Mike's Book Club: JB Hunt The Long Haul to Success

I have seen that video, I would have to believe that there was plenty of shippers who were using non legal means of transport of there goods to market.

 

Chapter 4 Part II

So we rejoin our friend Mr. Stier who is sitting in the smoke filled break room at the J.B. Hunt terminal in Little Rock, AR. The year is 1991 and great changes have happened with in the past decade. J.B. Hunt is now the largest and biggest and baddest operation in North America and just won the head to head war with rival and fierce competitor Schneider National Carriers of Greenbay, Wisconsin.

Mr.Stier is waiting for his next assignment from dispatch when he hears his name to report to the dispatch window.

The dispatcher slid's him his paper work at the window and he now has his new orders.

Mr. Stier walks out to his 1991 International 9700 "Bus" truck and fires up the engine and eases around the yard looking for the trailer he is supposed to pull and it's number. When he finally finds it, he see's it on the repair line. Drat he thinks just more trouble.

Mr. Stier pulls the air break on his tractor and shuts it down climbs out of the cab and walks into the mechanic shop. He walks up the counter and strikes up a conversation with a mechanic about trailer ####### and shows the mechanic his paper work.

The mechanic says "I don't know, let me check."

The mechanic gets on his radio and radios into the walki talki. A voice from somewhere says "Yeah er uh that one won't be ready for a while yet."

Drat another strike out think's Mr.Stier as he climbs back into his tractor and drives it back around to the lot terminal building.

Back to the dispatch window Mr.Stier goes where he hands back his paper work to the dispatcher telling them that the trailer is on the repair line and the shop won't have it done for a while.

Dispatch pulls out another packet of papers and hands those to Mr.Stier and says "Here try this one."

Out again and up into the tractor Mr.Stier climbs. He drives around the yard again and finally finds the new trailer he is assigned to pull again, but what?! Drat! This trailer too, is on the repair line. No good no good at all.

However, Mr.Stier has had enough sitting around in the smoke filled terminal. He shifts his tractor in reverse and backs right up the trailer and CLACHINK CLINK. He hooks to the trailer.

Mr.Stier climbs on out of his tractor and starts hooking up hoses and lines and checking lights and for mud flaps and looking up down and all around. When it's all satisfactory Mr.Stier shifts the truck into gear and eases on towards the outbound inspection lane.

He gets to the outbound inspection lane and tells the mechanic that his trailer was on the shop line, but it's loaded and needs to move and shows the mechanic the paper work. The mechanic says "Yeah uh that trailer needs some work on the back axle probably an hour or so will get on that."

So the mechanics get working on the trailer while Mr.Stier sits there waiting for the go ahead from the mechanics finally after an hour they give him the thumbs up. Mr. Stier fires up the Bus releases the breaks and heads on out of the terminal as he winds up the engine and heads out on the highway bound from Little Rock, AR to Dallas, Texas where he is has an appointment to unload at Ben E. Keith at 8:30am the next day.

More later...

 

Chapter 4 Part III

As Mr. Stier eased out on the highway he got his rig rolling to a stead 55 miles per hour. This was where J.B. Hunt trucks achieved maximum fuel efficiency. As the truck drove on down the road towards Dallas town.

Car's wizzed by and fancy long nose chromed out Peterbuilts and Kenworth W900s flew by him at 100 miles an hour. However Mr. Stier wasn't intimidated nor afraid as he was working for the biggest company on the road. The miles clicked on by click, click, click.

The International tractor's diesel engine moaned it's same old song. Mr. Stier watched as a set of doubles got in the passing lane and pulled by him a white International conventional tractor with a big air shield that said ALLIANT FOOD SERVICE

Yes this was at the birth of modern broadline food service distribution. The other trucks would pass too, one that had the logo's of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut on the side of the trailer. The truck said Pepsi Food Service on the door. Big White GMC Day Cab truck. Pulling a fancy modern day 48' trailer with doors on the side of the trailer.
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Another truck passed by an Orange International Cabover looked like a Schneider Truck, but it wasn't it had a stainless steel trailer and on the side of that trailer it said MBM CORPORATION ROCKY MOUNT, NORTH CAROLINA CUSTOMIZED FOOD SERVICE DISTRIBUTION.

Yes we were at the birth of something new. America was ready to enter the "Go Go 1990s".
Alicia Silverstone:


Shopping Malls with Neon Lights:




It was the birth of the 1990s and Mr.Stier and his colleagues from all the different companies were as M.S. Carriers slogan said "Delivering Your Future"

As the night grew darker Mr. Stier (33 years old at the time) decided it was time for a break his only break of the night as he had to keep moving down the road to Dallas, Texas. As he clicked on his signal a great white tractor trailer truck another cab over International 9600 but from a very different company passed him up the truck said
WAL-MART-SAM'S CLUB BENTONVILLE,ARKANSAS on the door. Mr.Sam as he was known in those days was on to something big.




As Mr.Stier eased into the flying J he found a cozy spot next to a Maroon International Conventional tractor with full condo sleeper. CANNON EXPRESS SPRINGDALE,ARKANSA is what it said on the door.







People talk about the 1970s being the golden age of trucking, but I was born a couple years less then a decade after the 1970s ended. But to me now looking back the 1990s had a magic to them the 1990s was almost like a second golden age. I know to some that might sound blasphemous, but I don't know there was some magic there.

Anyhow Mr.Stier had a nice pork chop dinner and reflected upon how the truck stops were full of danger drugs, alcohol seedy characters, all good things to stay clear of as he paid his bill and got a move on.

As Mr.Stier entered the city limits of Dallas Town, it was dark night. The directions he had all they said was 7th. Well sure enough he found him self in a residential neighborhood lost as all get out.
He carefully navigated the truck into a Hospital Parking lot shut the truck off and did some looking on foot.

Nowhere, near where he needed to be. Time for a phone call. Mr.Stier called the Little Rock, JB Hunt Terminal and was transferred to the Dallas Terminal where he poke to a dispatcher who couldn't have given lesser of a crap what happened to him or the load. So after accomplishing nothing calling the company.

Mr.Stier walked over to the local 711 store where a city of Dallas Police Man was sitting in his patrol car, a big new 1991 Chevrolet Caprice 9C1:

Mr.Stier struck up a conversation with the police man the police man pulled out a map of the city and said that Mr.Stier probably wanted 7th street which was an industrial area down town. Mr. Stier was on 7th avenue which was an upper middle class residential area.

Mr.Stier thanked the police man and went on his way.
He pulled into the industrial park and found the Ben E. Keith warehouse. He was the first truck in line. It was late at night, but he had arrived on time and would be there early in the morning for unloading of his 26,000lbs of cereal.

Mr. Stier shut his truck down and climbed into the sleeper cab in the back and went to sleep and went to bed.

In the morning he would be unloaded and then he would be sent to a paper factory where he would wait in line half the day to be loaded with 3 other J.B. Hunt drivers. Then he would be on his way to his home in Lousiana where he would spend the night at home with his wife Candy. Along the way he would call dispatch and tease his dispatcher about a big load headed to California boy would that be nice all those good miles.

Mr.Stier would switch out trailers with another J.B. Hunt driver and head back to the Little Rock, terminal in hopes of getting that big load to California or trading loads to get to California.

This was life on the road at J.B.Hunt in 1991. While the trucks and technology has changed many things haven't.

Grocery Warehouses are still grocery warehouses and all the usual OTR Tom Foolery still exists.

End Chapter 4. Next Chapter is J.B. Hunts Operations Department.

 

Falcon Transport Youngstown, Ohio used to be real big around here. They, pretty much hit the crapper when GM went down the toilet in 2008. They were big here on the turnpike and I-75. Falcon had all there eggs in one basket and that was just in time logistics for the auto industry. They had a bit of an operation in Tennessee, but most of there work was the turnpike from the GM Plant in Lordstown, Ohio to Chicagoland. Falcon did get into the general OTR freight business a little bit, but they didn't stay there very long they pretty much dipped there toe in the water and then took it right out and went right back to auto parts.

I don't know the exact details of why Falcon went down the toilet they still are operating and in business and do pull some flat bed pikers, but there dry van pikers are all done. Falcon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and then was bought out by someone. There about half the company they used to be.

Although it was probably pretty cool seeing all those Falcon trucks back in the mid 1990s.