Sound pretty far-fetched? This describes the first officially recorded cross-country truck haul in the United States.
Times have changed and with them, the trucking industry.
Lure of the Open Road
The excitement, romance, respect, and adventure of traveling the country's highways lie when you are in command of one of the mightiest vehicles on the boulevard.
If this is your idea of trucking, you're both right and wrong. We will address both the occupation of driver and the many affiliated careers available within the trucking industry. As you will soon see, starting a career in trucking isn't a simple matter of getting behind the wheel and hitting the highway. For one thing, as time goes on, more and more employers are demanding an educational background beyond high school.
Most industries, including the trucking industry, are moving away from their simplistic roots into the high-tech environments of modem businesses. For instance, in 1971, very few firms had computers. By 1980, most had at least computerized their payroll. Today, computers perform a myriad of tasks, including sophisticated tracking systems that can pinpoint a truck and load within five hundred feet of its actual geographic location through the use of satellite technologies. Today, most large companies and an increasing number of smaller operations rely on on-board computer/ satellite systems for communication, driver check-in, load dispatch, and even log maintenance.
For the job applicant starting out with just a high school diploma, it is increasingly difficult to advance through the ranks in any business, including the transportation industry. Therefore, keep in mind that comments about the education needed for various occupations are intended to reflect minimum requirements, and any training over and above the minimum will make you more attractive to a potential employer.
This article offers some background about the business and how it began. At first, you may wonder why you should bother learning how the trucking industry began. That's all just ancient history, right? The answer is that the history of the business follows a logical order and helps explain why careers within transportation often interlink with careers in other fields. In addition, like any business, trucking has its competitors, and in business, it's always a good idea to understand the competition.
Industry Origins
Before we look at the business today, let's take a look at how this all began and where it's heading. Tracking, by definition, is the act of moving freight overland from point A to point B, for money. It is, in one form or another, one of the oldest professions. Since people first learned the value of barter or trade, the skill of moving goods of value from one point to another has been increasingly vital. The early Roman emperors recognized the importance of transportation and created the Appian Way, one of the earliest highways in existence. To maintain it, they charged a tariff and, in return, maintained the road and protected the transported goods from bandits. In other words, the Appian Way was an early toll road, and elements of the Roman Legion may be considered the earliest recorded highway patrol.
The first people to hook domestic animals to carts and wagons were called teamsters, after the teams of draft animals-- usually oxen, horses, or mules--that were used to provide power for the conveyances. In the early days of the North American continent, teamsters hauled everything from farm produce to explosives to the farthermost outposts of civilization. (Today, the largest organized union representing truckers still includes the word "teamster" in its name.)
Trucking and the Railroads
Despite its usefulness, animal power does have a few drawbacks. First, even if the animals aren't working, they still must eat. Then, too, they tend to be temperamental, are subject to illness and age, and they are quite limited in the amount of freight they can physically handle. Hence, the first economical intercontinental freight was hauled not by draft animals and teamsters but by the railroad locomotive. The teamsters took the freight from the railhead and delivered it locally to the receiver, or they hauled products from the shipper to the railhead for cross-country deliveries. Ironically, even as the railways were being built, wagon-loads of supplies and equipment were hauled by freight wagons to the construction points and railheads. In short, the trucking industry helped build its own competition.
The railroads and the trucking industry were destined to become competitors and, for a time, bitter enemies. Today, the railroad industry is declining, with more and more rail systems being abandoned. Yet, even now, trucking and the railroad industry are interlinked and in this one area, both the rail and trucking industries are growing and expanding. The piggyback system is now a vital and practical means of transport. Loaded freight trailers are loaded onto railcars and hauled to destination points where local trucks hook onto the trailers to make final delivery. Piggyback hauling is an economical system and will continue to expand in the years to come.
Air Freight
The only serious competitor to the trucking business is air freight, which is still a burgeoning "baby" industry. It is worth noting that many of the occupations described exist in other industries, including the air freight business.
Despite competition from air freight companies, the future of trucking is very secure. The increased number of drivers will directly affect related careers within the industry. The greater the demand for trucks and drivers, the greater is the demand for affiliated support personnel. And as long as there are consumers, there will be a trucking industry.
The Modern Trucking Industry
The birth of the modern trucking industry as we know it took place during World War I when General John "Blackjack" Pershing registered a plea with the auto industry to create a vehicle that could do the work of a mule, but didn't become bogged down, suffer from weather conditions, or require food and water even when not in use. The result was the first of the early trucks. These vehicles were very primitive, little more than automobile chassis outfitted with freight beds. Primitive as they were, few people knew how to operate motor vehicles before 1920. The army arrived at a simple solution. They would train the drivers they needed, drawing upon soldiers already in the military.
Teamsters from the cavalry units were pulled away from their horses and mules and retrained to operate these newfangled devices. The idea was successful. However, when the war ended, twenty thousand teamsters had learned a new occupation, but found there was no organized industry where they could apply their newly learned trade. Worse still, at war's end, jobs were scarce and unemployment very high. The government had few social service programs, and the GI Bill had not yet been drafted. At the same time, with the war over, the government had little use for the tanks, airplanes, and trucks they had ordered built for the war effort. To raise revenue, the government put this merchandise and equipment up for sale.
Eventually, many drivers bought these surplus trucks from the government after the war, or converted automobiles into freight-hauling trucks, and went into business for themselves. At the same time, enterprising businesspeople recognized the potential in the truck, and they began using trucks and modifying them to meet their own personal business needs. While it may have been a less than auspicious beginning, these ex- GIs and forward-thinking businesspeople set themselves up in business, usually within major cities, to haul freight from piers and rail yards to customers within the area.
One of the problems with the railroad was that rail lines did not run through every community. Towns not serviced by rail faced a major hardship. They had to pay more than merchants and consumers located along the railways to receive manufactured goods, seed, canned goods, and almost everything else. Businesspeople in un-serviced areas could not compete with similar businesses located near the railway. It was this situation that gave birth to the trucking industry as a business.
Still, it was a slow beginning. Roads were scarce, and gasoline to power the vehicles was not readily available in every location. Truckers were forced to become mechanics because there were no service stations or repair shops. These early trucks were extremely primitive and subject to mechanical failures. However, as the nation became more mobile, and more and more cars appeared on the scene, demand for a decent road system grew urgent. Along with it, mechanics and repair shops began to appear, and the first of the support industries for trucking came into existence.
At this time, the government faced the overwhelming problem of unemployment. The Great Depression was rapidly destroying the national economy. In order to put a vast number of people to work, a number of major government- sponsored projects were commissioned. One of these projects was a coast-to-coast highway known as Route 66. This project, and the war that was to follow a decade or so later, would combine to legitimatize one of the fastest growing and most vital industries the world would ever witness.
Competition with the Railroad
The trucking industry won both friends and enemies once it started to flourish. One of the most notable enemies was the railroad. They saw their business monopoly threatened, especially when long-established customers curtailed their business with the railroad and began, instead, to ship by truck. Some of the first businesses to do this were the meatpacking companies. The very size of a train car and the fact that it could not stray from its tracks to make delivery in out-of-the-way communities were its biggest drawbacks. Packing plants were not automated, and it took time to fully load a meat car. The car was refrigerated by ice and poorly insulated. Since few customers would or could not accept an entire boxcar of meat at a time, the last customer on the route often ended up with a load of spoiled and worthless merchandise. Though trucks hauled smaller amounts, and were no better insulated at the time than boxcars, their one major advantage was their ability to make direct, immediate deliveries, cutting down on spoilage by a large margin.
Federal Legislation
What had started as a worry for the rail industry now became an all-out war. While railroad lobby groups petitioned Washington to do something about the rapidly expanding trucking industry, railroad workers and their friends physically attacked truckers from time to time in an effort to keep them away or scare them off from potential customers. Railroad workers also tried to strong-arm and threaten some of their own customers to force them to stop doing business with these upstart truckers and continue to use rail service exclusively. It was a bloody and bitter time, with bad feelings developing on both sides of the issue. Congress finally acceded to rail demands and created what we now recognize as the Federal Motor Carriers Act. This act, which outlined safety specifications within the trucking industry and set requirements for drivers and equipment, would eventually create a whole new series of career opportunities within the business. In addition, even though the railroad had hoped to shut down or at least slow the expansion of truck transport, the end result was a much stronger and considerably safer trucking business.
With the Federal Motor Carriers Act came regulation that, in its simplest form, stated that only certain carriers were allowed to haul certain commodities or products within a specified area. These permissions to transport were called "rights," and rights were transferable and marketable.
At the same time, one of the railroad's biggest fears was that trucks, which were capable of delivering freight to any town as long as a road lead to it, would take over the transport business entirely. So the Gateway Laws were created, which probably did more damage to the rail industry than to the trucking industry. The Gateway Laws were a series of legislation designed to ensure that all communities, regardless of size, would be serviced by truck or rail. To accomplish this, the government designed legislation that required trucks, based on their direction of travel, to pass through specific geographic locations. These "gateways" to the East and West were intentionally placed off-route so that direct, straight-line service on long-distance hauls would be impossible. The end result, however, was that industries, which up until then had to locate near a rail line to enable themselves to ship their goods, now began to spring up all over the map, not just along rail lines.
World War II
World War II saw the greatest increase of trucking traffic to date and helped cool the heated, bitter competition between the railroad and the trucking business. Munitions, food, supplies, and equipment moved from all points of the country by truck. As military manufacturers and military bases sprang up, demand for trucking services and for more and better roads increased dramatically. Truck stops--service facilities for trucks and drivers--sprang up overnight. Related industries blossomed. And more and more new jobs were created within the industry to match the ever-increasing demands. As critical wartime materials became increasingly important, trucks began to travel both day and night, and the service station businesses began to cater to these red-eyed, long-haul drivers by creating all-night service areas. The first of the truck stops was born, and even Hollywood got into the act, glamorizing and immortalizing the hard-bitten, tough knight of the highway, the American trucker.
The Interstate
One of the major, lasting results of the war, and the problems the nation faced with transporting war materials, was the creation of the interstate highway system. The original name for the series of interconnecting multilane highways was the National Defense Highway System. Today, most people simply call them the interstates. These ultramodern roads were designed to be high-speed highways which, in time of war, could be dedicated to transporting loads weighing more than a hundred thousand pounds across the country in the fastest way possible. In peacetime, these highways would answer the country's ravenous demand for a safe, fast highway system. They also gave trucks the final ingredient to become an indispensable industry within the transportation field: the ability to move from point A to point B in a rapid, safe, and efficient manner.
Modern Innovations
Since the introduction of the early motorized trucks, many improvements and innovations have taken place. Early trucks were dangerous, and many pioneers of the industry died building the business. It wasn't until after World War II that a decent system for braking was developed. The war years gave birth to dedicated truck manufacturers. Prior to this, the component parts of a truck were usually the same as those found in passenger cars. Tires, brakes, axles, drive trains, and steering were usually interchangeable with auto systems, even though the truck was hauling far more weight and traveling over much greater distances than a car. Once it became obvious that the trucking industry was here to stay, manufacturers like Mack, Diamond Reo, White, and International Harvester began to build vehicles specifically designed to take the heavy loads and constant operation required by the motor transportation industry.
The hardships and dangers an early trucker faced are hard to imagine today. It was not until the 1940s that heaters became common in truck cabs. Most drivers operating in the mountains, or in winter weather, wore heavy clothing and often great fur lap rugs thrown over their legs. Air brakes, now standard equipment on trucks, were unheard of in the 1940s, and trucks depended on spring-loaded systems that were susceptible to the vagaries of weather and terrain. Even something as common as the sleeper--the compartment behind the cab designed to be used as a bed--was nonexistent in the early days. And when sleepers were first introduced, they were not always placed immediately behind the cab as they are today. One version, commonly referred to by drivers as the "suicide sleeper," was actually located beneath and behind the driver's compartment, a position that often proved fatal in the event of a collision. The device earned its grim nickname in more than one accident. The early truckers were hardy souls who rivaled the American cowboy's reputation for independence and toughness.
Other milestones in the development of the industry include the diesel engine, which did not become common until the 1950s; the fifth wheel, which is the flat, locking plate that the kingpin in the nose of the trailer attaches to and rides upon; and air brakes.
Another important development happened within the past two decades, when women started to appear behind the wheels of the "big rigs." This was totally unheard of, and when it first began, it caused more than one raised eyebrow. But, today, women have proved their worth, and it is common to find a woman behind the wheel. The trucking industry is actively recruiting women, exploiting what, to them, is an entirely new labor pool. And why not? What other industry can offer starting wages in excess of $30,000 a year, regardless of gender?
Trucking is still in its youth. Today, satellite communication, electronic developments, aerodynamics, and other disciplines are adding more and more to what was once a reasonably simple field. Trucking also happens to be one of the most exciting businesses a person can enter. It has a proud history, and the future looks brighter than ever.
