General Discussion

After 28 years in the trucking industry I am a little surprised by some of the comments I have read here.

I was in it before deregulation and after it took place and as much as everyone myself included expected big changes they did not happen. I was in a very secure segment of the trucking industry so never had to look for my own loads in any part of the country I was in.

But have seen all the loads posted at truck stops and wondered how O/O ever paid for their fuel at some of the rates I have seen posted. I realize how nice it is to get home to momma as much as the next guy but if I would have had to haul for some of the rates drivers are hauling for today I would have hung it up more than fifteen years ago as I did.

The reason I hung it up was health took me off the road. When a driver fails to pass his annual physical he really has no other choice even though I personally know drivers that did not let this stop them they simply found unscrupulous Doctors to fill out their physicals for a price.

I often wonder how many drivers are still out their who should not be driving. For me it meant a totally different career change. I sold my three trucks enrolled in school and became a tax specialist. I have a few regrets like everytime I pass a big rig today when I'm travelling the highways. But only for a brief second. My wife who used to run with me after our kids were grown and gone from the nest doesn't miss it either. It took some adjusting to get used to a life like most normal people have but I'm not sorry.

I remember an incident that occurred about a year before I gave it up where I was travelling up I-15 from LA  on a wednesday night and just before arriving in Barstow saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and pulled over when I saw it was a big rig down in the median that appeared to be alright. The CHP told me the driver was from Michigan and had suffered a heart attack and died. Fortunately he had got it stopped without injuring anyone else. It made me finally start to think I wasn't infallable and it really came home as that driver was younger than me at the time. I thought how awful it would be for his wife to receive a phone call from the CHP or maybe local law enforcement to tell her how her husband had suffered a heart attack nearly 2,500 miles away and would not be driving the rig into the driveway again.

I'ts taken some getting used to trading an office for a big rig but I really would not change my life for anything today.   

Good luck with ye Passengerfan.

I came off Spotted Wolf once on a set of new tires but poor braking one day. I probably had to reduce the life of those tires by 20% because of poor Jake performance but remembered my old mountain training decades ago. Indeed I heard the voice of my loud and profane trainer next to me during the problem telling me what a dum dum I was and that I should do this or that.

Trucking is not so routine, neither is airtravel. When we take a journey it might be all there is for us.

Cheers.

Railway Man wrote:

From 1996 to 2005, rail market share of total U.S. ton-miles increased from 33.0 to 38.2, while truck increased from 25.4 to 28.5. (per BTS).

What's "BTS"?

My thoughts on this entire energy situation:

1.  Everyone talks about alternative fuels.   That's fine but if the alternative fuels are as expensive as oil/diesel are now or in the future, then not that much has been accomplished.  Commerce and consumers will continue to suffer.   The USA has built its economy on rather cheap energy and cheap food.   We're in trouble now because both have gone up.

2.  Other than the increases in energy and food demand due to world growth, particularly in China and India, the main cause of the USA's problems in these 2 areas is due to poor decision making in Washington as well as some of the states, going back many years.   The unbelievable hold the environmental movement has on politics and the news media is the main cause of it.   Therefore, there's been no movement in the USA for years on nuclear power, not enough on the use of coal, and no real major opening up of both the existing and the newly found oil and gas reserves (and the media as a whole keeps ignoring this issue so the average American has no clue that the USA isn't running dry as the  "greens" keep trying to tell us).  Then we get government decisions, appladed by the news media, such as the push for corn ethenol that not only don't work due to the high costs, they actually have a substantial negative impact on the cost of food--not to mention that they aren't turning out to be environment friendly after all.

3.  Some sources at my former employer, a major university, whom I have learned to trust their judgement over the years tell me that the USA could become basically independent on foreign energy other than Canada and a little from Mexico in about 10 years if the government would allow major increases in the USA's energy production and processing of its known sources, let alone what is discovered in the coming years.  It should result in much lower energy prices for all and can be done without any real negative impact on the environment.   But politically they don't see it happening since the Democrats almost to the man/woman aren't going to buck the environmentalists and too many Republicans are afraid to.   

leftytrucks wrote:

Current fuel prices are nearing 80 cents per mile, almost triple what it was 5 years ago. If something doesn't change, our economy is coming to a halt! No, the railroads CAN NOT pick up much of the slack - too many abandoned lines, too many cities with no rail service. Intermodal HAS to ease some of the burden, but... In transportation, it's a fact - move 20 tons in 2 days, call a truck / move 200 tons in 2 weeks, call a train. The sooner both segments learn they are part of the fabric of this countyry, not teen-agers playing petty games, the better off the good ol' USA will be!!!

Well, essentailly, I agree with Lefty.  I'm going to disagree around the edges - but IMHO he's got it just about right. (I don't think the US economy is coming to a halt.  It's going to be slow going, but not a halt.)

Basically, a train and a truck are just two rather large tools that do the same thing.  They produce place and time utility.  What that means is that a head of lettuce grown near Salinas, California is of no use to anyone in Chicago unless it is placed in Chicago by a train or truck and is available when someone wants to eat a salad.  The tools put the lettuce where it is needed when it is needed.

Ideally, we'd have craftsmen selecting the right tool for the right job at the right time.  In this example these craftsmen are the logistics managers for the food distributors/grocery chains.

They can use a truck, or they can use a train, or they can use a a combination of both tools to do their job of putting the lettuce where it is needed when it is needed in the most efficient manner. 

Unfortunatly, we've got a legacy of Federal economic regulation that prohibited the craftsmen from using their tools in the most efficient manner.  Absent Federal regulation we were headed to an integrated system that used each tool, train or truck, to its best advantage.  The Feds put a stop to that, and now we're going to pay the price.

Due to past Federal economic regulation the railroads are undercapitalized and don't have a lot of capacity to be used.  What's the answer?  Well according to the Democrats it's more Federal economic regulation. 

We're going to have to dig out of this mess with more rail intermodal terminals and more rail capacity because those fuel bills aren't going back down.

But we're going to have to dig and that ain't gonna' be fun.

And Lefty, the rails can do overnight delivery on 20 tons at 500 miles.  I did it at the railroad between Chicago and Memphis.  Aside from those few things, you're right.  

ValorStorm wrote:

Railway Man wrote: From 1996 to 2005, rail market share of total U.S. ton-miles increased from 33.0 to 38.2, while truck increased from 25.4 to 28.5. (per BTS).  What's "BTS"?

Bureau of Transportation Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation

http://www.bts.gov

What I find interesting is that we're kind of forgetting trucks run using diesel engines.

Remember, when Rudolf Diesel built his first prototype engine in 1893, the primary fuel was peanut oil, essentially a vegetable oil product. Given the developments with making biodiesel fuel in the last 40 years, we just about have the technology to refine diesel fuel from "growing" oil-laden algae on a huge scale, which means essentially a truly renewable biomass base for diesel fuel. That means even 20 years from now, tractor-trailer trucks and diesel-electric locomotives will still run around the USA, but now we'll refine the fuel from biomass sources instead of from crude oil.

With today's diesel engine technology, they will soon be just as clean-burning as gasoline engines, thanks to better diesel exhaust emission controls to remove diesel particulates and NOx gases. 

My comment may just show my lack of understanding (surely not the first time...), but it seems to me that, once we fool ourselves into thinking that we have it all solved, and we continue to amass our numbers on the Earth's surface, we will still be consuming oxygen.  We will need oxygen to get the algae to do their little thing (maybe not?), and then we will need more oxygen to burn the fuel to have more transportation to get more of us to where we want to go.

You can't fill a bathtub when the plug is out of place.  The plug orifice is miraculously eroding all the while, with the result that it's diameter is increasing.  There can't be a good end to all this.

-Crandell

selector wrote:

You can't fill a bathtub when the plug is out of place.  The plug orifice is miraculously eroding all the while, with the result that it's diameter is increasing.  There can't be a good end to all this. -Crandell

We either have to turn the water on more or take less baths.  I have heard people say that the richest nations should sacrifice some of their economic prosperity to conserve the earth's energy, which they believe to be finite.  Other people say the earth has a self-sustaining principle that will never let us down.

I use 500 KW per month more or less of electricity.

If I can find solar and cover my roof with the stuff and generate at least 1K KW per month off the sun and export to the grid what I dont use in return for income... why.. Im just happy.

Be a very long time before prices fall to where anyone can do this. I understand it takes 25K dollars to build a 3K Kw/month array. 

You think that those van trailers will be good with solar on thier roof and generate power that might be fed to trailer motors between the wheels to assist. But I dont think anyone will want to spend more than X dollars for a trailer anyhow.

Falls Valley RR wrote:

I use 500 KW per month more or less of electricity. If I can find solar and cover my roof with the stuff and generate at least 1K KW per month off the sun and export to the grid what I dont use in return for income... why.. Im just happy. Be a very long time before prices fall to where anyone can do this. I understand it takes 25K dollars to build a 3K Kw/month array.  You think that those van trailers will be good with solar on thier roof and generate power that might be fed to trailer motors between the wheels to assist. But I dont think anyone will want to spend more than X dollars for a trailer anyhow.

Most states I have heard of with Net Metering arrangements will credit you with enough to break even, but dont pay for extra capacity.  There may be some exceptions...some will allow you to bank credit month to month only, some for a yearly basis. 

Solar panels can be purchased for about $5/watt...to get a system for 3Kilowatt hours per month, depending on where you live, would be 3000watt-hours/6 hrs day avg =500 watts of panel...or about $2500 for the panels, almost that amount for the interface hardware (inverters, disconnects, etc) and at least that much for engineering and installation.  $7500 or so...and up.  Some states offer tax credits for installing such a system (most notably California), so do the feds, last time I checked.

If you get out west this summer, the little Town of John Day, Oregon, has a solar fair (Oregon Solwest Renewable Energy Fair) in  late July that is fun to check out...

Interesting idea about powering trucks from solar panels on the top...if you could get 2.2 KW of panels (22 -100 watt panels) you would get about 3 Horsepower out of it...(750W/HP)... but  every little bit helps when fuel is $3.50 or better and you get 8 mpg or less...

Bucyrus wrote:

selector wrote: You can't fill a bathtub when the plug is out of place.  The plug orifice is miraculously eroding all the while, with the result that it's diameter is increasing.  There can't be a good end to all this. -Crandell We either have to turn the water on more or take less baths.  I have heard people say that the richest nations should sacrifice some of their economic prosperity to conserve the earth's energy, which they believe to be finite.  Other people say the earth has a self-sustaining principle that will never let us down.

Turning up the tap would work, except the hole keeps getting bigger.  More people consuming as our population rises means the hole is getting bigger.  These people need to live someplace, so that means deforestation...so less oxygen.  If we begin to build large platforms at sea on which to build cities, less sunlight to the water so less oxygen, less plankton, less consummables...you get the idea.  The problems we face are derivative of our collective penchant for taking up surface area and energy.