The day to day ramblings of the LTL business.

What did Motor Cargo use the refers for?

 

Well at that time I was hostling for them, so I really never paid attention to what the dock workers were loading into them or what they were using them for, although I do remember they always had a will call customer who was there to pick up a pallet of chocolates, I can't recall the account or where they came from, but I do know those came in on a refer trailer among other things.

 

Another thing I do remember (I was in my twenties when I worked there and now I am in my forties so I am trying to recall all this lol) is we had paint accounts like dupont and Sherwin Williams, there was also a pharmaceutical account called Wyeth I believe, I remember that one because when I would be utilized for p and d duties the shipping guy there was always a obnoxious (well I will keep it clean) um guy, anyway long story short I do believe the Wyeth was loaded into the refers and I also think they would load the paints into them also, now here is the thing, at the terminal I was at the hostler would do the trailer moves but also hook up sets for the line drivers, and I do remember hooking up a lot of placard refer trailers but the refers were not running in a lot of cases, maybe to actually keep the freight warmer during winter months.

 

A Duie Pyle out east where I live has some trailers with heaters on them, so I guess they must haul paint as well, because I know paint kind of needs to be kept hot. Same with Coke and Pepsi some of there trailers also have small propane powered heaters on them.

 

Unless it's something else, but isn't that true paint has to be kind of temperature controlled?

 

I can't say though I've ever seen any Sherwin Williams trucks with HAZMAT placards on them. However I could be wrong.

 

Seems kind of dangerous to me. OTOH, running paint in a reefer would make sense, as they have heaters in them, so the load can be kept within a certain temperature range, no matter what the temperature is outside.

 

One of my usual pickups is paint in drums. It doesn't say protect from freezing. It is a class 3 hazmat though.

 

I used to work for a company that hauled temperature-sensitive hazmat (Class 3) freight in reefer trailers. It was kept at 35 degrees, so in the winter the unit was acting as a heater. Apparently it's legal.