Trucking in PA

Pilot and Sacondi brothers exit 40 in Milford Ct

 

The pilot at ex40 is about as close to a truckers nightmare as you can get. I know they all have there problems but anytime I go there the fuel line is backed all the way out to old gate lane. Because some rookie or entitled driver don't pull up and get in line.if you stop there try to be there between 7am and 2pm. Otherwise it's a madhouse. That's been my experience. The TA in Branford at ex 56 is much more laid back.

 

Us 30 in Breezewood p.a.A trainer took me on there with a loaded tanker.Learned real fast why the sign on tpk said not recommended for trucks.

 

Virginia is not bad. However, Richmond has really seriously terrible crime. When I started trucking Richmond was a series of toll gates a few miles apart. Literally nickel and dime you to death. If you had a ziplock bag full of quarters, dimes and nickels before you get down and through there and back, that bag is half empty. There is one particular toll gate on a vicious S bend deep inside central south of Richmond on 95 that got people killed many times. They will come around the first curve at highway speed whatever it might be 70-80 etc and find that they need to stop right now because of that toll barrier. When they go to try to stop, that rig gets away from them and towards the center divider they go. SLIDE>..... Then the whole thing gets jammed up for the accident recovery each day. Several times a day.

The toll gates have since been removed. The S curve is still there. Most people know about it and take it easy through there these days. But several times a week, during rush, a big truck will find himself in a bad spot and slide into the middle taking a few cars out along the way.

There is a roadway west of Roanoke, through what I recall as Paris. This one features a grade that is ginormous north (West) bound that falls off a ridge. If you came back the other way they give you two lanes and half a shoulder upgrade. When you hit this one, it curves to your left so severely that all you see over the nose of your tractor is sky. There is a large lethal drop over that particular pavement once the edge runs out on that climb.

you will have your right steer on the edge coming around and look to your left mirror and see your trailer tandems trying to interfere with the opposite traffic coming down it's own single lane downgrade. So you have to jog the tractor even more closer to the edge which is now riding on piles of stone some of which are knocked down into open space below you. Maybe once or twice your steer right tire will hang itself over space too.

I hope they have made improvements since my time there.

There are two other thoughts with Virginia. New River Gorge (Virginia I think of includes West Virginia that did not exist until around 1862-1863 civil war when they cut away western part of original virgina to form state hood. Because the people generally disagreed with the Confederacy in Richmond. Anyhow that new river Gorge is a major bridge about 900 feet above the river below. When they built that monster, it was the 8th wonder of the free world when new and reduced your travel time from one side of that region to the other from three hours on dirt roads crossing that river the hard way to a simple 45 minute romp at freeway speed. That is one of the reasons that bridge was so valuable.

Another part of virginia that comes to mind in the culture of trucking, "White Sulphur Springs" is a particularly dangerous downgrade in the western part and one that has taken many truckers lives over many decades. The local truckstop there takes pains to celebrate White Sulphur Springs in book, poetry and illustrations with the main thought that if you ever come across there on a bad day, that red light telling you that you are out of air is your last day on earth. Thankfully you are safe at the bottom fixing to wake up and get a meal, it was a bad dream after all. But when you get out of the rig and look up that grade you can tell it's quite something.

Maryland is not much for trucking, they have three scales that are pretty nazi, New Market, Tydings Bridge (Relatively new one opened in the early 2000's) and the first I-70 scale from Baltimore westbound from the beltway. I believe the 695/70 interchange which features three decks was built in the 60's (You can find actual construction images on the Baltimore Sun Server where they maintain a very good database of historical pictures that document our history since before we were America. Anyhow, this particular interchange was quite something when it was built and I imagine they must consider the problem of replacing the whole thing by now because it's over 50 years old and that steel cannot take too many more years of heavy trucks rolling across it. Surely they have place plans to replace it before 75 years come around because that concrete itself with the rebar inside of it will start literally failing, popping flakes off then chunks and eventually the column must fail bringing down the bridge with it. That particular part of the beltway is incredibly crowded most every day and that is something you don't want to happen.

Trucking built Maryland, but Baltimore is the seaport that made trucking possible. It's beyond the scope of this post to get into the particulars I grew up in Baltimore and being surrounded by trucks of all kinds as a child and the people who ran em, it's a no brainer that I became a trucker as well. (The big change was me as a deaf man to become a trucker. That was a really, really big deal because until the late 70's Deaf People were not given licenses to do anything. Not even cars... and even into the late 60's in Maryland they were institutionalized as deaf mutes with little to no rights at all in life) Im probably one of about 5 or so deaf people who got into trucking and fewer than that who did OTR work well enough. The Interstate though back in the 60's was not a welcome change for many established hotels, eating places and many smaller towns.

When 95 was built, US 40 withered and died on the vine because everyone took 95 now and no one took 40 anymore. What was left is not ghetto, but the closer to Baltimore City Line you get along 40 the worst the human vices become. US one is another great road in it's day, but now I understand that they have specifically and finally banned trucks from using it as a alternate route to new england which essentially bypasses everything that cost money along 95 and the scales too. There is also Conowingo Dam along one which is a incredibly important installation second only to peach bottom nuclear power to it's north and east.

There is a number of things with Maryland, the nickname of the state is literally "Little America" everything in our Union can and will be found inside Maryland. With one exception, Diamonds. Arkansas is the one state that has diamond mines. There are parks even today you can go out and pick diamonds to keep. But back to Maryland. If anything above and beyond trucking, the people was what mattered most. There are repeated documented history problems presented to Maryland shortly after we became America, one of which was a defense of Baltimore. When no one else was willing to take on the world's superpower on land and sea, Baltimore was the one of the only places that dared fight. And how. If you were to visit Fort McHenry today (Established 1795) you will see three powder magazines, each one room enough to hold 6 tractor trailer loads of powder and a very poor system of entry. If any of the british rockets or shells (The rockets were larger than a human being and fired from two to three miles away against the fort) had managed to penetrate the simple access doors and got into one of these bomb proofs, it would have generated a spear of fire that would have reached across and creamated the entire installation in about 5 to 10 minutes it will take to burn all of the 300,000 pounds of powder at max capacity. Remember gunpowder burns not explode unless it is crammed into a confined space.

The other side of Maryland is the railroads as well as the C&O Canal. Nothing was availible for Maryland until the railroad and canal was built. Once that happened then we opened the gate way to the west. And at the time Maryland was young, the western areas of Ohio (Kanawha) in particular as the frontier with the ability to live freely outside of the reach of established law and justice was there for over the first hundred years of our Nation's history. It was a lot of a early form of freighting which evolved after world war one into the trucking we know today.

If there was no trucks, there would be no America. It's that simple. We are just too big, too massive and not limited to this or that. Trucking is something we do that most the world cannot or will not do well. I can go on further but I think this is enough for today.

 

Man you guys are talking about roads i run everyday. 250 around tappan lake to 22. 250 just south of clarksburg to 119.