Weirdest place to deliver?

Hey, awesome! I get to go there for the first time on Friday!

Lucky me. Caves give me the creeps. I've seen too many zombie movies/played too many zombie games.

 

A chemical plant on strike is my newest weirdest... Went to Stepan in Milldale, IL, they've been on strike since friday, and the supervisors are attempting to run the plant....ahahaha. I arrived at the entrance and was meeted by a picket line and 4 cops and 2 security guards. The picketers were giving me the finger, yelling at me, and shaking their signs at me, the majority of which said "SCABS!!!!!!!". The cops were keeping them in lne, and the security guards were waving me into the driveway!

i guess i was on the load because it couldnt be delivered yesterday because the other driver couldnt get past the picket line....but the customer realllllly needed it.

*shrug* i guess i should feel bad in a way....

we were there for 7 hours because the supervisors didnt know how to unload a tank.....lol.

 

It's pretty tight in the Independence caves. Slide your tandems all the way up and use every inch when taking turns. I hate going in there with a large road tractor. I've delivered explosives into the caves just north of there at the Lafarge plant a bunch of times before. Those caves are completely unfinished so they don't have any lights, no concrete floor, and water is all over the place. The first couple hundreds yards you can't see a thing because your eyes are trying to adjust, especially if they just got done blasting because of all the dust that gets kicked up reflecting your headlights back into your eyes. The floor is covered in 4"-16" of grey muck and you have to try to count the pillars so you can find the explosive trailer stuffed somewhere in the cave. Once I got stuck way back in there and had to walk back out to find someone to come pull me out. It sucked walking for a 1/4 mile in about 16" of muck. It does get a little creepy when your down there alone. I don't envy you, but if you take your time, it's not too bad. Good luck.

 

I worked at Pearson Airport in Toronto a long time ago. Lots of weird shipments coming through KLM. Weirdest was "the amputated leg of Eileen XXXX".

Toronto has a few weird spots. First Canadian place has a Turntable. Drive your trailer in and it spins the truck around to line you up wit the dock.

I live in a mining town and have made loads of deliveries in there of all kinds. Last week we delivered 110 yards of concrete. They are going to rip all that up next week. 110 yards of concrete for a temporary lay down area.

I delivered loads on a winter road last winter. You haven't lived until you cross a snow bridge. That is a bridge completely made of snow over a creek. Driving across a frozen lake is nothing compared to driving over the hummocks and muskeg. Sometimes 10 km/h is too fast.

 

I've delivered to caves in Independence, Liberty, and Kansas City.

The caves on Independence Blvd just off the 291 were the worst. As stated, put your tandems up all the way and take every inch you can if you have a sleeper truck and a 53' trailer. It's tight, dark, and the walls aren't that straight (they curve in at the top, so avoid topping your trailer). The dock locations have no pull up room so everything has to be done in the dock spaces. And, as stated, it's dark when you try to hit a dock so it's difficult to judge depth and sidewalls.

Weirdest place I picked up was a volunteer fire dept.

 

Oh, heres a fun one. Unilever in Hammond, IN. We go there all the time, its nothing special, but there pump in the railroad shed is broken, and they really need the product out of the cars and in the main building, and have no way to get it there. So they want us to very slowly unload the rail cars into a tanker and drop the tanker in the unloading racks. Problem is a rail car has a rated capacity of 24000 gallons and our regular road tankers hold 7000 gallons (single compartment smooth bore). So thats 4 loads since the tanker doesnt have to hit the road. They can unload 1 or 2 a day. It's an on going project for the local guy, but he's training me...soo....

Oh yeah, and it has to be pumped out of the rail car and can't be aired off. All of our trucks have PTO compressors only with no pumps...except for this POS green Mack daycab. And the regular driver of it is on medical leave, and he was a pig...truck is quite nasty and we had to take a lot of crap out of it to even make it so my trainer fit in it.

Dispatch told us to use 80 feet of hose, but we couldn't get ahold of that much hose, so we looked at the situation a couple days in advance, while they were steaming the rail car, and got the customer to get the railroad to come out and move the car out of the shed, and we dropped the trailer on the tracks next to it, and put the "big green monster" behind it, to use two hoses....




i wonder what the dry van guys driving past us thought of this scene..haha.

 

10-4. Tandems are already up, light load. I'll just make sure to never leave 3rd. Frankly, weirdness aside, I'm sure it can't be any harder that some of the ridiculous crap I had to do pulling 40' cans.

 

YES What memories, geeesh it`s been so long I almost forgot those places.

 

To the Bat Cave Super Trucker!!!

 

Geospace! Been down there before a few times. I think they were old limestone mines. During the cold war they were fallout shelters as well as warehouses.

That place will get your attention in a big big hurry!