Hauling Tankers

We always taught 1/2 the posted exit speed maximum.

Some of the older guys used to brag that they could push it just enough to see one outside tandem start to lift.

Being on the east coast, the smoothest guys would be POed if they didn't time the surge and drop down a weight class when getting onto the PA turnpike.

They tried to roll onto the scale [yup PA entrance booths have a scale] as the product surged back making the drives light and get a class 7 ticket instead of class 8.

For years we had 20 foot containers for Merck on 25 ft chassis that had the neck extended three more feet BUT Merck wanted the containers a the rear of the chassis. At the time PA used a portable strip around 6" tall weighing one axle at a time. Raising either tandem 6" made the product flow back making the drives light the forward making the trailer tandem light. Got away with that for years though NJ would grab us on their scale after the water gap.

Platform scales are supposed to be level and I would instruct trainees [usually experienced but not liquid] to stop on the scale and leave the brakes off!

We would walk in to get the ticket and they would be looking back watching the truck roll back and forth 6 - 8 inches; just waitin to run back and pop the brakes before it rolled away. Never did; that's how you weigh the load and not the motion.

 

Petroleum wagons are baffeled and compartmented which reduces the slop too. Pressure and Thermos bottles too. Cyro always said it's rebuild time when you start to feel the product, especially if it has a hard time keeping a vacuum. The caps on a cyrogenic that look like oversize washout cps are not threaded and are held in place by the vacuum between the two shells.

Most everything else is an open bore though some vacuum tanks have a few internal supports. You can't see how clean it is behind baffles; lab guys are finicky, they can see off color in a water white product from the tiniest bit of something else being in there.

 

Well said before any handle gets pulled I point at my compartment and shout the product and then follow my hose to the tank and shout the tank’s product, even if I only have one product on the trailer in multiple compartments. I know I look really stupid to the public’s eye, but never put the wrong product in the wrong tank

 

Better to look stupid than screw the pooch and cross drop.