn these already oversized vehicles into compact livable travel units.
Regina's "Van Decor" has been closed for many year's now and few operations building these conversions remain in operation anywhere as the popularity of full size vans has declined. Vehicles like these use almost as much fuel as full size "C" class motor homes and you can expect to travel about fifteen miles on four litres of fuel, so that to drive one of these to Nipawin would cost you around six dollars and twelve if you wanted to come home.
This is what railway folks call a "Wellman Crane". It is a self propelled crane that most often would be called into service when rolling stock goes off the rails. Because of their boom and power capabilities they usually travel less then twenty-five miles an hour but once on the scene they can get a lot done. In maintenance situations units like this are often employed to spot rails along the track, spikes, tie plates and other supplies for extra gang work and they will be put to work when bridges are put in place or other things such as replacing a frog in a switch. This one was parked in Tisdale yesterday along with three locomotives.