Liverpool Texas

Six Days On The Road.

____ Break-up time of year, when ice on the river starts to flow downstream. The warmth in the sun melts the snow and the frozen ground turns to mud. The Ruby Truck Line yard is about 50/fifty; liquid mire and sheet-ice covered by a film of water. About the same state as the peat moss packers at Vassar; where I go load for Texas. It takes five hours to get 17 sendable pallets out of the frozen puddles of snow-melt that surround every stack of peat moss. Low-quality one-way pallets break-up as soon as the forklift tries to lift them leaving the bottom part frozen in the ice. Then there is a two hour wait for customs clearance before crossing the nearby Roseau border and getting down to Fargo for the night. Eleven hours to get to a truckstop that would be just four hours away if the trailer had been pre-loaded.

____ Two more eleven hour days needed to get to Liverpool, Texas, for a Thursday morning delivery. After a night at Iola in Kansas; I phone the plant nursery to tell them of my arrival and to ask about truck parking availability in Liverpool. "Not if you want any diesel left in the morning," is the answer I half-expect but the manager says I am welcome to park on-site among the glass-houses. An excellent offer as the town is south of Houston and in a very rural area close to the Gulf Coast. A local scouser comes out from his mobile home when I arrive. He lives and works on the property like so many others in the horticulture industry. "Manana," he sighs. Which is Liverpudlian for tomorrow.

____ After unloading; the re-load instructions send me twenty-two miles to Pasadena for a consignment of plastic granules; destined for Winnipeg. En-route, I find myself on the NASA bypass; skirting round the vast space centre. I find it puzzling that the rockets launch from Cape Canaveral and the command centre is a Houston; a thousand miles away. A quick load and up to Thackerville for night-out number four. Number 5 at Cubby Bear's at Norfolk, Nebraska, then home. Only a six day trip but a good mileage per day and in some ways a better earner than some of the longer trips that need careful management of logbook hours.

Lonestar Class 8 Motorhome.

Rescue Helicopter at accident on Interstate 35 in Oklahoma.

North-bound Geese.

Chalk and Cheese.

Eleven Day Trip.

____ The problem with the Eaton-Fuller gearbox on Ruby Truck Line #94 was terminal. It needed a re-manufactured transmission and would be off the road for a week. I was quite looking forward to a rest but the office came up with the offer of a 2015 Kenworth T680 and a load of paper to Laredo. Moving my stuff from #94 to #116 in a blizzard was no fun; I took the bare minimum, knowing I would forget something. Which turned out to be the charger for my Bluetooth hands-free headset.

____ The two Kenworths could not have been more different, in fact the only thing they had in common was the same constant-mesh 13 speed gearbox. If one word describes the W900, it is "Raw." Loud, draughty, harsh and no consideration to any aero-dynamics, emission control or speed limitation. "Chamfered" is the word for the T680; every angle designed to cut through the air with maximum efficiency. No sun-visor but it does have a DEF tank and all the latest technology to cut emissions; the first North American truck that I have driven with no stack up the back.

____ The low-line exhaust comes from a Paccar diesel engine that had it's design roots in Holland at the DAF Eindhoven factory. The interior is very similar to the big roomy Volvo cab; full width, full height and a pleasing lack of squeaks and creaks among the multitude of grey plastic storage cabinets and drawers. I feel that the build quality of a vehicle can be determined by a good slam of the drivers door. The Kenworth's closed with a smooth, precise and impressive clunk that reminded me of something German from the 1970s. I instantly thought I was going to like the smoothness and the  quiet of the T680, but would have preferred the rock-solid W900 as I left the yard in near white-out conditions with the wind madly rocking the softly sprung cab.

____ Just 16 months old with 340,000 kilometres on the clock; but the 425 bhp Paccar engine found it hard work with a load of paper that was so heavy that I needed to run with half-empty fuel tanks. Three days down to Laredo, delivering to a warehouse in the old industrial area; near the cotton transfer sheds, not far from Downtown and a stones throw from the Rio Grande. The guy who unloaded me came from Mexico, everyday crossing the river and going through US Customs before catching a bus to his workplace. He didn't arrive until 10.30; saying the lines were long, but he got stuck-in and had the reels off the trailer in twenty minutes.

____ A pre-loaded trailer was waiting at the newer industrial sector at Junction 13; a straight swap, furniture for Calgary. Just mental Friday traffic on Interstate 35 all the way to Salado; where I lost interest in the fight. The Tuesday afternoon delivery appointment gave me plenty of time. An Amarillo Saturday night with Sunday evening at Casper, Wyoming. Forty-seven states will look at the IFTA sticker on the side of a truck and know that the company has paid their fuel-tax bills. But Wyoming is the only one that wants to look at the IFTA permit in very truck's licence book. Every heavy vehicle has to come off the highway and pull into a Wyoming Port of Entry when ever they enter or leave the state. The operatives work 24/7 in checking paperwork that no-one else is interested in. They might think they are doing valuable  work but the waste of time and fuel caused be Wyoming Highway Patrol is astronomical when the total of all the trucks in one year is added together.

____ Bitter and twisted? You bet. Ruby Truck Line #116 has 2017 IFTA stickers but no valid permit in the licence book. Not the sort of thing that is high on your check-list when you are changing trucks in seriously sub-zero temperatures. Fifteen dollars for a 96 hour temporary permit and an hours wait behind the over-size load guys while they fork out for their trips. Out of Wyoming and it's pronghorns, into Montana where the herds of Black Angus are calving a-plenty. No barn, no cowboy, no veterinarian; just wide-open snow-swept grassland. A tough start to a tough life that yields tender beef.

 ____ Calgary is not a quick tip, as the sight of a hand-ball load is off-putting to the RDC operatives. But it is rapid when compared to the reload at Acheson, near Edmonton. Seven hours waiting, while wood-chips are bagged and palletised. An extra day on the trip, which finishes with a delivery at Niverville and the weather is not much different from when I left; snow flurries and ice on all untreated surfaces. Number 94 is out of the workshop and waiting for my next trip; so goodbye to #116 which never showed a check-engine light the whole time I had it.

Ruby Truck Line #116 : 2015 Kenworth T680

Lining up in the rain at the inland border patrol check-point north of Laredo, Texas.

Big sleeper trucks x 2

Coal train : I like trains.

Big Sky Country Montana

Four Bridges And a Tornado.

10 Day Trip.

____ There are no weekends for long-haul truck-drivers; just a couple of days-off at the end of each trip. Leaving home on a Friday is normal and usually means good miles before a Monday morning delivery. A trailer will be loaded and ready for departure from Winnipeg at 3 o'clock. I am certain that the shipping department finishes at three and will time their day so that my trailer is the last bit of work they do before going home to put feet-up for a couple of days. I join the workforce in a battle to get out of the factory gate at knocking-off time with none of them giving a second thought to the truck-load of their product that will be at the Mexican border before they clock-on again.

____ Watertown is the first night-out; followed by a long day in the saddle. On to the Cowboy Travel Plaza, situated to the east of Interstate 35 in rural Oklahoma. The prospect of a brisket sandwich has kept me going throughout the thousand kay day. The Smokey Pokey restaurant used to be buzzing at the travel plaza but with the down-turn in gas and oil exploration, the truck-park is now rarely full. Just a dozen enjoying the offerings of a great pit barbeque; drivers out-numbered by locals.

____ After a big day, it is disappointing to get up and find you have to do it all again. Another thousand kilometres get me through Fort Worth and down the busy-busy Interstate 35. Waco, Temple, Austin and San Antonio to mile-marker 39 and the small town of Encinal. It is not worth going into Laredo as my destination is a customs bonded compound near the Colombia Solidarity Bridge; twenty-four miles upstream over the Rio Grande. My trailer will be taken into Mexico by a local haulier; there is a loaded Ruby box-van waiting for collection just a couple of miles away in another secure drop-yard.

____ Destination Brampton, Ontario, delivery Thursday pm. A diagonal route with many options, but first night at Hillsboro, just south of Dallas, and a time to plan. Most of the second shift on Interstate 40; across Arkansas under hot, humid and cloudy skies with the threat of thunderstorms. The rain starts as I finish; parked a couple of miles east of the Mississippi River at the small town of Hayti in the Road Ranger Truckstop.

____ The alarm on my I-phone sounded at 04.15; which was puzzling, as I had set it for 06.00. But it was a tornado warning alarm and within thirty seconds; the cab was rocking, rain was pelting down and somebody's shed roof came flying out of no-where at 32 feet per second per second and landed on the hood of the truck with an almighty bang. The wind died away as quickly as it came but torrential rainfall continued for over an hour. When I did venture out of the cab; the parking lot was flooded with a mass of floating debris and dawn was breaking.

____ The tornado hadn't touched down in the truckstop but it was a near-miss. Fall-out from the twister was every where. Most trucks suffered dings and dents with one from the Melton flat-deck operation being hit the hardest. The local fire department was busy else where so no more damage was caused when the drivers rallied round and lifted all the mangled steel and splintered timber off of the trucks. I thought I was lucky to get a way with just some scrapes on the hood. I was out of there by 8 o'clock and up to Napoleon, Ohio, for quiet night after a strong tailwind helped me across Illinois and Indiana.

____ Across the toll-free Ambassador Bridge at Detroit and up to Brampton for a trailer switch. Loaded trailer exchanged for an empty one inside 30 minutes before heading back down Highway 401 to London. The next load is from Bay City, Michigan, booked in for Friday morning and going to Winnipeg. Only problem: running back into the US after doing a week's work with out a log-hours reset. Canada's regulations give an average of an extra 10 hours driving time over the US. But I have just enough time to get loaded and back into Canada, via the International Bridge at Sault Ste Marie; any other route would have me sitting-about.

____ This route does have it's disadvantages, slightly longer, three expensive toll bridges [ Blue Water, Mackinac and the Soo ] plus the undulating terrain of the Canadian Shield. But all the loads of this trip have been light weight [ 22,000 lbs, 25,000 lbs and 18,000 lbs]; the card board packaging doesn't slow the Detroit and it's five hundred horses. Trouble only arrives at the very end of the trip when changing into top gear ratio produces a horrendous grinding noise. A quick inspection reveals nothing wrong so I assume that it is an internal problem. Just fourth and eighth gears are affected; I finish the job running along at 45 mph with a high revving motor. Bobtailing back to Steinbach after dropping the trailer in Winnipeg; doing about the same speed as all the other Sunday drivers.

Mack 11 axle rig at TA Hillsboro, Tx.

Trucking for a Cure Kenworth W900, London, Ontario.

Cowboy Travel Plaza just off Interstate 35 in Oklahoma.

Ambassador Bridge links the cities of Detroit and Windsor.

Four Bridges over Great Lakes waterways. One free and three tolled.

Blown-over rig near Hayti, Missouri.

Tornado damage at Hayti, Missouri.

Ruby Truck Line #94 with a shed draped over the hood.

Colombia Solidarity Bridge over the Rio Grande, north of Laredo