Never Stand Still

Hi guys this will be an on going thread. Monday I got the book Never Stand Still in the mail and started reading it. It's a pretty thick book, but it's the story of Consolidated Freightways and how they came to be. They from day 1 had there hands in many different things. Leland James ran a bus company and was an auto parts and tire supplier. It was actually him and a group of other men that started CF which was there core business.

James had vision and business sense and really CF started by buying up a bunch of little carriers.

CF is unique on many levels but there big thing was they
Wanted to make long haul shipping possible for western trucking and at the time the company was founded western long haul was unprofitable and hard to do. James set out to find a way to do it and do it better then anyone else at the time. They offered good service and price and concentrated on hauling freight and started the whole linehaul at night delivery in the morning the next day. At the time James and his crew set out to really revolutionize the industry. James wanted to make a "department store of transportation" and they were into a little bit of everything. So I'll keep you posted as I read more.

 

Just a little update it turns out in 1930 CF moved to there first real warehouse/terminal and Clarence Halverson was in charge of the trailer building department. That was one thing unique to CF and even to this day to the now defunct Conway. They built there own trailers. Now isn't the name of there trailer building operation "Road Systems?"

The one thing I failed to mention was in the 1920-1930s western truckers had a hard time with finding back hauls. What's huge about CF was they solved the back haul problem. They ran manufactured goods east and brought back agricultural goods to Oregon. The back hauls didn't pay as good, but they kept the routes in the black.

 

I got off work not super late had a pretty quick run today just chilling at the hotel and I'm doing some reading I'm going to venture out tonight for a minute to get something to eat, but in the mean time I'm in the part of the book where it's the 1930s and Leeland James and the Teamsters all just struck a deal and with contracts and union nagotiations all set CF is now entering the diesel era and converting there trucks over to Cummins Diesels.

Cummins was unique because he solved the diesel injector problem.
Back in the day diesels were more stationary systems. Cummins invented a cure for bad diesel injectors and was able to make them work in big trucks. CF was the first big major trucking company to use diesels. Around the mid 1930s CF was starting get into heavily modifying there newer rigs Leeland James wanted "The best most efficient equipment l." So they were heavily modifying the trucks they bought from Kenworth and Fageol. There modifications were so heavy duty that it was almost like they were building there own truck, which is exactly what they ended up doing. Anyone ever hear of Freightliner?

It's fair to say and anyone from my neck of the woods will know this immediately, while CF was never as big as The Pennsylvania Railroad. CF was indeed The Pennsylvania Railroad of the trucking business. I don't think there was anyone so far who did what they did. They made there own trucks, trailers and converter dollies and got into other things as well. Like Emery World Wide Air Freight which I think they lost there rear end on, but still they were huge.

 

Mine I think was $16-$20 but yeah there are some real expensive ones out there. Book was written in 1999 by head honchos at CF.

 

It's really good hard to put down.