Swift - Auto Hauling now??

I hauled about a half dozen dry van pairs that were all tcalls going to Canada . One dropped at the Detroit terminal whatever its name is and I found that obscenely ironic to be taking Hecho en Mexico Chryslers to Motor City .

I was told they stopped the dry van loads because the fat ### Swift and rollback tow truck drivers couldn't crawl under the vans to get the blocking out. The straps they nailed to the blocking would be off the tires before San Antonio leaving them secured by nothing more than Newton's theory .

Too bad because they were less than 9k with long miles and the river next to the road up to Great Falls has some awesome fly fishing .

 

They stopped hauling them in dry van because to many of the awesome swift drivers were damaging the vans. They got tired of claims. So now to keep up with the demand they have other trucking companies come into the Larado TX yard and haul them out.

 

I remember when those Sterlings were brand new. Prior to those (and also in conjunction with those) the auto haulers who weren't using autorail vans had Argosys... I remember inquiring about getting back on with Swift when I got back from Iraq, and specifically getting into the autohaul division, only to be told that it didn't exist anymore... all the assets (and I don't know if this is true or not, but I was told it also included the drivers) went to a company called Blue Thunder, which had been formed specifically for that purpose... IIRC, I read that they folded circa 2009. A good number of those trucks ended up with The Waggoneers (who also have/had a yard in Greer).
Running for the flatbed division out of Eden (NC), I did a fair number of chassis loads and Dodge/Freightliner (now they're all sold as Mercedes-Benz) Sprinters... all out of Cowpens, SC... they had to be imported as CKD kits to avoid the "chicken tax" of 25%... same didn't hold true for the passenger vans. Don't know where the passenger vans loaded out of... I never hauled any of those. I also hauled a couple cab and chassis Sprinters... took those to Winnebago, Fleetwood, and... not Utilimaster (who I hauled a lot of loads for), but one of their competitors... can't remember the name of them.
At Cowpens, you either backed up to the ramp, or you just used the ones you had on the 53' blue stepdecks (if they were still on the trailer... a lot of drivers took them off, and not always at a flatbed yard like Greer, Eden, Phoenix, Shoals, or Gary)... some of the places you had to unload them weren't so bad.. others were a complete pain in the nuts (like the Dodge dealership off Rt. 4 in Paramus, NJ).
As for these ones in question, this isn't the first time the subject came up... there's another thread about these exact same vehicles, with photos to boot... don't remember how old it is, but I remember seeing it. IIRC, it was a 6x4 Cascadia with a tandem trailer and a 4x2 M2/FL112 with a single axle trailer they were using, and it showed the latter piggybacked onto the former, as well.

 

JB Hunt, back in the 90's, used to haul autos in a regular dry box. 6 at a time. They designed this special rig that used the power of the car to raise it, then one would be parked under it, etc. The whole thing could be broken down by one person and stowed in the nose of the trailer, taking about 2 foot of space.

I dont know why they stopped, probably lost the account. It was for Mercades or something.