long name much easier abbreviated

one of my favorite companies for a long time unfortunately lot of management changes and went under..
back in the 90s into about the early 2000s 1 places if you want to stay out for months on end and run everywhere and have fun was OTRX Out of Olathe Kansas.
optimal transcontinental routing Express
started by Bill and Kathy Ward many people in the office worked for them at the time.
the main fleet was all international longer 9300 then they became 9900 about 1997.
they had short hooded Pete's and short hooded Freightliner Classics too. all colors of the rainbow but it was a great place that didn't run you hard you have plenty of time to get there and you went everywhere and anywhere. they have drivers that stayed there for years and years up until just before mid-2000..
they did something that they really regretted they went from long hauling from like San Diego to Boston down the Florida to Seattle by bringing in this worthless piece of crap from heartland Express to start basically load planning as a head.
and fortunately they lost a lot of great drivers more and more as suddenly you became like another irregular, and carrier most loves that were averaging anywhere from 800 to 2400 miles at a time or turning into 500-mile overnight deliveries..
sadly it was about not too long after that happened that many of the older professional drivers quit and the company started make a very serious downturn..
there's a lot of people I still run into that were friar about 1989 through roughly early 2000s love that 10-year stretch of OTRX.
one of the biggest hits also was out of Topeka Kansas by the old military base when Essex wire folded up that place a lot of changes want to because that was one of Bill Ward's customers bread and butter..but this is report a good trucking company that was a really good trucking company Many people who probably got their CDLand the early nineties I think ran with them at one time or another many people did and many people stayed until the length of haul went way down the toilet.
I don't know if Bill and Cathy are still alive or if they've passed away by now it's been almost 20 years since I left there Frank and Herman I know Herman I believe we've lost he had a heart attack he was a big man did not take care of his health anybody that work there knew that..
I think Gary Hinkle still in trucking and I don't know about Frank.
that's why I really got to learn about Kansas City area but none the less some good times were had to that company and some great miles were run true Coast to Coast I would stay out sometimes two to three months but it was by choice you couldn't beat it if you wanted to be a good old-fashioned Long Haul owner that was the place to be.
somewhere my Trucking memorabilia storage box from when I started in 1990 I have all kinds of stuff especially nowadays there isn't really much worth keeping treasure it but I've got so many great things for my hadeya Trucking but I still have health at 2 and I think I still have some trip settlement sheets from OTR Express a boy when you look at where you went to and those lengths the house it was just Fantastic four solo guys they gave you a whole week to go from Jacksonville Florida to Portland Oregon no problems at all.. didn't have to kill yourself all you have to do is give good communication.

 

it was a fantastic place it really was. up until they hired that goofball from heartland to try to manage the truck locations and dispersion of freight.. name was Jeff I don't remember his last name though but it was about five months after Jeff started that everything changed and OTR Express was not what it used to be..

 

yep we called it the hazmat bathtub lol. directly down there where you would mount a spare tire