Gasoline Loading

Yeah, there're just on the west coast. But you would love them I guarantee it. We go into the same gas stations as anyone else in fact we can get into the smaller stations where a semi would not fit. I know it's looks like it would never turn to get in or out but they're set up so the trailer tracks closer to the truck than a semi. You can figure that anywhere that truck (with no trailer) can go the truck and trailer will also go. We do not have any fifth wheels to deal with and there are 2 pivot points. Both are located at the center of the truck, one where the pintle hook is on the back of the truck and then the turntable under the trailer. The turntable is fixed to the drawbar and can not be unhooked. The trailer will track closer to the truck than any other truck I've seen. The trailer only tracks maybe a couple of feet over from the truck when you turn. You can see all of our trucks if you search Mark Wayman west coast tankers where the first trucks are ARCO trucks. All of those photos are of different companies in Las Vegas with different types of set ups.

I have no idea why the east coast has not allowed these types of trucks. They go into the older stations, you can maneuver better, and the weight is spread out better. The only draw back I see is the truck and trailer is 85 feet long. They ride real well with all that weight on the truck and they bounce much less. Also with 8 axles I can stop better. If you look close you'll see a drop axle right behind the steers. We only drop that axle when the truck is loaded. It takes a lot of weight of the steers so we can be legal. But you learn real fast to never drop or leave it down when empty. You'll have a hard time turning especially if it's wet and/or there's ice on the ground.

 

Now you're rockin.

 

That sounds great if all are working all the time. I know my company (ARCO/BP) would have an issue with loading the ethanol because they came up with the idea that it cost too much to load ethanol at the start or ending of the load. It dealt with temperature and how the ethanol would cool the gasoline after they monitored for the temps. I don't remember all of it but they forced the pipeline to adjust their meters to load ethanol periodically thought the load. You might start injecting at 8% then go to 15% then back down. However they did it when you finished loading a compartment say 3250 gallons the load was at 10%. If you think that's messed up have the rack crash while your loading. You can not dump the load back because it has ethanol. It can not go into transmix because it has ethanol. The only ways to fix it is to calculate how much ethanol you need and start from there and you'd better be right. If you were to get rid of it that mix it would have to go out as hazardous waste. That happened once when a common carrier mix ethanol with diesel. We had some hassles but we were also paid by the hour, every minute.