start food grade tanker mon.

Midland Mi terminal got a lot of those frtlnrs, and some of the Texas terminals,{Houston & Freeport}, and Charleston had some also.

Snuffy Smith had the green Macks, ran an LTL operation like Big R, CF, & Yellow. In Columbus threy had a huge break bulk terminal out on the west side. One of their drivers came over to work with us after Snuffy closed up. Arkansas Freightways took over the terminal and changed their name to American Freightways, and I think now they are Fed Ex Ground.

And we heard all those stories about how Ford was dumping their stuff in the ground. Don't know if they were completely true or not, but when ther eis that much smoke there has to be a fire somewhere.

 

yeah! i remember the freightliners you are referencing. for some reason we had one of the texas freightliners at bridgeport for a few weeks. we had it out on a team trip. (first time i ever drove a truck with a jake brake)

i was meaning to say, "100 conventional freightliner sleepers" possibly the newer style, not the square hoods like we already had.

chemical leaman had a sizeable amount of kenworths (cabover and conventionals) i believe they were 1978's. not sure how many in total.
might have been 5-10 at bridgeport back then. my dad had one of the conventionals, 290 cummins-10speed. torsion bar suspension. they say the cabover sleepers rode rough as hell! even the conventionals came standard with a/c. well, soon after he got assigned the kw, he had take it back to the kw dealer and have the a/c disconnected/removed! the mechanic said that was the first time he ever saw somebody REMOVE the a/c!

also i had never even heard of ford tank lines until that cltl driver in charleston,wv had mentioned them.


Chemical Leaman Has A Loss In Third Quarter
November 17, 1988|The Inquirer Staff

Chemical Leaman Corp. reported a third-quarter loss after taking a $4.7 million pretax charge to cover estimated costs of environmental cleanup at several locations, including two Superfund sites.

David R. Hamilton, president of the Exton bulk-commodity trucking company, said Chemical Leaman had been cooperating with environmental officials to determine ways to perform the cleanup at sites in Bridgeport, N.J., and Caln Township, Chester County.

Hamilton said that when the sites were used by Chemical Leaman, the company had complied with all applicable regulations, but "subsequent regulations and developments have created the requirement for cleanup expenditures.

Without the special charge, Chemical Leaman would have had one of its best quarters in recent years. Hamilton said that revenues and profits from operations continued to be strong but needed to be even stronger because of capital-replacement needs, particularly for trailers and terminal facilities.

The company also said it wouldn't make an offer to repurchase 200,000 of its common shares, as announced in October, because it had not met conditions of the offer, including getting a favorable opinion from investment bankers on the fairness of the transaction to shareholders. The shares were to have been repurchased at $30.40, which is less than the level at which they've trading in recent weeks.

 

All we had at our terminal were the MH COE and the R Model day cabs. Never seen any of the KW's. They all were Reyco suspensions, 350 Macks, cut back to 300, 9 spd, except for 1 older R model that had a 5 spd. They really rode rough. You were forced to use the seat belt just to stay in the seat on some of the roads.

 

yeah the kw's were new in 1978, they may have all been gone in 4 years. before the MH's, they had a lot of cruiseliners. cltl had mostly 5 speeds
from late 60's until 1980-82. i believe the first mack 9 speeds must have been 1984-85.

 

there were 200 kw's in total, they also had ceramic clutches..apparently the shop/drivers didn't like this group of tractors. they were all gone in 1980.

with the 1984's that had the 9 speeds, the wheelbase was increased a lot over previous years. improved the ride quite a bit.

 

Leaman had a funny way of spec'ing the trucks. The R model that was assigned to me when I first started was an 86. It had the old style 'wedgie' brakes with no slack adjusters. If you had to get hem fixed on the road good luck finding a mechanic who knew how to work on them. They were still buying Dayton wheels after everyone else was running Budds.

 

I also work in dry bulk food grade. If you don't mind me asking who do you work for? I am just shy of 2 years experience and once I get my hazmat tanker endorsement I'm going to start looking around. I like the company I drive for, but every six months there seems to be a slow down and whatever progress I've made financially I lose it during the slow down. I know the mills are busy. I know the customers are busy. So why am I sitting at home? Thank you.

 

i drove for ford brothers 1969 to 1978 out cincinnati ohio

 

howdy! can you give more details please? what kind of money you made, local or long distance, etc. good job or bad job? thanks.. union?

 

yea risking your life of course should be good pay, driving is risking it it's self . I'm a little Leary about moving hazardous material honestly I couldn't drive the same . Food grade is up my alley.