I'm a retired Michigan steel hauler, you know, one of those 11 axle outfits with 100,000 pounds on the deck. I was a company driver for a steel processor for 25 years and the last 2 years as the safety and compliance officer. Always got a new Western Star long nose conventional and a new aluminum 8 axle Reitnauer trailer every 2 years. The general manager of the trucking division always bought new Stars with OO specs so he could sell them easily. Always had a waiting list for them when they came out of the fleet and always maintained by factory authorized mechanics as well, The parent company owned 2 dealerships, s Western Star and a Freightliner dealership. I parked at the Star dealership.
Never delivered steel to Bandit but delivered close by to them. Couple automotive stampers up there or were up there back then. Been retired for about 15 years now. I miss it sometimes but other times I don't, especially in the winter I don't. Michigan don't take good care of their roads in the winter and an 11 axle can be a handfull at times, especially empty.
Pay and benefits were excellent as well as the retirement. Always had a double bunk with a big CAT in it cranked to the max allowed by CAT with a 13 or an 18 speed Road Ranger double overdrive. Never used the bunk ever. Used the fridge however to keep my pop cold and my lunch as well. Home every night or I parked up here at the farm if I was coming back south on 23 and if I did get stuck out, the company paid for a hotel room and I got a meal allowance as well. That was rare and usually only happened on a multiple stop and pickup load. Company had 3 plants in the Toledo area and one in Cleveland and one in Butler, Indiana and I could, with permits, run Cleveland and Butler, Indiana as well Both Ohio and Indiana will permit up to 163K gross but it's all on designated routing. They also had double 8 axle trailers that ran out of Butler north but Indiana don't recognize break up doubles so those drivers had to pull each trailer up to Michigan and hook them together up there. They would always hook them up behind the scale on 69 north bound side. Company had an agreement with MDOT that allowed them to do that and they never rolled them across the scale either. Never pulled doubles myself though my CDL has a doubles-triples endorsement on it. I was always told it was an art to back the wiggle wagons straight back into a dock and the ones the company had, had drop gates on the lead trailers and pups so they could unload both trailers without breaking them up. Not something I was interested in learning to do, nor was I interested in breaking up doubles in the winter time either. We got paid by the hundred weight plus an hourly rate plus detention time in our plants or at a customer based on our logbooks. That was before all this electronic log crapola. I made big money every year, always drove nice equipment and never got stopped or inspected by the DOT or crossed an open scale. We all knew how to avoid the scales and one of their drivers, his dad was a DOT officer and so we knew when the 75 north scale was open or closed all the time, same with south bound and I used to load out of Detroit Marine Terminal back to Toledo and I always loaded a jag on, usually 3 40K nuggets, one on the front and two on the back. No way could I roll a scale with 120 on the deck and not get impounded. They either went to the galvanizer in Monroe or to the pickler in Erie, Michigan. It was all fun back then. I hear it's not fun any more. I retired when the parent company divested itself of all the trucks and sold off the dealerships too. So did the general manager and to this day, we are still good friends and I hunt with the Western Star shop manager. He retired the same day both of us retired. Withdrew my 401, collected my company stock and reinvested it all elsewhere and then the current monkey in charge took a helluva bite of it.
Oh well, poop happens. I still have a wad left. I use it to go on guided hunts out west now.
