Mikes Book Club 2020: Old Dominion Helping the World Keep Promises (2011)

Chapter 2 Old Dominion Trouble With The Unions

In 1946 a union strike that lasted for 10 weeks caused Old Dominion much trouble.

Drivers refused to haul freight, freight sat, bills piled up oh it was awful.

The Union decided to strike and since OD employees were part of the union at the time they too, had to strike.
After 10 weeks of strike OD was in bad shape having not moved.

One of the drivers one night called the Congdon's house and told Earl Sr. That they were sick of the strike and sick of the union and wanted to go back to work first thing Monday. Mr. Congdon agreed and that Monday Old Dominion started rolling and the union was broken at the Richmond terminal. The other terminals started moving the same time even though they were union terminals.

However the strike hurt OD bad and they had to sell there operating license between Richmond and Norfolk for $10,000.

 

Old Dominion Into The 1940s Chapter 2 Earl Jr. Signs on.

In 1946 Ealr Jr. signed on at age 16 to work for the family business. He was taught by old time OD driver Walker Brooks how to drive.

By the end of 1947, OD's stats were as follows:

25 Tractors
35 Semi Trailers
16 Straight Trucks with 12ft bodies for a cost of $2500 each

Pretax Profit $9293.00
Earl Sr. and Lillian still made $4800 a year each.
Which was in addition to the $30,000 the company earned a year from it's agreement with Manchester Paper and Board.

With the company gaining ground and profitability every year things were changing and of course an offer to sell came in at $25,000.

Earl Sr. was ready to sell move to Florida and open a motel.

Lillian did not want to sell and Earl Jr. was enjoying being a teenager in high school in Richmond at the time and had no interest in selling either.

Lillian told Earl Sr, you can sell if you want, but my half is not for sale. Earl said alright fine and decided not to sell.

1948 Old Dominion had a record year $418,400 in revenue.
Earl Jr. Took a load from Virginia to Cinncinatti and Old Dominion did a lot of work for an air freight company and also a freight forwarder which is where the Cinncinatti load came from.

Earl Jr. though was accompanied by Floyd Redmon, which was good because Earl Jr. almost ran the truck out of air going down a mountain and Redmon told him pull over and build up air pressure, Earl Jr. said if Mr. Redmon hadn't said that I just may have ran the truck out of air going down the mountain.

The return trip from Cincinnati was also hard. Earl Jr. Stopped the truck on a hill waiting for a red light in Charleston, West Virginia. When the light turned green the heavy load and the steep hill was to much for the tractor. Earl Jr. couldn't get the tonnage moving.

He woke up Mr. Redmon who was sleeping in the passenger seat.

Redmon told Earl Jr. to set the break and they switched places.

Redmon then backed down the hill, started moving again and drove the truck from side to side up the road, making all the lights.

Earl Jr. Said thank god Redmon was with me.

Earl Jr. at age of 19 went to college and studied Motor Carrier safety and came back to work in the company and Earl Sr. let him make a few minor mistakes, because that's the only way he would learn.

One of them was a drunk driver who Earl Sr. had fired.
Another was the Old Dominion Power Wagon rescue truck that didn't really work out which was Earl Jr, idea, but mistakes must be made.

In 1949 Old Dominion actually took a step back financially, due to huge amounts of money going into capital improvements.

Earl Jr, was in business school full time in the morning and then worked nights from 2pm-9pm as a dock foreman.

As the company took shape and the 1950s came, lots of new big responsibilities would be on the way for Earl Jr. Join us Next Time for Old Dominion 20 years of service 1950-1959

 

The name Old Dominion what does it mean?
The name Old Dominion is actually a reference to the State of Virginia where the company was started it really means Virginia or The Common Wealth of Virginia as they call them selves.

 

You know and I could be certainly wrong, but you see there's like railroad historians, but I've never really seen a trucking historian on TV or video specials. I'm sure there out there @R. Buron is a trucking historian, but like really there aren't many TV shows or TV or video specials on trucking, I mean there are some, but like books and stuff on trucking that's all kind of newish with in the past 30 years will say.

 

I think were going to do 18 wheels North to Alaska next, that sounds like a good one to me.

 

I think I was 8 years old when TNT sold off Holland and they became USF Holland the funny thing is besides the name change on the sign the Holland terminal here in Cleveland has pretty much gone unchanged since then. I think they probably still have some tractors and trailers from the TNT days still in use. @road_runner can verify or attest to that.

 

You know what's interesting little side bar. Celadon finally went down the tubes and they had bought out USF Glenmore in like 2008. Celadon bought out a bunch of companies and now there all kaptusky.

 

How did I get into Mikes Book Club?

Well it all started when @Pintlehook, had mentioned the book Never Stand Still which was the story of Consolidated Freightways, it's kind of a rare book I guess, you can get your hands on it, off of Amazon so I guess it's not that rare, but your not going to find a copy of it in your local book store or at your local library. So I said fine I'll read Never Stand Still. Never Stand Still was not a bad book, but I will say this it was a hard book to read they jumped around a lot with dates it wasn't nearly as easy to read as these Write Stuff publication coffee table books. Never Stand Still was also written by CNF's PR department so there was a bit of fluff there, you know how management always wants to make them selves look good. But it got me started and I thought wow there's books on Werner, JB Hunt, Conway and Old Dominion. I never read the Conway book cover to cover, because if you read Never Stand Still you kind of already know the Con-Way story.

But that's how I got started on this. Then of course I had a couple original projects. Like Cannon Express, Dick Simon Trucking and TNT Companies.

Cannon Express though was piggy backed onto the end of Never Stand Still. I don't know why, Cannon Express came up in the Never Stand Still thread but it did. I also had a habit of putting Alicia Silverstone into every thread back then too. More then one time I think I made a reference to the 1995 film Clueless.

Look there she is, see how that happens that picture was from 25 years ago, I forget what Silverstone had to do with CF, but if any of you reread that thread you can tell me.

Dick Simon Trucking was piggy backed onto the end of The Legend of Werner Enterprises. There is an older thread on here, it's a great one called Dick Simon another Salt Lake Bad Apple, I got a lot of information from that one and a chuckle as well. Dick Simon Trucking though had a cool fleet of trucks to bad they ended up being such a dud of a company they had cool trucks and trailers million times better then anything you see on the road today from a big fleet, so did Werner at one time my how the mighty have fallen. Werner was way cooler in the 1990s and early 2000s. Werner was actually an interesting company for a while.

 

I was going through my old thread on Werner and @Mike_77 was nice enough to put up some trucking recruiting ads from 18 years ago. Take a look at whats changed in 18 years if you like trucking history.
Mike's Book Club: The Legend of Werner Enterprises 1956-2002