At 129,000 pounds and more than 98 feet, Burningham’s coal ash hauling tandem-trailer combo is one big custom rig

by Hib Halverson

Photos by author and Paul Hartley

The Burningham guys swapped the stock bumper for a smooth-finish Valley Chrome model, along with a VC drop visor. The headlight brackets and front and rear blinker bars are of the Double J variety. Haulin’ Ash has 250 lights, along with blue neon tubes over every axle and beneath the cab.

Half the electricity in the United States comes from coal-fired power plants, the typical power facility in the West burning 50 tons of bituminous an hour –about 1,600 pounds a minute.

Out of the fires comes ash – a lot of ash. Perhaps surprisingly, 43 percent of that ash, about 29 million tons annually, is recycled for use in chemical products and construction materials, primarily cement. It’s usually hauled from generating plant to cement plant by rigs pulling special 30- to 35-foot doubles. Such rigs’ GVWRs can scale as much as 132,000 pounds.

One of the most wicked ash haulers on the road is a rare 2005 Peterbilt 379X called Haulin’ Ash, owned by Burningham Enterprises of American Fork, Utah, located about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Gary and Jeff Burningham started the business in 1988 to pay for college as owner-operators hauling sand, gravel and anything else they could. Today Burningham has grown to 60-truck fleet hauling coal ash and aggregates. Haulin’ Ash is its pride.

“In 2005, Gary and Jeff were looking for a truck for heavy haul projects,” says Brad Rigby, a Burningham dispatcher. “Jeff ordered a 379X Peterbilt and was lucky enough to get one of the last ones.”

What arrived was a rare, special-edition Pete made only in the ’04 and ’05 model years, spec’ed the way many Burningham trucks are: with a

long nose, 270-inch wheel base, 475-hp Caterpillar C15 Acert engine, Eaton 18-speed double-over trans, Dana 46,000-lb. drive axles with 3:58 gears on a Pete air leaf suspension, 295/75R22.5 tires on Alcoa wheels and polished aluminum, four-strap fuel tanks.

“One day, Gary and Jeff put it in a local truck show and won Second,” says Rigby. “ Once they had a taste of the show truck life, they told Kerry McGraw and myself we could customize it.”

Rigby, Mcgraw and Kendall Curtis, all former company drivers, took to the task quite seriously, burning through what might otherwise be a 10-year project budget in just one. This customized ash hauler’s distinctiveness comes from its killer paint job.

Applied over the stock Peterbilt black Imron is some incredible airbrush work by Dan Langston. The owners’ last name provided the theme for the artwork: burning ham. Thus a big, ugly wild hog trailing smoke and blue flames is on the hood and the back of the sleeper. More blue flame and smoke adorns the tractor’s doors, the sleeper sides, the rear fenders and the trailers.

The interior’s a sick combination of chrome, leather and marble. Burningham's shop added chrome gauge covers and jeweled switch extenders while Contempo Tile handled the intricate black marble cab and sleeper flooring.

Prior to airbrushing Haulin’ Ash, Langston, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, known for his work on custom bikes, had never done anything larger than a pickup. Nevertheless, he finished the combo in 12 hours – an astonishing feat. More of Langston’s imaginative work is on the underside of the hood, where an underwater panorama of a hot-looking mermaid, a giant shark, a Kenworth lying on the ocean bottom, a sinking Freightliner and the two owners, Gary and Jeff Burningham, looking on through portholes.

“The scene portrays the sink-or-swim mentality of the trucking industry of late,” Rigby says.

Burningham’s custom rig has a mere 8,000 miles on the odometer. But that may change. With business slow, instead of buying new equipment they may put “Haulin Ash” to work pulling a set of newer trailers. “The truck was built so it can go on the road,” Rigby says. “If that happens, I hope I can dispatch from the driver seat, because nothing is better than driving something like this down the road and seeing the people’s reaction and approval.”

Besides truck beauty shows and work, Haulin’ Ash has another important duty: motivational assemblies at elementary schools around the Salt Lake City and Utah county areas. Burningham drivers challenge school kids to read more pages in books than they drive miles on the road during the school year. So far the race between the two has been close. We’ll have to wait and see whether the kids can keep up if she hits the road in earnest.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of Custom Rigs.