Channel 19 tip line: Super sleepers in Penn., electrified tiny highway coming across the pond

Yes, that is indeed an electrified (hybrid diesel-electric, actually) Scania model cabover tractor-trailer with a streetcar-type connection to overhead power lines running on, as Popular Science calls it, a “tiny highway” in Sweden. Elsewhere, it’s being billed as the “world’s first eHighway,” but the scale of the project is indeed pretty well tiny, scarcely two kilometers’ (about a mile and a quarter) worth of roadway outside the town of Gävle.

Scania apparently teamed up with Siemens AG on the project, designed as a two-year proof-of-concept test of both the infrastructure and mobile tech, to determine whether commercial deployment might make sense.

Via Popsci.com:

The trucks can drive as fast as 55 mph while connected to the system, and because they are hybrid trucks, they can still deliver to places not connected to the electrical supports overhead.

The connectors on the truck in the “catenary” system are designed to allow connections and disconnections to happen seamlessly, Siemens says, including when operators need to pass. And look out, ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, they’re coming your way — as we reported in part in 2014, Siemens is partnered with Volvo on such a system there.

With the latest announcements about the Swedish project, the German congomerate noted 2017 for rollout of the California demonstration. Stay tuned.

1983 custom classic 359 at Keystone Diesel Nationals this Saturday

That’s according to owner-operator Joe Bielucki, based in Conn. and whom regular readers may well remember from various prior coverage, not the least of which:

That story was about a run Bielucki’s niece, Paige, took with him that gave him further hope for the next generation and her, well, something of a trucking bug, it seems. At least if I’m to judge from Bielucki’s latest note my way. He and Paige are headed this weekend to the Keystone Diesel Nationals in Reading, Pa., if all goes well.

Main reason he wrote, however:

 In Bielucki’s own words, “This is my friend Charlene Testerman’s truck, ‘Rollin’ Thunder,'” a 1983 Pete 359, “and it is going to be at the Keystone Diesel Nationals in Reading this Saturday. So if anybody wants to see an old-school custom, house-built extra-extended-hood Pete with more than 4 million miles, that’s the place to be!”

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If you can be in Reading this Saturday, find the details on the nationals at Maple Grove Raceway at this link.

Find more about Testerman via this story at LargeCarMag.com.