other dog

Thank you very much indeed, and the same to you and yours.

that pretty much says it all too

excellent point

yep, it's all in the family. I haven't driven a Mack, except for my cement mixer, since about 1983 when I got out of a '79 F-model. The first brand new K100 H.H. bought for me was an '83 model. Jeff put me in a nice W900L at first, then he traded it for the Pete i'm driving now. It's nice, top of the line. Shame the sumbitch stays brokedown so much. Maybe that's why the previous owner only kept it a year. I really wish Jeff had kept the Kenworth-it was nice too, and the N14 (525 hp) never malfunctioned. It had almost 700,000 miles on it when he traded it.

Amen brother, Amen!* *there's an extra "Amen", so Bulldogman does not get credited for this quote, and therefor recieves no royalties or other compensation

Yeah, been at F.L.Moore and Sons 5 years now. Was at H.H.'s 25 and a half. I left mainly because of the low-life good for nothing a-hole dispatcher they had at the time. Got along with most everybody 'til he crawled in. Now I wish i'd left sooner because I run south and west instead of northeast all the time, got a better truck, and make more money. I really like Bonnie and Larry Moore though, can't say anything bad about them. Their yard is just west of Appomattox on 460. We're about 8 or 9 miles further west.

It'a all PGT. They took H.H.Moore Jr. off the truck doors and put PGT on them. They're still running some of the old H.H.Moore trucks but they're going to the newer PGT IH's as they phase the older trucks out.

That's what I disliked most, that the biggest part of it went to the northeast. For a while we'd run 2, and sometimes 3, trips to Boston every week. I don't care if I never go to Boston again! Story is the main reason PGT bought out H.H.Moore Jr. Trucking Co. was to get the Banker Steel account.

Montague-Betts was a big structural steel plant in Lynchburg. Actually they had 2 plants, the south plant near the airport and the north plant near the stadium. We hauled steel all over from there-lots to Boston, the Pittsburgh area, Baltimore and northern Va. They shut down and Hirschfield Steel was in the old South plant for a while, and one of the top Hirschfield guys, Don Banker, went on his own and started Banker Steel in the old North Plant. Then Hirschfield left and Banker Steel then moved part of their operation back to the south plant, so they are now about the same as Montague-Betts was in the 80's. And the main reason Montague-Betts gave for selling in the first place was that there wasn't enough business to keep them going. My next door neighbor works for Banker Steel now and he started with Montague-Betts then worked for Hirschfield, so he still works in the same place, but for 3 different companies.

hmmmm...is that why the cat picture that I made small came out real big in the actual post? then when you clicked on it it instead of biggerizing it shrunk down to the size it was supposed to be in the first place. I tried to post some pictures on my blog too but they never would show up, and I smallerized them a lot too. It's a wonder my keyboard even works this morning- I spilled half a glass of red kool-aid on it last night.

Yeah, i'm sure they did. We never did haul much of that pipe anyway, Huss had that pretty much covered and H.H. pretty much had all the Montague-Betts freight and kyanite mining. We would get a load of it from Huss sometimes when they were real busy.

Western Express is in the old Huss terminal in Madison Heights, but TMC opened a terminal at Concord Turnpike and old 460, right on the corner there across from where Templeton's Market used to be before they put the bypass in. Western Express was hauling most of the pipe from Griffin, but now I see mostly TMC hauling it.

Saw this coal train in West Virginia, headed west. It should have been going east, so I flagged it down to see if the engineer was lost and needed directions. Santa Claus himself was at the controls. Said he had several stops to make in Illinois and needed a train to carry that much coal, and as soon as he dropped the coal off he would get on with his regular deliveries.

The flat bed binness is the same way. We get paid by percentage and every load paid pretty good. They wouldn't take a load if they couldn't make a profit, wouldn't haul cheap freight. Then you get big companies like say, TMC, and they come along and cut the rates so low you can't compete. They took several of our hauls out of this area altogether, and some others that we used to be the main carrier for we now only get a load here and there if they don't have a truck available.

I'm glad you got a good sense of humor-or that I live too far away for you to get me!

That's what I would do under those circumstances. And I know a guy that did hold a truck until he got the money he was owed, in the 80's. He brought the Astro he was driving home and chained it to a tree in his yard.

you're on the Canadian list- I had too many names on the list to publish them all. Rob was number 13,843-but he's on the list. He likes to gripe about being picked on but it's all in his head.

Sure enough, the snow's up to the bumper, and I haven't been anywhere near Florida lately. Left last Sunday with a load of beams going to Cullman, Al. then motored over to Iuka, Ms. to pick up a load of used piling going to Morehead City, N.C. Left there when I got unloaded and went to Dillwyn to load Kyanite going to Fremont, Ohio. The engine fan came on on the truck Monday or Tuesday and would not cut off- even if the engine was off all night the fan was running when I cranked up the next morning. Then Wednesday night on the way to Fremont the engine light came on again before I got to Lewisburg, W.V. So I had to go all the way to Fremont with over 46,000 lbs. on, then I reloaded 48,000 lbs.-7 scrap coils-in Burns Harbor, In. and came back with the fan running constantly, which cuts your power a good bit, and with the engine light on, which cuts your power back a helluva lot. Turns out it didn't make much difference, as I stayed at a truckstop in Grayson, Ky. from Friday night until Sunday morning. The West Virginia Turnpike was closed as was I-64 east from Beckley because of the heavy snowfall. No way I would try rt. 60 in those conditions, so there was nothing to do but wait it out. When they finally got the turnpike cleared I left Grayson just before daylight Sunday morning. The turnpike was fine, just wet, but as I whined and cried about last year, and the year before, when you got off the pike at Beckley and headed east on 64 you were pretty much on your own. There was one lane cleared in each direction, and sometimes it was just 2 tracks- the rest was snow covered. Cars and trucks were in the ditches and in the median all across there. 2 big trucks were turned over on their side. The plow drivers said they just couldn't do anything with that much snow-but they always manage to get the turnpike cleared. I-64 from Staunton to Afton mountain was no better. I finally hit clear road again around Charlottesville- normally it's about 6 hours from Grayson to the shop in Concord, but it took me all day to get to Ivor, Va. where I called it a day. I unloaded in Suffolk yesterday morning and went to the shop. Jeffrey brought me home, and the truck's going back to the Cat shop for the umpteenth time. All these pictures were taken on I-64 in W.V. This parade was only doing about 20 mph. The pictures might not work, they take a long time to download here and I made them pretty small. They might be like the Rosie's cat picture- I made that real small but it ended up big on the post and when you clicked on it it got smaller, down to the size it was supposed to be in the first place. Stupid computers (Freighttrain)

I saw that on 700WLW's site, on Scott Sloan's blog, or his site, onequickbeer. They have good stuff. I used to listen to 700WLW in Cincinnati whenever I was in range, then I listened 24/7 when they were on XM radio. Now I don't get to hear it much anymore but I always check their website.

Not so- I consider you one of the greatest living Americans, along with Paul, Herb, Mike, Morgan, Barry, Larry, Larry, Rowdy...uh...well-never mind.

I did too, love to read. Of course that splains how I got to be so smart

uh-huh...yes indeed.

That's amazing- that's exactly how I had you pictured in my mind! I knew that other picture wasn't really you. I just got back from Wal-Mart, where I got one of those digital picture frames for Mom and Dad. Got home and opened it up to load pictures off the p.c. onto it and the instruction book said "USB cable to connect to computer sold separately". Sunnuva-!!! they shoulda had that information on the outside of the box! Now I gotta go back to Altavista to get a #$%@in' USB cable-if I can find one. Wal-Mart will probably say "oh, we don't have those". None of the ones I have will fit it of course.

that's pretty much my story- my son and his girlfriend were over here a while back and she said "you really need to be on facebook". So now I am, but I really don't even look at it that much except when I get an e-mail telling me somebody commented on something. Looks like a lot of people get on there and tell every move they make. I usually check BMT first when I get home to see if Rob's said anything funny . Then on to WLW, one quick beer,flash your rac- anyhow...I must be off now.