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.
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
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).
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.-CrandellWe 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.
selector wrote: 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.-CrandellWe 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 popoulation 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.
Turning up the tap would work, except the hole keeps getting bigger. More people consuming as our popoulation 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.
The United States, almost alone among rich countries, reduced its carbon output last year -- something the Kyoto signatories, ironically, did not or could not do. Kyoto government mandates were less effective than the American market-based approach. Rich countries, too, tend to reduce their population growth; indeed, they tend to drop below replacement numbers.
The ultimate solution to pollution, environment degradation, and overcrowding is purely economic: increasing wealth and freedom.
You have a point, there, Michael. The "better off" people are the world over, the less inclined they are to effect the living that perpetuates the problems.
Ulrich wrote:Sure...but the US has also been the greatest contibutor to CO2 emissions. African countries don't pollute as much as most of their people don't have the "big house and two cars" lifestyle freedom that we enjoy.
No, they have been committing deforestation on an unprecedented scale even as satellite photos show that the United States has, over the past 50 years, been reforesting and even pushing back the historical range of forest cover. Our watersheds now represent the most extensive and cleanest watersheds on a global scale. Our CO2 "cost" per person has been steadily declining for 20 years, even as other nations' continues to increase. Even as the United States continues to invest in control and efficiency measures, each 1% decrease in American impact is met with a 5% increase in China alone, because they don't give a d*** about any of this. China is now the largest producer of CO2 and building more coal fired plants in the next year, than we will in the next 20. Then what?
Yes, poverty and starvation is "an" argument that can be used to offer the moral high ground regarding pollution to the poor and the starving. But they probably would not care to accept the distinction willingly, nor consider it an honor that people from rich nations hold them out as an example of ... something positive when no doubt they see it from the somewhat different perspective that accompanies short life spans and misery.
MichaelSol wrote: selector wrote: 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.-CrandellWe 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 popoulation 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.The United States, almost alone among rich countries, reduced its carbon output last year -- something the Kyoto signatories, ironically, did not or could not do. Kyoto government mandates were less effective than the American market-based approach. Rich countries, too, tend to reduce their population growth; indeed, they tend to drop below replacement numbers.The ultimate solution to pollution, environment degradation, and overcrowding is purely economic: increasing wealth and freedom.
I sure agree with that, but as you know, the richest countries are seen as the cause of the earth's environmental problems including the theory of manmade climate change. They are blamed for consuming more than their share of resources and contributing more than their share of CO2. However, I have to conclude that the blame for these supposed sins is actually assigned on the basis of wealth rather than pollution, since China, a major and blatant polluter, seems to be given a pass while the U.S. is held in the greatest contempt. I agree that the ultimate solution is economic prosperity, but the solution being demanded is the punishment of achievement, rationing of resources in conjunction with an expansion of government, and equalizing the prosperity of the world's nations by taking from the rich ones and giving it to the poor ones. Some speculate that the power that flows from this redistribution is the true motivation disguised as, and being sold as a climate crisis.
<:AtomicElement> I read on the OOIDA web site that a number of the top dog at J B Hunt have sold off large amounts of thier stock in the company. Do they know something the rest of us don't? I know I said before that I have heard truckers complain for years about high fuel cost and low rates but fuel is over $4.00 per gallon and freight is way down with soft rates. Something has got to give somewhere. There is going to be some big trucking companies going under soon. The boys at Hunt must be able to to the big picture.
Let's say that if JB gets burned out by the bad industry conditions and cannot stay in business... Walmart, Railroad Intermodal and who knows how many commercial businesses who contract for regional or day cab local dock service will need to find trucks to carry on.
Let's think for a moment that I am a local grocery chain here in arkansas. I hire JB to supply me with 50 tractors 24/7 to shuffle trailers and move my dry goods and grocery. I pay JB Hunt X dollars plus whatever ....
Warning simple economics ahead....
If JB quit serving my outfit with trucks and drivers, I will have to go out and BUY trucks, HIRE drivers and find a way to pay for it all from Desiel to Payroll at the same rate I was paying JB.
Luckly there is a mass of trucking school stock that dont understand .40 per mile yet. We can get them in for a few hundred dollars week in salary.
If I cannot do it, I will find a trucking company who can. There is always one out there, somewhere in the whole USA starving for cash and willing to drive 2000 miles to get work.
There was at last count when I was in, about 14,000 tractors, 200+ Intermodal Facilties and many many many other parts of the USA "Up to here" with Hunt's work.
It will not be the end of the road. They will always need a truck.
Now what may happen is thousands of people will not be able to earn income each week and maybe.. just maybe call it quits and go work in a gas station at home.
If One big giant falls, the work can be easily soaked up by other Giants and not allowed to splatter onto the unemployment line.
No, I think the stock will be sold. Poor, lazy, non productive drivers fired, old equiptment retired or sold (Dumped onto another company who dont yet understand that they are buying costly expensive shop queens) stock sold, nests built, office people petted down and dead wood removed and a very careful pick of the weekly orientation crop.
While that is going on, safety will go on a crusade, drivers who put a ding in the truck or a cut in a tire will be given time in the oven and made to sweat or even pay out of the wages that damage just like in the old days of gone by.. the old words..' You just boughten this new tire dum dum.. im docking ye 240 dollars to pay for it." ... "But..." ..."No buts, and stop ripping my tires on that street corner!!!"
What can a driver do? Keep on Trucking that's what. The strong roll on while the weak whine and quit all together like a very poorly built frame.
Oh, dont worry none about the Ivory tower. As long thier lives are uninterrupted by such basic problems as lack of work or other problems such as too many bills... things will carry on as always. That stock they sold probably will keep the family fed and housed very well for a number of years if need be until things turn around.
No matter how hard it gets, there are riches for the survivors. Trucking is a feast and famine world. If you dont understand this then you have no place on the road.
I think we're missing an important point in this discussion. That being if the trucking industry did start to implode on itself and companies started folding, that would mean fewer trucks on the road. Fewer trucks on the road would mean less fuel consumed. Less fuel consumed would mean a greater supply and prices would drop.
Granted things are bad in the US and they will get worse. This country has also seen things that are ten times worse, namely the Civil War, Both World Wars, the Great Depression and the 1970s. After all of them we bounced back stronger. This decade does seem a lot like the 1970s but look what came after the 70s, the 1980s and 1990s, two decades of great prosperity. We'll bounce back from these bad times.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
I understand that our refining capacity is strictly limited and that no new refineries are under construction. Those extant are aged....
So, while we will occasionally see the cyclical nature of liquid fuel prices, the trend in any one 24 month period has to be up...doesn't it? Population is on the rise...or is the USA static...don't think so...so more trucking capacity, or hauling capacity, is needed to bring supplies to the markets. That will further impact on prices as refineries occasionally dry up or go broken and supplies dive.
In a global economy, to me it's hard to separate out "rich and free" from others when it comes to "responsibility" for pollution emissions. After all, we've been steadily outsourcing much of our manufacturing capability to countries such as China, who burn the energy to make us air conditioners, TVs and the like. If we in the USA manufactured all the stuff we actually use on a daily basis, what would be the emission for our country? It's the consumer lifestyle that generates the emissions. Where the stuff is manufactured is just a political arguing point. Granted, a lot of the countries where manufacturing has fled have lower regulatory supervision on things like pollutants. But isn't that one reason why manufacturing flees there...along with cheap labor?
Now, not that I'm advocating going back to the stone age, but these national emission arguments seem to me to be a bit facile...albeit a political arguing point.
One the oil/gas price and oil companies front, I do think the oil companies tend to take a bit too much of a hit. The general public has generally considered that oil and gas corporations dominate world reserves and production, fueling record profits and dictating market conditions. Yet Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company ranks but 16th in terms of overall oil reserves. The truth is that while in the 1960's oil majors had access to 85% of the world's reserves, they now only have access to 16%. The rest of it is ruled by National Oil Companies, most of whom are in the "developing" world. In the last 30 years over 40 percent of all oil came from publicly traded companies. In the next 30 years 90 percent of production will come from the developing world- from National Oil Companies.
These "NOCs" are mostly nationalized companies and/or state monopolies and control of the lion's share of world oil and increasingly it's final production. One of things that drives up global prices is their inefficiency compared to the "evil" oil companies, alongside their increasing market share of the production. The fact is that many if not most of these state monopolies are inefficient compared to private companies, and need a lot of infrastructure investment. So world production has considerably shifted from efficient companies to inefficient NOCs. This drives up the average cost of a barrel of oil in a global supply and demand market. Add to this the real super-increasing energy demands of countries like India and China. Global supply isn't as efficient as it used to be, and demand is soaring. It's a global supply and demand thing, and folks, your energy bill ain't coming down much in the future despite what politicians like to say. All this, the detail of the case, too often escapes those caught up in slamming the easiest, closest target - the "big" oil companies.
Which leads me to trains. I think they're going to be an increasingly efficient option based on fuel cost rises, and the crest may have hit on the competitiveness of trucking vs. rail in more and more situations. I wonder how many companies in the next decade wish they hadn't ripped up or neglected their industrial rail sidings?
I agree..the rails would be smart to getting into trucking now. Times are tough and there are no doubt some good deals out there to be had from a purchase standpoint.
Further rail mergers may be unlikely due to the regulatory climate; however, the "new frontier" may be mergers between truckers and railroads.
chicagorails wrote:the railroads should get their own trucking companies.
I dunno....I think they would best stick to what they know, running a rail road. The trends seem to be outsourcing all the stuff that is not directly a part of the core business...that way, when things pick up again they are not saddled with extra infrastructure.
However, it would be a good thing to form stragetic alliances with some trucking companies, just to ensure they can get the products they are transporting to market.
I tend to agree with a previous poster, that it may take a while, but trucks wont disappear...when wages come up enough, there will be plenty of folks to drive. It will just get passed on to the consumer. Some folks may be caught in the middle for a while, but it will settle out...
Anybody else get an email about boycotting Exxon/Mobile and Citgo, not for one day but untill prices come down? I wonder who thinks these things up....
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