Trucking ‘Old School’ Style part one

I received my latest issue of Land Line Magazine the other day February edition and in it was one article that caught my attention rather quickly.

It’s on page 102 if you get the magazine, but it was called ‘Old School’ by Life Member Robert Esler. Great read BTW, I love articles about how it used to be in trucking it seemed so much better in many ways, but to listen to the ‘old timers’ it’s much better today, at least the equipment is.

The article brought back some fond memories that I had tucked away from when I started driving. Most though would consider me to not be an ‘old school’ driver. But I would say I am, as when I started driving you only had to take an eight hour break, you could drive for ten hours – legally and diesel was Eighty-Five cents per gallon. And I was driving a 1975 International Cabover truck with a three-fifty Cummings engine and a nine speed transmission.

The truck pictured here is identical to the one I drove!

Picture provided by Dennis Shull on Hanks Truck Pictures thank’s Dennis

I pulled a 40 foot tandem axle Benson coal bucket, working for a local owner operator here in Kentucky. We hauled mainly anything you could put in a “dump bucket,” and be able to “dump” the load on the ground. My truck didn’t have air conditioning, unless you consider riding with the windows down, and not wearing a shirt and having a “dew rag” tied around your head to keep the sweat out of your eyes, while wearing “cut-off” shorts being A/C.

The truck didn’t have a Jake brake, or heated mirrors, the windshield wipers operated intermittently all the time because they ran off of an air supply, and it wouldn’t keep a constant flow of air, so I had automatic wiper delay. The engine was “juiced up” so much you could actually see raw fuel blowing out of the exhaust stack, and if you ever got behind me, the fumes would burn your eyes. Every load I hauled on that old truck grossed more than 40 tons, except when we hauled mulch. Mulch doesn’t weigh much, but you get one “helluva” looking load on the trailer.

I still have a scar on my right leg, from a burn I received from the shifter tower, which was metal, and set directly over the engine. The engine had so much fuel turned to it that you could actually mash the gas pedal, and watch the temperature gauge rise in neutral. Drivers back then had skill, it was called earning a living. We did what we had to do to earn a decent pay check, which BTW was sometimes a lot more than it is today. Today’s drivers most can’t relate to this- post because they never heard of some of the things I have and will talk about here.

We had one particular load that I hauled quite often, it was a load of “sorbent stone” short for “absorbent” or at least the quarry called it this because it went to a Marathon Refinery and was used in a filter. The way they made it reminded me of a “black top” plant, with the “kiln” turning as the stone went through it was heated and was very dusty, the dust was needed for the filter to work.

Anyway, if you can imagine driving this old truck, with no A/C and the windows down, pulling in under a huge building that had a vacuum recovery system that covered your trailer. It was supposed to collect all the dust. “Supposed to” being the key phrase here. This BTW, was the last load of the day because the refinery was open twenty-four hours a day and you could unload any time. Myself being hot and sticky from running like a scalded dog literally all day, would roll up under the vacuum recovery system in that building, and get completely covered in this dust.

It only took one time doing it that I figured out the vacuum recovery system didn’t do its job. From then on out I had to roll the windows up, and if you didn’t turn the heater on full blast the dust would still choke you as it came in every little crevice there was in that truck. Also, keep in mind this was a limestone rock, and lime and sweat do not mix very well. The loader operator would have to guess at how much he was putting on you because for some reason that stone varied in weight, and when loaded you would have to go to the scale, and either tarp it or go back for more or to dump some off.

That was also a load we could only haul eighty-three thousand pound gross. The refinery’s rules not ours. Once loaded and tarp-ed, we headed for the refinery, at seems like mach one speed because usually there was about fifteen or so trucks racing up the road to be first in line to unload. The refinery’s silo could only hold ten loads, and anything after had to sit and wait for them to make room. So it was very important to be in the top ten as finishers of the race. The refinery was located about seventy miles away from the quarry and about eighty miles from where I parked the truck. So, again you can realize the importance of being at least in the top ten, upon arriving.

The company we were leased to had all new equipment T-600 Ken-worth’s with Cat. engines, and shiny new East dump trailers. I could easily outrun anyone of these trucks, on flat ground. Therein lies the problem we were not in flat ground. But, usually I could hold my own. Their trucks were governed at around 75mph, mine didn’t know what a governor was. I could run pretty fast down the road, I say pretty fast because the speedometer worked about half the time, then I didn’t really know how fast I was going by looking at it either as it probably wasn’t accurate, but I could estimate it, by the tachometer and it was pretty damn fast.

In the days leading up to time to get rid of that old truck, my boss didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it. So, when the brakes “cammed over” we didn’t replace them. Time came for me to step out of that old truck into my “new” 1974 359 Peterbuilt truck we had. This was a jewel of a truck. It had a four hundred Cummings engine in it, with a number four button in the fuel pump, and two hundred and twenty pounds of rail pressure on the fuel. It had a thirteen speed transmission in it. It would blow some smoke. It had three-seventy-three rears in it, and I would imagine it could run well over one-hundred mph with forty tons on the trailer.

Some drivers would pull up beside me, and look and laugh and point making jokes on the CB radio, until we took off, and then they would wonder what was under the hood, and some instances if I was “burning Kerosene” because of all the smoke. These days, if a tractor trailer is blowing smoke, then usually a turbo went out. I am going to end this article here, but keep visiting as there will be more to come.

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