Talkin' Trucks With Mike:A History of the TNT Companies

Hi guys, I'll be back soon I think...working on stuff around my house have projects starting to back up need to get the roster cleared off a bit.

Was way out today in Geneva, Ohio waaayyyy faraway in eastern Ohio. Geneva is famous because it has the Kwik Fill. Truck Stop:


Kwik Fill is a tiny tiny little oil company that covers northern PA, a bit of western New York and eastern Ohio I think Geneva, Ohio is as far west as they go. They have a big truck stop in Geneva, Ohio in fact that's the only thing I think about when someone says Geneva I immediately think about the Kwik Fill Truck Stop.

I sold my Chevy Suburban there at that truck stop a couple years ago it was the same summer as the Republican National Convention when that was down town.

I met the guy out there at the Kwik Fill Truck Stop. He was a truck driver too, he worked for a dump truck out fit and previous to that was a flatbed owner op.

I told him I worked for a food company as a driver he thought I was a dispatcher at first.



Anyhow that's a little bit of Mid Atlantic States trucking info. Many TNT Red Star trucks probably grabbed a snack at one of the Kwik Fills.

 

Hi guys sorry for the long delay work and crap around the house had my busy oh and then my disastrous comedy of errors known as my dating life also distracted me I really need to refocus my priorities. Any more dating has become I swear just a distraction when it comes up which isn't that often.

It's been bloody awful hot here in Cleveland awful Arm and I have been talking about how oppressive the heat has been. I'm on vacation next week first time on vacation for a week in a year and half. Yes that's right last year I had (4) days of the entire work year off. I can account the days. The first day was when we had to go to Kentucky to get my dad a new car because a small time drug dealer in a 12 year old Mercedes Benz went left of center and hit my dads old van and the insurance company totaled it.

(2) days off for my brothers wedding.
(1) day off because my second cousin shot and killed him self so there was a day off for the funeral.

That was my 4 days off last year.

My first year for this company 2015 I had (1) day for the entire work calendar and that was because over the winter a lot of routes got cut and they realized I didn't take any time.

So next week I have a week off first time in a long time.

I used to think that working for my self I never got any time off, but besides the weekends most of my entire work week is devoted to work this has been the busiest off season I've had I'm working a little less hours now then during the on season but not much less and actually it's been good I have to get the second half of my doors paid for so the money helps LOL, but I've been doing so much swing driving and covering and we picked up a huge account last year of a huge nursing home chain that has some 70 odd locations, plus all the other nursing homes we do and I never realized how big the nursing home industry was till this year.

We do an absolute ton of nursing home's we do a huge amount of them and for as many as we do which I swear feels like all of them sometime there's a bunch we don't do, hell I had an 11 stop route today and (4) of those stops were nursing homes. There's a ton of them out there and there building more it's a huge industry and it never dawned on me how big of an industry it was. Last Wednesday out east I had like (2) restaurants (2) wineries and the rest of the route was me just going from Nursing Home to Nursing Home.

Actually though the nursing homes aren't bad stops. There *usually *usually on big properties where you can get the truck in and out without any trouble. The kitchens are usually big and there's enough room for everything. They buy a lot of cases well some buy more then others, it depends we run the gamet we have homes that have 20 residents and other homes that have 200+ residents so orders range from 50 cases to 150 cases. This past Monday my one nursing home that I do went for 202 cases.

But yeah we've been moving and groving I don't know what to project, for this year, but it's been good so far probably into the high 70s I've already managed to make pretty much $300 less then 40K for this half a year so were cruseing for real high 70s low 80s and that number exceeded all of my expectations I thought if I made 60K a year that would be good, but I've managed to pass that up by almost 20K a year more and it's been good.

 

TNT IPEC



This was TNT Ipec in the 1980s TNT Ipec was a pretty big operation for TNT in the 1980s TNT was big into package and small parcel handling more so in Europe then here in North America and the USA. Well they did do parcels and small mail in Canada but more or less TNT was big into LTL and Just In Time Logistics Trucking for the automotive industry.

TNT Skypack and TNT Kwikasair
were the TNT package handlers and IPEC was the back bone of Skypack and Kwikasair.


Double R just sent me a message about work I have to read it I'll be right back.

 

TNT IPEC

IPEC stands for Interstates Parcel Express Company

IPEC in 1991 had 18,256 employees
6000 vehicles
16 planes
412 depots
470,000 shipments a week
and shipped 21 countries across Europe for 4,000,000 kilometers a week.

IPEC was a huge package handling outfit they were like the UPS for Europe back in the day, I think they handled a lot of small parcel and mail shipping for business and industries.

Which brings me to my favorite TNT Company which will cover next and that's TNT Olex!

 

TNT IPEC was a force to be reckoned with I never realized it of course why would I, I wasn't shipping parcels in Europe in the mid 1980s wasn't even born yet, but TNT came into Europe from Australlia like they owned the place and set the parcel shipping world on fire. In 1986 according to European trucking journal TRUCK Magazine Alan Jones was trucking executive "Man in the News" and he was in charge of TNT IPEC in Europe. Pretty cool magazine pictures from that time if you like kind of vintage but still kind of modern day truck stuff.




In the mid 1980s TNT was going to hit Europe hard with packages and truck and air shipments and Alan Jones was the head man at TNT UK.

 

TNT and the 1986 Wapping U.K. Dispute