Ive always been curious about these trailers

Old long gone Carolina Freight. Still see a few of their old silver trailers sitting around the country side laying low as storage trailers down here in these parts.

Friend of mine and ex co worker’s older cousin retired pretty dang comfortably from AbF 5 years ago after almost 35 years on San Antonio routes.

 

Every one of the trailers were hand lettered . Mr Beam took pride in his equipment

 

Always loved the hand lettering from those times. Lost art. Always admired the Yankee trucks of the Northeast with all the gorgeous pin striping and gold leaf. Another lost art.

 

Thanks for posting that. I tried to find a photo to no avail but when it comes to navigating the Interweb I’m kinda like a CR England trained Swifty driver pulling an Amazon load trying to hit a parking spot at a Pilot. Not very good and definitely not Pretty. Kind of funny how Swift has taken the heat off JB Hunt and Schneider.
Those set back axle fords were some of the first I saw. Each one of those tractors was essentially painted three times to get the red white and black scheme. I always liked the reefers we had that had snow and ice cicles hanging of the Carolina logo.
You are correct, the paint schemes logos and detail painting was really something back then. I still see evidence of it when I run east on some of the dump bucket outfits.
If you note too, there is no exhaust stack on the power unit. Up until the last days most units were horizontal exhaust, we were always told Mr Beam didn’t want exhaust marks on his trailers

 

Quit your day job and become a transportation historian. You should seriously consider writing an illustrative book.

 

No I am dead serious. You are an incredible writer and story teller. You did this write-up of TNT (my old parent company that I work for) and I am like "I've worked for 10 years for this outfit and this dude knows more about my company than anyone in my company".

Start your own webpage, get a good domain, and you can 100% monetize this. Or at least do a paper book. Half of this forum willl back you.