Fucked About.

____Waiting Days. After logging-off on March 21st; the next log sheet was started on April 13th. So what the hell was going on? The same question I was asking the office; every other day for over three weeks. No new Volvos turned up and no idea when they would. I was getting fucked about by the office. The office was getting fucked about by the Volvo dealer and the dealer was getting fucked about by the factory. The only thing that I could figure out for the delay was the colour of the trucks. White and they would have arrived on time; but the special order for dark red metallic paint caused the problem. I did think about taking my services else-where but when the office said they would pay me $100 a day for waiting; I didn't even have to throw any toys out the pram. Only! I didn't get a new Volvo; I got #26, the 2011, Peterbilt 386 to drive [again]. In the Good Old Days; getting bumped-off a new motor would have been a major issue. But with all the clean-idle DEF emissions' crap and automatic transmissions of modern trucks; an older vehicle can be a better option. Any-way; I have to drive what I'm given and #26 is not a bad motor.

High winds caught out this empty Cascadia of Gordons from Washington.

____Day 1: Out the yard on a Monday morning after a swift pass with the vacuum cleaner in the cab and sleeper. Then down to the border and a place on the end of  along line of trucks heading into the States on Cargo Monday. I have a load of 6 foot-high cedar trees from a tree farm in British Columbia; so I was expecting the load examination that all living things have when they enter the US. I didn't expect that they would find a rogue beetle in the trailer. It was three hours before I  could leave. Invasive Species is a hot-topic at borders now. My beetle was photographed and the image e-mailed to an insect expert in Seattle  for identification. Luckily, the beetle already had some relatives in Indiana and wasn't considered a threat to the ecology. Strong side-winds accompanied me for the rest of the day as I tried to make up for lost time but only reached Wilson just before mid-night.

Jack's Tires, South Beloit, Illinois. Fitted new tyre without taking the wheel off. Saves on re-torqueing.

____Day 2: A thousand kilometres to the first drop of three and all goes well until South Beloit, Illinois. After fuel and a shower, I come out to find I have a flat tyre. Why don't I ever see these things when I arrive at a truckstop? The nice lady behind the counter of the Flying'J gives me directions to Jack's Tires, five miles across town. I bobtail there and back inside an hour; but the tyre is un-repairable and I have to buy a part-used replacement. Then it's another late finish as I park outside my first customer at Columbus, Indiana.

Menards Store with Garden Centre on the left.

____Day 3: Menards are a big chain of hardware, building product and gardening superstores. All three of my drops are for Menards in Indiana; Columbus, Bloomington and Evansville. I am empty by midday and would normally have gone in one of the stores for a wander-round; great tool section. But after coughing-up $250 for the tyre, cash is short and the re-load is four hours away on the south-side of Nashville. The Lewisburg factory loads trailers 24/7 and operates a system where the driver drops his trailer and a factory shunter takes it away to be loaded. It is a two hour wait but I have enough time to get back north of Nashville and a night at the Oak Grove Pilot.

Norbert Dentressangle Mack operated by Jacobson Transportation.

____Day 4: A thunderstorm wakes me up at dawn; rain, heavy enough, to postpone a parking-lot dash for coffee. But in one way the rain through-out the day is a blessing. My used re-cap drive tyre is a barely-legal tread-depth mis-match and had been running very hot; the cooling wet roads will stop a blow-out, I hope. A big day is needed if I am to get home Friday night. Black River Falls arrives just as 11 hours ticks round on the driving-hours clock.

Stop posing and clean that wind-shield.

____Day 5: Only 20,000 lbs in the trailer, which is just as well because there are head-winds all the way home. I meet Mr. Ramsden and his brand-new Volvo in Grand Forks. The latest Brit to pull the trigger on a new truck and start life as an owner/operator. He is swearing about the head-winds ruining his fuel consumption figures; pulling an 11 foot 9 inch oversize load is not helping either. Funny how he never used to mention this sort of thing when he was a company driver.

____Overall Distance: 4737 km.

The start of the planting season for the air-seeders is the earliest since records began in the Red River Valley thanks to an early thaw and very little snowfall.

Back to work: Flying Eagle to Eagle Pass.

____Day 1: Off-work with a busted shoulder for 144 days. The clocks changed and then changed back again. One way of side-stepping the Canadian winter as I pulled out of the yard with a temperature of plus 8 degrees C. The same truck as before; fleet number 26, 2011 Peterbilt 286 pulling a trailer load of quilted fabric. Destination: Eagle Pass, Texas, a job I had done before with the goods being trans-shipped for an onward journey into Mexico. Good to get back into the swing of things with something familiar and undemanding. Things go well; the border crossing, fuel at Grand Forks and then a long push down to Percival, Iowa. A late finish on a Sunday evening at the Pilot Truckstop.

The geese are headed back North.

____Day 2: The road to Texas is much the same but much has changed at Flying Eagle while I was away. The founder of the company sold-out to the owners of Schroeder Freight; the same week I had my accident with the trailer door. He has started a new career in selling trucks and I wish him the best of luck. I always have huge respect to guys who go out and start trucking companies. Long hours, massive work-load and often very little reward as they create jobs and put money in the pay-packets that puts food on the tables of the families of numerous truck-drivers. But some things are still the same; shit still happens. On a lonely stretch of Oklahoma highway; a steel spring breaks and the air-lines to the trailer axles fall from their flexible suspended position under the trailer. Rubbing on the ground soon allows the air to show through. The first I know about it is when the brakes come on; by then it is too late and I'm on the hard-shoulder with problems. An improvised repair gets me mobile and into the truckstop at Stringtown. The casing from a ball-point pen, wrapped with electrical tape and held in place with a pair of mole-grips and a g-clamp is not a pretty sight but does form an air-tight seal.

Military bobtail.

____Day 3: A proper job with a couple of Jubilee clips; done in the early morning light and I'm on my way into Texas for the first time in nearly a year. When the Flying Eagle trucks were pulling for Payne Transportation; the work was mainly to Florida and the South-east US but when Schroeder took over, the link-up with Payne was ended. Eagle Pass is an old pre-Payne job. Austin, Texas, is its usual slow-moving self; made worse by the annual South-by South-West Music Festival. It is getting dark when I arrive at Eagle Pass which now has a Pilot Truckstop all of it's own.

Norbert Dentressangle spotted on pumps in Texas.

____Day 4: There is plenty of time to relax and get the cab straight as I wait until 2 o'clock in the afternoon before the trailer is empty. An E-mail arrives to tell of a reload at Laredo, two hours away across country and down-stream on the Rio Grande. E-mails on the I-Phone is another new development; company cell-phones for drivers. At last a north American trucking company has seen the advantages to be had by giving phones to their drivers. What took them so long. Across the part of Texas that was the location for the Oscar winning film: No Country for Old Men. But it is a changing landscape, as oil and gas exploration is going ahead; full steam. Heavy oil-patch truck traffic which means filthy-dirty roads made muddy by low-cloud mist and drizzle.

____Day 5: Laredo is the same edgy, heaving mass of trucks; all with their own priorities. Get in, get your load off or on, get out. I am getting a load of Mexican-made light-fittings from a trans-shipping warehouse on Export Drive. Loaded and away by noon. Customs papers sent to the office by Scan Genius; a useful little app on the I-Phone. Then it is back through a heaving Austin, a trouble-free early evening crossing of Dallas and back up to the Conoco at Stringtown.

____Day 6: Oolagah, Oklahoma, and a coolant hose splits. Engine cuts out to avoid over-heating and I am on the shoulder of Highway 169 in a town named after baby's first word. Two fill-ups of water and I get into a truckstop. The misbehaving pipe runs from the water-pump to the Tri-Pac. The leak is directly below the turbo, inside the chassis rail; a knuckle scrapping, wrist-burning, bastard of a place. I let it cool for an hour and a half; then get to work with repair tape, a Jubilee clip and a couple of bottles of leak-stop. Multiple stops on the way to Percival confirm that the repair is holding tight. The whole cooling system is now full of water and a little bit of anti-freeze; luckily the spring weather has an over-night temperature of plus 5.

Wing heading South

____Day 7: Still plenty to do; but with just two breaks at Sioux Falls and Fargo, I'm back in the yard by 7 o'clock in the evening. The header tank on top of the radiator stays full and with only 18,000 pounds of cargo; the truck goes well. Much to my surprise; there is a reception committee waiting back at Niverville. Nathan is wanting the trailer for onward delivery to Calgary. Harry is ready to jump into Number 26 and head down to Ohio for a Monday morning delivery. I explain to each of them about my problems and my repairs before they set off. Harry says that Number 26 is now his truck.
"What about me?" I ask
" Oh, you're getting a brand new Volvo next week. Didn't they tell you?"

____Overall Distance: 5870 km.

Peterbilt pulling a train.

Marmon-Herrington Trucks.

____Here is a selection of photographs taken from publicity material published by Marmon-Herrington during the 1930s. The company specialised in all wheel drive vehicles and made adapter kits for many other makes.

Before Astran: Middle-East Trucking in the 1930s.

____Here are a collection of old photographs that I found on the Internet. They are of Marmon-Herrington  and other vehicles that were part of the Nairn Brothers Transport company. Gerald and Norman Nairn started their transport business just after the end of World War One and ran an overland passenger and mail service in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

Nairn Brothers longest run was across the Syrian Desert from Damascus to Baghdad.

The Marmon-Herrington trucks were made in Indianapolis and tested on the Indianapolis 500 racetrack.

The all-wheel-drive 6x6 trucks were originally used to build pipelines for the Iraqi Petroleum Company: IPC.

The Marmon-Herrington trucks were first built in 1931 and fitted with a 150 horsepower Hercules air-cooled diesel engine.

One guy fixes the truck: seven guys pose for a photograph.

The Nairn Brothers favoured passenger carrying trailers for their desert-crossing service.

Marmon-Herrington also supplied trucks to West Coast logging operations in Pacific Rim forests.

Nairn also ran a freight-only service.

The 68 foot long and 20 ton truck/trailer combination was the World's largest passenger carrying vehicle.

Thirty passengers travelled in the air-conditioned trailer while two drivers and a local Bedouin guide rode in the cab.

There was a customs and passport check at the Syrian/Iraqi border; one of the few stops on the 20 hour trip. 

The trailers were luxurious with high-backed aircraft style seats and beds. Refreshments were served by an on-board steward.



 The drivers were British, American or from Australia and New Zealand. Most had served with the armed forces in the Middle-East before working for Nairn Brothers.

A photograph from the 1957 book; First Overland by Tim Slessor. The story of driving Land Rovers from London to Singapore.

The big lights on the cab roof helped the trucks run through the night. The open-sided hood helped keep the engine cool.

Trailers could carry two tons of freight with room at the front, in the back and on the roof.

 

 

 

The RAF commandeered the Nairn fleet during World War Two.

 

White Trucks were also used.

 

A tough truck was needed for a tough environment.

 

Although it was a cross-desert run; the rainy season could cause problems.

Tyres were a big problem with a life-span of only 5000 kilometres.

Luggage label.

 

 

Inside view of a luxurious passenger trailer.

A publicity postcard from Nairn transport.

A 1970s Scania-Vabis continued the tradition of  desert-crossing artic-buses in the Middle-East.

This Foden pulled a passenger trailer in Australia.

An AEC, another artic-bus in Australia.

Commer artic-bus, again from Australia.

 

 

Destination Icebike.

The race route in the centre of Winnipeg; marked in red.

____"It's all about the journey and not the destination" is an often heard phrase and one that I agree with. It is what roadtrips are all about. But as I started my journey back to physical fitness; I badly needed a destination, something to aim at and make all the effort worthwhile. Entering a bicycle race that has part of the course on a frozen river and part through snowy woodland might not be everybody's idea of a fitness test but it was all I could find. The last week in February seemed a perfect time, two months after starting physiotherapy and the road back to a fully functioning left arm.

____Icebike 2015 is the fifteenth edition of the race, put on by local bikeshop; Woodcock Cycle Works. It raises funds for the Lung Association; through entry fees and sale of tee-shirts. There are seven race categories; ranging from a short course for 7 year-olds, up to the 18 kilometre race for adult cyclo-crossers and fat-bikers. The event is based at the Forks in Winnipeg, the place where the Assiniboine River joins the Red River of the North. A meeting place for centuries and a popular first date rendezvous for Internet dating couples. But on a freezing Saturday morning in February; it is over-run by cyclists dressed as Darth Vader.

Norco Bigfoot Fatbike.

____Christmas dinner was about as bad as it could be for my left arm. I could hold a fork but not get it up to my mouth. Physiotherapy started with the new year; three sessions a week and they gave me a pulley to fit over the bedroom door, so I could exercise everyday. I joined the "Snap Fitness" gym as well. This gave me much needed cardio-vascular exercise; spinning on the stationary bike, walking on the treadmill and striding on the elliptical trainer. With nothing else to do; I went every day and concentrated on getting fit and getting movement back in the arm.

____The Steinbach Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Clinic proved to be very good for my arm. Ken knows shoulders and slowly, bit by bit, he has got more movement out of my shoulder. Sometimes with ultra-sonic waves, sometimes with acupuncture needles but mostly with brute force and considerable pain. I started to notice little improvements; I could reach the seat-belt in the car, I could stick my left-hand pinky in my ear again, I could do Village People karaoke songs. I didn't tell Ken about the bike race.

Wrapped-up.

____Icebike was a good excuse to buy a fat bike. Four-inch wide tyres are not essential for the race but they do make riding on snow and ice a whole lot easier and much more fun. I bought a Canadian-built Norco Bigfoot, disc-brakes, aluminium frame and those wide wheels that allow you to ride on snow, sand and anything soft. Daily trips to the coffee-shop helped with fitness and acclimatisation to riding in temperatures of minus 20 degrees centigrade. "What to wear?" was the biggest problem. Enough stuff to keep warm needs to be balanced with the prospect of over-heating with all the physical exertion. I never managed to get it right and eventually resigned myself to the fact that I would come home soaked in sweat. Several layers of clothing was the best option; technical t-shirt, cycling jersey, fleece and a wind-proof jacket with the pit-zips open for ventilation. Thick Merino-rich woolen socks, insulated boots. A Ninja-style micro-fleece balaclava under my cycle helmet. I would have liked to have worn sunglasses but found no way of stopping my heavy breathing from fogging them.

Icebike 2015 Fatbike Class.

____It was minus 23 on race-day with plenty of ice-skaters out on the prepared trails that run from the Forks; along the Assiniboine and the Red. Crossing the polished ice-trials was the trickiest part of the race. Riding on the snow-covered ice of the river was not too bad. The cycle-tracks on the river banks was hard-packed snow and no problem for the Bigfoot. On the other hand; the deep snow on the narrow track in the woods was very difficult and tiring. It was three laps of six kilometres; doesn't sound a lot, but it took a lot longer than what I had trained for. I finished eleventh out of 14 in the fatbike class and fell off once. Really enjoyed it, glad I made the effort. A big "Thank-you" to all those that made it possible. Thanks to Cougar my pit-crew and photographer. A mention for fellow Brit, Amy Cooper, who won the woman's race. Well done Amy!

 

Icebike 2015, The Forks, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Number 111, a good trucking number.