Autocar Truck

Bucyrus is the red dot below Oregon.

____Day 1: Down to Mauston, Wisconsin, with a load of cardboard. Highlight of the day; an Autocar on Interstate 29. A rare long-haul sleeper cab pulling a step-deck. Autocar have been making trucks for over a century; one of the first companies to offer bespoke construction to a customer’s specifications. Part of the White-GMC Group in the eighties; they specialised in tippers and garbage trucks. This would make the Class 8 tractor over 30 years old. Awesome growl from the side-winder exhausts made me think it had a V8 CAT under the hood.

Autocar, Southbound on Interstate29

____Day 2: Parked overnight next to a couple of British-driven Searcy Volvos; I leave long before they do and head for the first drop in the town of Oregon, Ohio. Dan and Neil have mid-night deliveries at Bucyrus, also in Ohio, but need to be working until the early hours of Monday. With only 14 hours allowed in a spread-over; they will delay leaving until noon.

Blade Runners.

____Day 3: With four drops well spread out across Ohio and New York State; I need to push on if I want to get three delivered on the day. A day of using the toll roads, something the company doesn’t encourage, but it is quicker and two sections of the New York Thruway get me to Buffalo and then Rochester just in time. The driving time is maxxed-out at Oneonta after cutting across to the toll-free Southern Tier Thruway.
____Day 4: Rain and mist, as I tackle the narrow, twisting roads through the Catskill Mountains on my way to the final drop at Dover Plains. My wallet not escaping unscathed as I encounter another toll; the Rip van Winkel Bridge across the Hudson River. A valuable asset to the State of New York; tolls are collected for crossing the Hudson at every bridge and tunnel. When empty; it’s a short drive to Middletown for the first of four re-load pick-ups.

Toll Bridge across the Hudson in Up-State New York.

____Day 5: With the US Government trillions of dollars in debt; toll roads could be the next big earner for the States. Germany, Austria and Switzerland all charge trucks for driving on their motorway systems. France, Spain and Italy have done so for years. Missouri has just applied for permission to put toll booths on all of Interstate 70, within the State. I bet, in the next five years, all trucks in the US will be charged to use all the Interstate Highways. But I have a toll free day; east on Interstate 80 through Pennsylvania; picking up at Warren, Ohio, before taking US Highway 30 to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Amish Buggy in different direction from the sign.

____Day 6: A consignment of automated chicken feeders from Milford before continuing to Chicago, through the Amish acres of Nappanee in northern Indiana. Porcelain sinks and toilets fill up the trailer at Woodridge; before I call in at the Rockford Volvo dealer. Mr Ramsden is about to spend his fourth night waiting for repairs to his truck after hitting a deer in the Western Suburbs. We go for a meal before I continue to Osseo.

Damage to Searcy 202 from Deer-Strike in Chicago Suburbs.

____Day 7: It’s not unusual to be delayed by a problem with customs paperwork. The more pick-ups; the more customs entries and the bigger chance of somebody getting something wrong. Today, it’s the chicken feeders. All the way up Interstate 29, I’m trying to get confirmation that it is good to cross, but end up sitting at the border for two hours; and all this on top of a two hour delay on the Minneapolis/St. Paul ring-road during the morning rush-hour.
____Overall Distance: 6002 km.

Double-Trouble for Conway on Interstate 694.

Car Transporter of the Week.