Profile For David Bacon

As someone who worked for the federal govt for 17 years... I can tell you ... NO the govt cannot efficiently run anything. There is still a $1million robot sitting in a corner of my old postal service processing plant. It has sat there for 10 years and never used because no one bothered to measure the height of it against the ceiling in the building. It was meant to unload the trucks. However.... It can't get from the inside of the building to the loading dock because it is too tall and they can't break down the arched doors. There's govt efficiency for you

We need to elect more working-class Americans to public office, veteran drivers included, and elect more veterans of military service who were NCO's. I was in the army and the NCO's, high-ranking enlisted personnel, get it done. I think more scientists, engineers, skilled trades workers and civil engineers should hold public office too, the intelligence likes of Dr. Carl Sagen. We should have the likes of blue-collar America and scientific/technical people in the Oval Office, on the Hill and in states' governor's chairs warming the butt cushions.

Maybe not then. Things that seem to work like magic in Europe, Aisa and Australia don't seem to cut it in North America. Canada has a slighly better freight railroad system than we do. I don't know about their trucking industry. The trains and trucks both in Australia seem to work slick.

Let me ask you folks this: what could the private sector and/or the public sector do (or not do) to make your life as freight workers improve if anything at all? Do you welcome any kind of changes? Does America's motor freight system need unionization?

I have heard much of rail transportation in Europe is govt. owned and operated and that it is superior to American railroading. I don't know about trucks, but Mother Russia and Switzerland seem to run trains better than we do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCBI3lPt3o4&t=845s

The man in the video above said that some freight customers have turned to trucking because rail service sucks.

If as a freight truck driver, what if the federal government were your employer? How do you feel your overall quality of life might be? Can the government run transportation nationally better than private outfits can?

I am now finding out that "semi" dump trucks are often called "end" dump trucks in the industry. If a driver is not careful while raising the box for dumping, the damn thing can tip right over even in a 10+ MPH wind. You might think one should have invented outriggers for this setup for added stability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz3fssiDo2g

So, David Bacon, you are wanting to bring home the bacon? (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

Are there oil fields in SD? I’ve been driving around west Texas, including the Midland area which is all about oil field work. There are an amazing amount of specialized oil field related trucks on the road. Tankers, dry bulk trailers, dump trailers, etc. I imagine that most of those drivers are local and home nightly. (Somebody familiar with oil field trucking please correct me if I’m wrong). Anything like this in your area? I think a lot of the dry bulk is frac sand and dry chemicals. It would be interesting to know more about oil field trucking and job opportunities.

South Dakota has limited oil production. Most of it is in just a single county:

http://www.sdoil.org/member-resources-2/industry-facts#:~:text=Known%20Oil%20Reserves%20in%20South,Custer%20and%20Fall%20River%20County.

"South Dakota’s crude oil production is far less than 1% of the nation’s total, and the state has no oil refineries. Production is concentrated in the western corner of the state, where Harding County produces the bulk of the state’s crude oil and natural gas, mostly from traditional vertical wells. Although the Williston Basin extends into South Dakota from the north, the productive Bakken Shale does not. Oil production in South Dakota has been fairly steady for decades."

My 1980-deceased grandfather was a union operating engineer in California retired in 1973 and in that trade since 1957. Heavy equipment. Road construction. Excavation. Lots of call for equipment-hauling trucks, dump trucks and water trucks to keep the dust down. I'm sure there are plenty of calls in SD for all sorts of dump trucks as long as roads are being built and maintained, mines are being mined, homes are being built, commercial buildings are being built, swimming pools are being built, landscaping operations are in force and roads, parking lots and playgrounds are being paved. Gravel, sand, aggregates and dirt = dump truck necessity. Here is a marvelous demonstration of a transfer dump in operation. My parents had a new modular custom home built in northern California in 1981 and I was amazed by that sweet Peterbilt transfer dump that was on the job site. Construction trucks and other local/regional special-purpose trucks tend to be the classic-look tractors and cabs, not the geeky aero ones so common in mega-carrier freight. A truck carrying logs, mixing concrete or hauling gravel is likely to be an old-school-look Kenworth, Mack or Pete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu3HA1qn-l4&t=2s

I would think that they only operate during the hours of business for the building trades and landscaping companies. Transfer dump trucks look so neat. Semi dumps or transfer dumps hauled by classic Kenworths or Peterbilts look cool too. Since road construction goes on all day long and all night long, I suspect dump operators might have graveyard and swing shifts as well. Verdad?

Being a librarian requires work too. Some people do it because they enjoy peace and quiet (shhhh! while people are trying to read books) as well as a lot of home time. That said, some drivers, I feel, are going to favor certain companies, certain ranges of driving (local, regional, over the road) working and living in certain parts of the nation (South Dakota is cool without all the crime and big-city hoopla) , certain pay levels and benefits and certain load and trailer types (hogs vs logs vs tankers vs goats vs cows vs produce vs sand vs grain vs hay vs dry vans vs vs flatbeds vs reefers vs stock trailers vs intermodal hauling and so on). It's a matter of what floats one's personal boat and figuring that out. Certainly, each and every one of these types of truck is going to have its own pros and cons. There might be a reason somebody here hates intermodal but loves stock hauling. One man's ***** cat might be another man's tiger. Somebody in this biz might be a home body who doesn't like to get his clothes and hands dirty. I personally hate hanging around for a long time in a vehicle that is not rolling. I used to be a mechanic by trade. I don't mind putting my coveralls on if I have to lie down in the grease or oil. Surgical gloves keep hands clean. Could local linehaul or intermodal be the right kind of trucking for that clinically-clean home person if a somewhat meager pay level is no object? I don't think intermodal involves much load touching or laborious securement work. I don't think a stackable shipping container is going to kick you or horn-gore you like an angry cow. It certainly should not smell of manure or jiggle the truck around like a loaded milk tanker. I don't think intermodal is going to involve a lot of waiting around in a truck that isn't moving. Am I not correct on most or all of those counts? Money is not everything. One has to consider one's level of quality time and quality of life as well.

Oh, Davy A, on herding dogs. German Shepherds were originally bred to tend sheep and defend the herds against possible wolf attacks in Europe. Now they are mainly for police work, military canine work, companion dogs, leading the blind and for security. My brother uses figures of these shepherds on his model layout's ranch scenery because he doesn't have the more cow-worthy types as you mentioned above. The only other scale dog figures he has is black and white beagles, golden retrievers and Doberman pinschers. I once read in a dove hunting book that the best "dove retrieving" dog the author ever saw happed to be a German shepherd in Texas. Farmers and ranchers might also have this German shepherd breed mainly for security, their main purpose. I would say the best cattle dog to push stubborn bovines into a truck or elsewhere is the black mouth cur, Old Yeller types. Good hog dogs too, I've been told.

Is there anything POSITIVE about driving stock trucks? I've heard a bunch of negatives so far. Which type of hauling/company would give a driver maximum home time and minimum time in a sleeper, and preferably, minimal touching of loads, and simplified securement work, if not livestock per se? It seems like this would be a trucking outfit full of day cabs in its fleet, maybe. How about intermodal driving? Is there short-haul intermodal?

Yes, I just thought about that. Cows on board semis aren't only just being hauled to "hamburger heaven" from the spread or feedlot. They could be shipped for other purposes as well. They could be newly-purchased milk cows on the way to a newly-started dairy or something. In American history, I was taught that beef cows had to once travel by train about 1,500 miles from Texas ranches to Kansas City, Missouri back during the late 1800's and this largely replaced the old-fashioned trail drives. Kansas City was the big hub for the beef market. I would think maybe that it is desired to slaughter the meat animals as close to the customers for consumption as possible to maximize freshness but good beef is supposed to be hung and aged in meat lockers anyway. Before diesel-electric refrigeration, earlier reefer rail cars were cooled by blocks of ice dropped through hatches up top. I Googled "cattle truck" just for fun to look at pictures of them. It seems that many more trucks with stock trailers on them are pictured with sleepers than with day cabs. This livestock driving job might not be as "local" as most laymen as myself might imagine. Some of these sleeper-equipped tractors might also haul other types of loads than live animals too. They might do a combination of local and regional. My brother is into model railroading. He has a scene where a cattle truck delivers cows from a local ranch to a local railhead with a feedlot. Both the ranch and the feedlot have those fancy cattle alleys with spiraling loading ramps. Mounted cowboys with horses and German shepherd dogs drive the cows into the chute back at the ranch for loading onto the semi. The model stock trailer is a double decker wooden unit, not a modern aluminum Wilson with fancy tricky compartments. The freight train comes to pick the cattle up from the feedlot to the hidden staging area of the layout. Cowboys on foot shoo the cows on board the train. The locomotive slowly moves each of the 5 stock cars to the loading chute and cows are loaded onto the train through doors on the sides of the cars, one car at a time. It is imagined that the cows take a death ride on the train in wooden stock cars to a pretended "porterhouse palace", the slaughterhouse, of course.

I thought at first that driving cattle in a semi would be largely a job with plenty of home time and little waiting around in the truck. Laura has just shed some light on this for me. By her revelations here, it is not such an "easy-peazy" job as I originally had thought. I thought driving cattle for a living might be more fun, more interesting, than boring stuff like dry vans too but Laura states its risky business reserved for more seasoned drivers. Drivers also might have to deal with dangerous animals that kick and butt their horns. Depending upon whom you work for, I gather that not all cattle loads are no-touch. I just saw a cattle loading video today. The driver has to sometimes get inside the trailer with the nasty cows and their manure and deal with all those trick gates, partitions and pins while risking getting brained by an angry cow's hoof or gored by a horn. Cows are also stubborn and stupid. I used to think not long ago that just cowboys, ranch workers, feedlot workers, dealt with the actual loading of cows and the driver just handled the steering wheel. I'm now learning quick the more I study up on it. It's now clear to me that cow hauling is definitely not for cowards. The "steaks" are really high. I will remember and appreciate those brave cattle drivers with boots on the dirty trailer floor (boots on the "ground" beef??, bad cow pun) each and every time I chomp on a bacon double cheeseburger or T bone from now on!

Well, you made my morning. Yes, I drove a bull rack a number of years ago for the owner of Sinclair Oil and still haul cows, sheep and goats up to 1000 miles in my stock trailer.

Even if ranchers have a fancy alley system for loading, animals can get frightened or annoyed and do stupid stuff like turn around in the alley, jump over the sides, etc. Some animals do follow others nicely, but herd animals will have those that want to be dominant to the end of their life and they cause lots of problems with the other critters. Do you wait around? Sometimes, for hours while the critters wait in a corral and get antsy and aggravated.

How much driving experience do you have? Driving a live load of critters is like driving liquid in tankers, it moves...a lot. It's not for beginners.

Laura

I drove a dry-van semi in the service a few times but no civilian CDL experience yet. I might have to start off with something more basic as dry-van freight hauling to get some stick-time experience before getting into those shaking live animal loads. I did not realize the livestock travelled that far from the farm or ranch to the nearest slaughterhouse. I feel sorry for the poor animals that have to be cooped up that long in the truck, especially in extreme heat or cold weather. If I ever were to get into hauling livestock, I would want the situations where their confinement to the stock trailers would be as brief as humanly possible. I have this idyllic notion that stock drivers are relatively close to home all the time. During hot weather seasons, I would prefer to transport the critters in the relative coolness of the nighttime. I wonder why the slaughterhouse is up to 1,000 miles from the ranch, farm or feedlot anyway. Just curious. Is stock driving strictly owner-operator? Are there company-hired drivers that do that kind of work?

Laura, did you ever stop during long trips to let the animals out of the truck at corrals along the way to feed, drink, relieve themselves, stretch their legs and get fresh air? Can animals lie down and sleep comfortably on board the truck? I gather from reading model train magazines in the past that railroads do, or historically did, this practice of periodic rest breaks along the route whenever they haul live animals.