Trucking Lore: Trucker's Bunkhouses

This is all well before my time, but there was a time when most trucks didn't have a sleeper, and most truckstops had a bunkhouse, where you could rent a mattress on a bunk bed cheaply, and they would even wake you up at the time you requested. I was watching an old film on YouTube from the early 1950's that showed an old truckstop on US30 (?) in northern New Jersey. They even had a smaller bunk room for snorers...

By the time I started driving, they were long gone, although I understand that Overnite Express still had them at company terminals well into the 1980's. I guess during the 60's, too many vagrants and hippies would use them, and also Teamster drivers demanded motel rooms by then, so they disappeared.

BTW, if you ever stop at the Midway travel plaza on the PA Turnpike, the building on the eastbound side used to have a trucker's bunkhouse, and there used to be a tunnel going under the turnpike for people on the wesbound side (which had gas, but no food or lodging..) to cross over to the eastbound side.

 

Well, it's the "Midway" plaza, which was...ummm....mid-way between the original ends of the pike, namely Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. It's up in the 'mountains', and it's the only one I can think of where there is a second plaza right across the median (at least on the original stretch..).