At the time I was out of my usual trade but I am back in it now, hauling produce (and a lot of other types of freight) out of places such as Salinas as a truck driver.

Haven’t seen any trains on those old spur lines that run through the packing houses yet. That’s probably because the price of diesel came down a bit. (There is a unit train that runs produce between the southern San Joaquin Valley in California and New York state.)

But now I read about a new system developed in Germany that could revolutionize the business of hauling truck freight on the railroads, and, to be clear, I am talking all types of freight.

(I’ll quickly add here that putting truck trailers on the railroads in the United States has certainly been around for a long time. I recall seeing them back when I was a little kid in the 1950s (piggy back). And intermodal freight is bigger than ever these days. You see train after train with not only truck trailers but intermodal containers that can easily be transferred from ships to trucks to trains without disturbing the freight.)

There’s a new system or device developed in Germany. It’s called the CargoBeamer. Basically tractor-trailer rigs drop their trailers in a line next to the train cars on platforms that, once the tractors are gone, slide onto the train cars. It is said that once the tractors are out of the way, all those trailers can be slid onto a 36-car train in about 15 minutes. It takes hours to load normal intermodal freight by cranes. Now I know a 36-car train would be rather short by for U.S. standards, but you get the idea.

I read about this on the Der Spiegel (English version) website. For the article, just Google: CargoBeamer, Der Spiegel.

I don’t know what implications this has on the freight industry in the U.S., but it is interesting.

Coinciding with this I have been reading about how private truck fleets who normally haul only their own products are starting to make more efficient use of their trucks by hauling outside freight for back hauls rather than coming back home empty.

As a real life example, I have noted recently that Foster Farms, an outfit that ships one heck of a lot of processed chicken (and turkey) out of Livingston and Turlock, Ca., and Kelso, Wa., is having its drivers pick up bananas as a back haul out of Port Hueneme, Ca.

That’s ironic and curious seeing as how as a truck driver for a common carrier I haul their (Foster Farms) products from their plants and then vie for banana loads with them at the port.

What is happening is that private companies are being forced by natural economics to build in more efficiency.

Most observers feel that due primarily to geography and timely delivery demands in the U.S. conventional long-haul truck freight hauling will remain the primary mode of transport for some time to come. But there has long been the intermodal business and economics may well cause it to expand greatly even at a faster rate than it obviously has over the last many years. You only have to observe the trains with many of them being nothing but solid loads of truck trailers and/or intermodal containers to see the expansion.

There has already been somewhat of a shift in long-haul trucking towards more regionalized service.

Trucks continue to have the advantage of speed of delivery from point to point and they offer shippers a mode that is more practical for smaller quantities than are usually required for rail shipment.

Tighter federal government restrictions on drivers and continuing proposals to cut allowable driving hours per day along with escalating operation costs that have forced many smaller carriers out of business have restricted the capacity to haul freight in the trucking industry. That should be good for the carriers that exist when it comes to freight rates, using the rule of supply and demand.

(However, as anecdotal evidence to the contrary, I just heard the other day an owner-operator truck driver grumble about a backhaul, saying it only paid him enough for fuel if he was lucky — but of course that beats going back to your main haul empty and getting nothing. On the other hand it does not seem like a good business model.)

The government certainly has a strong role to play in overall transportation policy and safety rules and in some kind of support for transportation infrastructure, but the law of supply and demand and forced efficiencies due to operating costs made by the private sector seem to be the best way to solve the problem.

CORRECTION:

In an earlier version of this post I inadvertently used the word vertically, but really meant that the trailers are slid horizontally onto the train cars.

I have 15 years of experience in primarily over-the-road truck driving . It’s hard enough to make money with the 11-hour drive time, or even the previous 10-hour time, but 8, I don’t see it. While it might seem like it would be nice to have an 8-hour day, that is unrealistic. Besides, how nice would it be ? You’re out there on the road. You don’t walk in the door and say: “Hi honey, I’m home.” You go into your sleeper or the truck stop and wait for your next driving round and with the severely reduced drive time it would be that much longer till you see home sweet home.

The main problem, besides a cut in pay, is that you won’t be able to get there from here. Long haul is long haul, not short haul.

It’s hard enough to make the minimum amount of miles — as we know, over-the-road or long haul is by-the-mile pay — under the current rules, let alone the maximum. If the hours were cut to 8 you really could not afford to drive, unless the companies paid more. Now if the 8-hour rule went into effect, eventually they might have to. But that would severely up the cost of shipping and have a profound effect on the whole system, with shippers possibly looking for new modes or systems of transportation as they did when that big fuel spike hit a couple of years ago. But it would not necessarily mean that shipping would become more efficient. Really, fast on-time door-to-door service which is available via long haul under today’s rules is about as efficient as you can get.

Sure there are problems with fatigued truckers, but those problems could be solved if shippers and receivers and trucking companies and their customers and even law enforcement all worked together. Unrealistic shipping schedules and unrealistic expectations by some drivers and shippers and receivers lead to most of the problem. And I will admit or contend that because all those groups did not do a good enough job in cooperating we have come to this point.

In the name of road safety and driver safety, the issue of fatigue needs to be dealt with, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water here.

The demand of economics has improved the efficiency in trucking since I started. In my own job I have nearly 100 percent no-touch freight so I do not have to waste time and energy with loading and unloading (except for wait times, and I’ll get to that in the next sentence). I’ve noticed that some shippers and receivers have speeded up their process (some) and sometimes I get one of those gadgets like you get in the restaurant that lights up to tell me when they are done, so I don’t even have to go into the warehouse and I can catch a nap during the process.

One receiver I go to frequently has cut out the unknown in wait time. While I still think the wait is far too long, I know what it will be. It’s always three hours, no matter what. At least I know and can plan accordingly — and it used to be longer.

Long haul is difficult. Please powers that be don’t make it more so.

As I mentioned in the beginning, although it is known that a proposal has been sent to the White House, details have not been released. But it is known that groups supported by, among others, the railroads, are always trying to mess with trucking. The Teamster’s Union also wants to mess things up, but it does not represent long haulers. It would like to do away with long haul and get the work for the terminal-to-terminal consolidated freight outfits it already represents. Nice for the union, but not so nice for all of us who depend upon a living from the long haul world (and long haul can’t be unionized, I suppose, because by the time they got done its whole purpose would be lost). Also it would be not so nice for the general public, already burdened by the Great Recession, who would see a substantial rise in the costs of goods from increased shipping costs.

And I don’t think that I am alone in this — that is to say, I feel that as a baby boomer, a child of the 50s and early 60s, and as someone who by some measure is more of an introvert than the opposite, I have lost my link with a world I once knew but that has moved way beyond me.

Yes, I blog. And yes, I talk on a cell phone. And yes, I don’t read newspapers as much as I used to (and I once worked in that field), and yes I surf the web.

But all that aside, I have been feeling increasingly isolated in the world in which I live.

And now I feel guilty about bothering to comment on my loss and isolation. I’m the survivor.

Just as my spouse had her health problems and demons, I have my own — a lingering and ever-threatening cancer, Waldenstrom‘s Macroglobulinemia, a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is incurable — and that sense of isolation.

But I am alive and she is not.

(And married people take heed. I have witnessed this before in life. My wife worried a couple of years ago that she was going to lose me. But she died first. My dad worried at one time my mom was passing when she had to have major surgery. He died at 85. Mom is still alive at 99. My mother in-law feared she was about to lose her husband, but he survived her.)

I was on the road when my wife died. I had seen her 24 hours earlier before coming home to find her passed away.

My only consolation is that at our last brief meeting and parting — she brought me a meal in Tupperware and a plastic bottle of milk — things were pleasant and I gave her a parting kiss and thanked her for staying with me all these years and promised to leave the road behind (both of us knowing that such a promise would be hard to fulfill, though theoretically not impossible). My being gone on the road as an over-the-road truck driver was a continuing source of friction.

We were married as mere children — nearly 43 years ago.

After our life experiences neither one of us would have recommended marrying as young as we did.

But I look back with only one regret and that is that I could have not shared more years with her.

Together we started a new generation, and the light of her life was getting to see and take care of the latest addition of the still next generation, who is just more than a year old, and to be with his two older siblings.

And such is the way of the world — a new life begins and an older one ends.

But I did not answer my original question — how does the survivor in marriage go on?

I don’t have the answer, but she was there beside me that first lonely night in spirit and my eyes played tricks on me and I actually saw her.

And I know she will never really leave me.

P.s.

And I have never been able to come to grips with whether there is a Heaven or afterlife, but I want desperately to see her beckoning hand when at last I take my final breath.

Joan (Geeter) Walther, Dec. 11, 1950 to July 28, 2010

Yes, you could simply allot three of those hours to breaks and the rest for work. The current law does allow 11 hours driving (as opposed to the previous 10-hour limit). But dispatchers and shippers and receivers know how many hours you have available and schedule pickups and deliveries accordingly.  Also, if the competition works those hours, you have to. And if you are an owner-operator you really feel compelled to work all available hours (and then some).

Personally, as a company driver, I have felt the 14-hour rule works to my advantage for the most part. Under the old rule one could quite legally stretch his log book out and virtually work around the clock.

Even so, the 14-hour rule does seem to pressure me to forgo normal breaks — and that can’t be good.

Some drivers would like to see a more flexible rule that would allow one to stretch out that 14 hours, such as not counting some break times in that 14-hour limit.

And I think flexibility is the key here. Long-haul trucking by nature is irregular and no one can actually break down the job accurately in 15-minute increments as the log book calls for.

Especially if you pull a refer van (controlled temperature freight) you know what I am talking about. You might check into a place to pick up produce and actually have an appointment only to be told that your product is not ready yet. Meanwhile, you have an appointment elsewhere. So you have to go over there and check in. But it’s not ready either. You spend time going back and forth and a lot of time simply lying in your sleeper (but not necessarily for the whole 10 hours straight in order to re-qualify for another 11-hour driving stint). And ,by law you have to be in your sleeper, not sitting in your seat or even outside, because if you are, then you have to log it on duty, unless it can be shown you were on an actual break, and that is a grey area. You could quickly eat up all of your allowed weekly duty time (70 hours for 7-day per week operations). Not only would you not be able to get your freight delivered, but you could well be stranded out on the road and not be able to make it home.

And still another problem: What if you have to wait so long at a shipper or receiver that you have run out the 14-hour clock, but the shipper or receiver has a rule you must leave when done or there is really no room to stay anyway? I don’t think there is a clear-cut answer on this, but it does happen.

While owner-operators would not likely try this, some drivers have talked about following the letter of the log book rules to show those in charge that you can’t get there from here by following the law. But all that would do would be to risk your job or risk not getting dispatches with good mileage. And since long-haul pays by the mile, you cut off your nose despite your face.

And on this subject, I understand that log rules and monitoring of those scale pre-passes are getting special scrutiny in Oregon and Washington. The pre-pass is great for legally scooting past the scales, but it is also a tattle tale when it goes off when the scale is closed. Big brother knows where you were and when.

Watch what I watched a few minutes ago and you might change your mind.

These days, I have read, it has become a status symbol just to have a job – any job.

I was getting something out of my car in the apartment complex where I now live (we had to downsize from a house to an apartment – we like it though). A young couple was dumpster diving, gathering all the recyclables they could in plastic bags. The guy said hi and told me “it’s a rough way to make a living”. I had seen an older man and a younger man a few days ago while I was out for my morning walk doing the same thing.

You could say, oh well, people make their own life choices. But really, especially in this economy, it is only by the grace of God, yes and maybe some decisions you made along the way, and luck that you are where you are now.

I truly think that as a nation (a world?) we are in another Great Depression. It may not be as bad as the last one or, in fact, it may be worse. But a lot of people whose lives have not been terribly affected yet, and especially that insulated class we call our leaders, don’t realize the misery much of society is going through.

On a happier note and related to all of this, I am back at work again truck driving. Unfortunately I am not at my last job – I had to go back to a previous job and am making half or even less than half as much as I made at my last job. But I’m not complaining. In fact, I am hopeful that I can keep working, and that will depend on two things: the economy, and my health.

I noticed a lot of businesses along the road boarded up. I was going to stop at a café I used to stop at out on Highway 97 in eastern Oregon, but it was no longer in business.

But maybe truck driving is still a good skill to have. I recall reading The Grapes of Wrath, a book set in the Great Depression. As I recall, it begins with a guy hitching a ride with a truck driver. When a lot of other people were out of work in those days there were truckers out on the road making money.

Well, so do I.

And I spent 12 years over the road behind the wheel of a big truck.

While I cannot say that I know the complete solution for this problem, I can say that what causes it is pretty obvious. One truck is usually going about one mile per hour faster than the one ahead of it, so the driver goes to pass, but that takes quite awhile. And if the driver in the slower truck inadvertently or on purpose speeds up, it takes a lot longer and may never happen at all.

This subject came to my mind when I read what appears to be a new regular column in my local newspaper by a local Highway Patrol officer. He began his column by laying out the scenario: “You’re traveling down a two-lane freeway in the fast lane (known to law enforcement as the no. 1 lane) with your cruise control set at 70 mph. Approximately a quarter mile ahead of you are two commercial big rigs in the right lane (no. 2 lane). The big rig that had been following the other moves into the no. 1 lane. Now for the next few miles you sit there and simmer as the big rig slowly passes the other truck.”

So far, so good. He described the phenomenon we all have experienced. But that is just about where he left it. Oh, he went on to note that in California the speed limit for big rigs and other vehicles towing trailers is 55 mph (compared with 70 mph for other vehicles on most freeways). He also went on to say that in California the law is that regardless of what the speed limit is, slower vehicles, even if they are traveling the speed limit, have an obligation to go to the right and let faster traffic pass.

Well that might answer the question of where the law is for the so-called “speed monitors” who travel the posted speed limit but refuse to get over for cars going a little (or a lot) faster, but it does not address that first situation he described about the trucks.

Well here it is: on relatively flat ground, most truckers are going to be going as fast as they can or as fast as they can get away with (kind of like most other drivers). In California and other states with a split speed limit, 55 for trucks and 70 for cars (in California), there is a built-in problem in that no matter where a truck is, it is going to be holding someone up.

But the problem we were looking at originally and I will zero in on is those two trucks in front of you hogging the lanes in what looks kind of like a race of two snails. While in California the truck speed limit is 55, the average big rig is probably traveling about 60 mph – I don’t care what anyone says, that is the de facto speed limit for big rigs. Some truckers are in a hurry because they are paid by the mile and my experience tells me that 5 mph difference can make a big difference in pay over a pay period. They may be also pressured by dispatchers to get a load delivered or picked up by a certain time (you could ignore the pressure, but who wants to lose his or her job or get a short pay check?). And then 55 is really awful slow.

But while I have waited this long to get it out, the real problem here is some kind of physics or traffic science problem I can’t explain, but I can describe. I used to think how foolish it was of me to pass another truck when I was only going a tad faster than it was, and I also knew that I risked getting a citation. So, sometimes I would slow down a little and drop back with the intention of resuming at least a speed of 55 mph (not 60 – didn’t want to catch up with that slower truck again). But what will happen every time is this: after everything settles down I’m going 45 mph, maybe behind some partially disabled car. If I speed up, I’m back behind another big truck. That does not work and is not good for fuel mileage (constantly changing speeds) or even safety.

The only solution is to do one’s best to keep running at a steady, but safe (and legal) speed and pass when one must and one thinks the job can be done in a relatively short length of time.

I think split speed limits amount to accidents waiting to happen, but except out on the open desert, 70 is probably a bit fast for big rigs (and I know some will do it and faster even so), but 55 is a tad slow when the rest of the traffic is going at least 70. As far as one truck passing the other, even if all the truckers tried to do the posted speed limit, such as 55, not all speedometers agree with each other (you’d be surprised at the variation), so there would still be the situation of one truck going a tad faster or slower than the other. Yes you can drop back, but then that causes a chain reaction in all the traffic and the truck driver winds up going not just 55, but 45, like I said (and I don’t quite know why).

The only answers are common courtesy and obeying the law on the part of all drivers no matter what type of vehicle they are driving.

P.s.

Speed limits vary by state. Some trucks go extremely fast. But most big rigs owned by companies, as opposed to independent drivers, are electronically governed anywhere between 59 mph and 65 (especially on the West Coast). Why not 55? Don’t know if it is true, but the old story is that at least one company did cut its trucks down to 55, but the Highway Patrol complained they were going too slow, holding up traffic (I think that may have been in another state, not California, if it’s even true).

Note: this same text, along with a host of other subjects is posted on my general commentary blog at: http://tonywalther.wordpress.com

————- 

German carmakers and auto dealers have been facing the same problem as their counterparts here in the USA, a major downturn in the car market resulting from the worldwide financial crisis. But In Germany now the government is paying car owners to junk their older cars (9 years or older) and in the process buyers can reportedly save the equivalent of as much as$3,300 to buy a new car. Dealers have reported an upsurge in sales. And there is hope that it will get older polluting vehicles off the road. Meanwhile the used car market has sunk further.

And here in the United States:

As I take my daily walk down the street I often see cars and pickup trucks with for sale signs on them parked along the curb or in vacant lots.

I wonder why our government has seen fit to get into the business of selling new cars (the auto bailouts and the Treasury Department guarateeing warranties off all things) when so many are shedding the ones they have, but can no longer afford.

I am not at all sure there is much of a market for new cars. We may well have an over supply already. Of course a lot of people would likely prefer to have a new car but cannot afford one now with the recession (or depression).

It seems like the market place should determine the fate of the auto business.

As to all the new incentives, such as offers by the auto companies to make your payments should you lose your job, extended warranties, and equity protection, well that is maybe a good deal, but the buyer surely pays a hefty price at the other end of the contract. It is a big insurance policy. I would say that if you expect you might be losing your job, now is not the time to be purchasing a new car. As to the warranties and equity protection, if the American manufacturers had been making superior products, they would not be necessary. Maybe the era of planned obsolescence and making the big money in parts and repairs is coming to an end, hopefully.

And don’t get me started on the repair con jobs. I went to my foreign car dealer to get my door fixed and found out the guy wanted me to sign on the dotted line to just look at the problem (minimum half hour labor) and at the same time he is telling me that they likely would not be able to fix it. I refused to sign, so he looked at it for free and told me he could not fix it. I took it to a body shop and they fixed it in five minutes for free (I had done business with them previously). I’m no mechanic, but I was a truck driver and knew from experience that adjusting a door that won’t open and close properly is usually about a five-minute job (unless there has been major damage). What I am trying to say here is that many of us go into auto repair places and get ripped off because we have little idea of what they are doing (to us).

But even though I have a negative attitude toward the car business – oh and one more story: many years ago I haggled with a car salesman who claimed he was going to give me a super deal on my trade in that no one else was willing to give. But when I suggested that he was simply tacking more dollars on to the other end of my contract he sheepishly admitted to it.

However, back to the auto business itself: it is important and I have no doubt it will survive. I think it could have done so without government help. It might mean different people running it, but where there is a demand for a product, certainly there is a viable business opportunity. As I have written previously, one of the big mistakes of the domestic manufacturers was to not be flexible enough to meet changing demands in the market place.

….Just read a blog by a respected economist – Pulitzer Prize winning one – who said what I and so many others have suggested. The bank bailouts are not working because the bankers have been just taking the money and paying themselves. I am referring to the big banks that took the bailouts. Okay, you want a source for that. I’ll break here and look it back up. Here it is: American economist Joseph Stiglitz, interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel. 

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and many others, to include Warren Buffet, contend that simply letting the major institutions go bankrupt would have been a disaster. On the other hand, many, many economists differ, saying that bankruptcy would be the answer.

My contention would be that governments should stay out of directly funding and/or running businesses, although providing some incentives might be wise.

Taxes are always the big problem. Almost no one wants to pay higher taxes or pay taxes at all for that matter. But all who benefit from living in the United States must expect to pay their fair share, be they individuals or businesses. Equity is what it is all about. And few agree on how to get there.

That’s what one trucking industry official predicted recently.

You can read about that in the 4-27-09 online issue of Transport Topics. I did (there’s also a link at the end of this post that may or may not work).

On the heels of my last post in which I predicted the possibility that long haul trucking will see its demise, that and other things he said were interesting to me.

James Hebe, of truck maker Navistar, said that rising fuel and equipment prices and the increase of electronic log books and their possible requirement on all trucks is the big threat to owner-operators.

“This is the death knell of the owner-operators. They can’t survive by running legal.” That’s what Hebe was quoted as saying in an article by Jonathan S. Reiskin, associate news editor for Transport Topics.

I thought that was both candid and profound.

Be they company drivers or owner-operators, most long haul drivers are likely to admit to cheating on log books (if the police are not in earshot). It is not so much greed as it is more a matter of survival. You can’t always get there from here legal. And most drivers experience the reality that the first to get to his or her destination for unloading is the one who gets re-loaded the quickest (although dispatchers and companies sometimes play favorites with some drivers for various reasons).

Drivers will also tell you that if they try to drive legal they find that dispatch is slow in giving them a re-load. Sometimes drivers are not fired, they just find themselves without loads or with fewer miles.

Also, it is not uncommon for trucking companies to speak with forked tongues. On the one side of their mouth the safety department says drive legal. On the other side of their mouth the dispatcher says “do the best you can; we need that load there as fast as you can get it there” (if you know what I mean, wink and a nod).

No one that has never hauled freight, especially the kind with multiple pickups and/or drops, can understand the obstacles long haul drivers go through and the waits and then the unrealistic delivery times and so on.

I know a safety director for a trucking company who is fond of saying about log books: “there are the kind that are legal and there are the kind that will pass audit. I prefer the kind that will pass audit.”

When it is all said in done, though, I have to question why drivers want to let themselves be run ragged (ruin their health), going on four or less hours of real sleep, working for free on loading docks or sitting in a truck waiting because they only get paid per mile (or a waiting time wage or loading/unloading wage that is only sometimes paid and that does not compute to even minimum wage), and working six or seven days per week. The answer is usually that it is the reality you have to face if you want to keep your job. And now with the job shortages and the freight shortages, there is more pressure than ever, I suppose.

Anyway, that article I read (and I suggest you read too) says that long haul will transition into regional and dedicated hauls and more coordination with the railroads via intermodal.

I personally see another variation. Some companies might seek more owner-operators by offering improved pay or settlement packages in order to maitain lower overhead in equipment costs.

Actually, all this might be good news for experienced drivers. I would think it would portend better paying jobs and better working conditions.

I spent 12 years out on the road (that’s not much being as I met a lot of drivers who had been out there for 30, 40, 50 years or more). The last job I had was for a large LTL type carrier (consolidated freight picked up locally and then hauled by line haul between terminals) as a line driver. Their hours were often long, but the pay was excellent (and I was paid for all the time logged in – no reason to cheat on the log book; in fact doing so when you are paid for all work would be counter productive) and working conditions were good, and the company people treated me well.

P.s.

If this link works, you can get that article I referred to by clicking here: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=21792

If that does not work, just Google Transport Topics.

Until or unless we find some drastically different way of moving goods trucks will of course be needed for local and even regional delivery and I imagine long haul of some goods will continue for practical reasons.

But during last summer’s diesel spike that saw per gallon prices move toward $5 many shippers started looking more seriously at using alternative means of transport, namely the railroad. Also I read one story that said that some goods coming to America from Asia that had heretofore been unloaded at Pacific Coast ports to be trucked across the nation were instead being shipped via the Panama Canal to the East Coast. The trip was somewhat longer, but the savings in fuel costs made it worth it.

Also during that fuel crisis it was reported that the produce industry in Salinas, Ca. was looking seriously at refurbishing the spur lines into the packing sheds. One packer said he recalled shipping by rail back in the 70s.

Today a freight forwarder called Railex is shipping produce via a unit train each week (and is set to add one more) from Delano, Ca. To Rotterdam, N.Y., just west of that state’s capital city of Albany. Railex also has a shipping facility at Wallula, Wa. that loads produce rail shipments destined for New York state.

The price of fuel came down, but the economy crashed in what has become the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Freight levels continue to drop. The major trucking companies are reporting losses. And one small trucking company official told me that everyone is undercutting each other in rates. Good for shippers if they have anything to ship.

Of course you still see the freeways heavy with truck traffic. But ask any long haul driver lucky enough to be out there with a load and he or she will likely tell you that the wait for a return load once the destination is reached is often long.

While railroad freight, especially intermodel (truck trailers and often double-stacked containers), is down considerably, I notice from the vantage point where I live that the Union Pacific trains are hauling a steady stream of truck trailers and containers (that might otherwise be going up and down the highways).

I just read a recent article that noted that the Norfolk Southern Railroad has received financing from the state of Virginia to help it rebuild its infrastructure, the idea being to unclog the I-81 corridor through the Shenandoah Valley (and I suppose be green by reducing truck traffic too). The state estimated that within 10 to 12 years truck traffic on that stretch could be reduced by 30 percent.

And that same article (possibly planted by the railroad lobby – I don’t know) suggested that with an investment of $500 billion 85 percent of the big truck traffic on the nation’s highways could be eliminated by 2030.

One the one hand, knowing what I know from working in trucking (I am not now) for more than a decade, it is kind of hard to imagine all freight going via rail (save for local delivery), especially with the model of  ” just on-time delivery” that shippers and receivers have worked with for so long.

The whole industry has been used to being able to ship relatively small orders rapidly straight through from shipping door to receiving door and of being able to place shipping orders at the last minute (no need for time-consuming train or ship reservations).

But the pressures of environmental concerns and fuel efficiency and availability is pushing the freight shipping industry toward railroads at the moment. The continued economic decline is raising havoc as well.

I am not at all against trucks. I was a truck driver for some 12 years. Trucks certainly have an edge on speed of delivery. I note that unit train only promises five-day delivery from California to New York state. I don’t know why that is, but I do know that I hauled a load of oranges along with a team driver from Porterville, Ca. to Massachusetts in about two and a half days.

No one can accurately predict the future, but I do think that long haul trucking will not continue the way it has been operating for the past several decades and will likely lose ground for many types of freight.

If the economy were to surge back though it would be interesting to see if the railroads could really handle the volume. They certainly could not at first because the infrastructure is not there. And if the economy was booming they might continue to be more selective and not be so excited to handle such a variety of freight.

Sometimes when things are not going right and the whole world seems to be falling apart around you, what you may not realize is that somewhere else people have it a lot worse. And once you are made aware of that you may feel kind of foolish or small (but maybe not better).

I think such was the case ten years ago, April 20, 1999.

It was a hot day in Los Angeles. That’s the way detective Joe Friday of the old Dragnet show might have put it.

I was a long haul truck driver. Among other things that day, I had a tough time backing in at a super crowded and narrow dock with all kinds of obstacles, such as a fire hydrant. No damage and no one hurt, but it took awhile. And then I had to wait a long time to simply pick up one pallet of organic bananas that had been sitting out on a hot loading dock (they were rejected at the other end). Finally I got out of there (and technically this was in Fullerton, but the whole LA basin, which is virtually all paved over, is all LA to me) but something was wrong. My refrigeration unit on my trailer was not working and I had much more produce to pick up (Oxnard and Salinas, probably, I don’t recall that for sure). So, the powers that be sent me to Vernon (still LA to me) to a refer repair shop. Glad I wasn’t paying the bill. At the time is was $100 just to have them look at it (wonder why your food costs so much?). I was there for a couple of hours at least (I don’t remember what the total bill was, but it was big). They tore apart the whole refer motor, literally. The guy had it in small pieces all neatly laid out. Now the computer built into the unit tells them what is wrong before they do anything. I can read the computer. It said a switch was defective. The switch was on the outside of the unit. When I swung by my home terminal in Northern California later, a refer mechanic there shook his head. He said the job should have taken all of but five minutes (breaking down on the road is costly).

While I was waiting at the LA refer repair place I could not help but think, being a long-haul trucker I was not making any money. I only got paid by the mile.

The customer waiting room was a cubby hole with a ratty chair and a TV set and, as I recall, it did not have air conditioning. It was at least in the high 90s outside. A truck driver was sitting in the chair and seemed to be mesmerized by what was on the television screen. I asked him what it was. He said there was some kind of shooting incident or attack on a high school.

Well of course that turned out to be the infamous Columbine High School shootings at Littleton, Colorado, where two teenage boys went on a rampage and shot 12 of their classmates and one teacher and wounded 23 others.

The thing that stuck out in my mind out of all of that was how long the police waited to go in. I know this ground has been covered by me and others, but that still bothers me. According to reports I have read it took more than an hour and a half for police to move in. The perpetrators had already killed themselves sometime earlier.

Of course had the police rushed in like the Russians do in hostage situations and killed innocent people in the process they would have become the villains.

But there has to be some type of compromise and tactic worked out to save innocent lives. In light of recent incidents, it does not seem that has been worked out.

But the theme of this post is when you think you have it bad, others have it far worse. Certainly in my case what I was going through that day was trivial.

And knowing that someone has it worse than you do may not always make you feel better. I was just making an observation.

P.s.

I just read an article that says there were many myths built up by various news reports. It claimed that there was no evidence that the Columbine murderers were outcasts or that they were picked on at school. It said that actually no one really knows why they did what they did. I have no real idea myself. I can only conclude that the two were psychopaths and did not separate the make believe world of things like video games and and cartoons and TV dramas from real life. Unfortunately on that dark day back in 1999 they made an unbelievable horror come painfully true.