Dragging your, um, trailer

Sitting in a truck stop in Ohio, waiting for a mechanic. The sky is blue.

This is the second time I've had this trailer fixed today. The first breakdown happened as I was on my way here to get this fixed. Does that make this the first?

I was moving quietly down a busy little road, minding my own business, when the rig abruptly slowed, making a hissing sound. Before I could get off onto the shoulder, it stopped completely. Dragged to a halt.

The hissing continued, but now I recognized it. Air, moving past the valve on the dash that controls the flow through the trailer's air lines. I had suddenly developed a massive leak, and the trailer's brake system was losing air much faster than the compressor could put it back.

When I was a kid, I saw a movie where David Jansen* played a tough-as-nails trucker delivering a cargo the bad guys really wanted to stop. At one point, some nefarious fellow cut his brake lines, sending him careening down a mountain road with only his skill and manliness to save him.

I was disgusted. Even at that age, I knew better.

Cars have a hydraulic brake system. Step on the pedal, and you compress hydraulic fluid, which pushes pistons attached to your brake pads (calipers or shoes, it matters not). If you cut the brake lines, the fluid runs out and the brakes stop working.

On a semi, when you step on the pedal, you open valves, that open other valves, that dump high-pressure air into similar pistons. That air is stored in tanks on truck and trailer. Cut the lines, and the air no longer goes to the pistons.

But the people who build semi's worry about such things. And they apply the same solution train-builders and (after a fashion) elevator designers use.

Also attached to the brake pads are a set of powerful springs. And those springs are set up to keep the brakes locked up. Always. One of the other things all that high-pressure air is doing is--holding those springs back. Cut the air lines, and the pistons that apply the brakes become useless. So do the ones that hold those springs at bay.

And the brakes lock down.

Like this afternoon.

The police and the street department were very polite. They directed traffic around me for a couple of hours, until the mechanic finally got there.

Fifteen minutes later I was rolling along as if nothing had happened. And got here to get the trailer fixed. Again. Maybe they'll get to me sometime tonight.

The sky is dark.

-----
*The original “Fugitive", chasing the one-armed man across TV screens before cops had computer assist…

Sleighride

27 JANUARY 2014, 22:57 Briefly, as I persuade myself to sleep...
The past week has been amusing, and frustrating, and infuriating, and terrifying--
--and flippin' COLD!

So cold my company has overridden its own policies on idling, to keep from having to pay for dozens of jump starts. The truck runs day and night.

So cold the engine threatens to overheat--because of ice building up on the grille and keeping air away from the radiator.

So cold I drive hundreds of miles without thinking about anything but driving.

That's not usually the case. I spend less time daydreaming at the wheel than most of you, I suspect. But I still do it. Autopilot works fairly well, much of the time.

But not now. You only have to feel a forty-ton truck come unstuck once to change your perspective. It's happened to me four or five times this week. The main reason I've stayed out of ditches is creative cowardice.

I don't take chances. I stay well behind you. I slow down enough to get on your nerves. I make no sudden moves.

A gust washes over us. The wind working its way through the window seals goes from a mutter to a roar. The drive wheels drift slowly to the right.

I turn the steering wheel slightly to the left. The tractor thinks about that for a second or so, and the drive wheels drift slowly back.

I breathe again.

If I ever had to swerve, or hit the brakes--well, I don't know. So I spend much time watching for excuses to swerve or hit the brakes. And eliminating them. A car just ahead? A swiftly-approaching curve? Not if I can help it.

Don't know if this makes much sense. I suddenly decided I'd have to say all this to sleep well. If you get something out of it, I'll be glad. If not, maybe I'll have something more coherent to say later.

Ah. I feel better already. Good night.

Elbow Room!

23 JANUARY 2014, 14:08 For a state with such wide-open spaces, Kansas has some of the worst-cramped docks…

I had freight yesterday for three stores in a chain I deliver to a fair bit. They have a few fairly tight lots, but the two in Karsas yesterday were incredible. One corner or another of truck or trailer was in trouble the whole way, in both places. And one of them involved a blind back around a corner--with the same clearances. Even getting out required backing and filling just to get around that corner without dropping a tire off the road.

Other than that it was a nice day. I made my deliveries, shopped while they unloaded (Those people have some neat random stuff!) and otherwise passed the time pleasantly. Finished the last delivery pleasantly, then found a message from my dispatcher waiting when I got back to the truck.

I tend to assume bad news when I see messages like that. When I call and he says "There's someone from the Safety Department that wants to talk to you," I assume more.

The Safety Lady hastened to assure me it was nothing like that. They just wanted me to take a random screen.

As I've said before, I fear no cup, for my heart is pure; but this is the third one I recall, and it's always interesting. One of the more interesting things is getting to the clinic

When I asked if there was a place to park a semi, the lady blinked. And hastily consulted her computer. Then she said yes, but not if you take your trailer. Where to drop the trailer was the obvious next question, but fortunately that's a fairly simple one. The dispatcher found a nearby truck stop and told me where to go.

All seemed to be well. My first hint that it might be as…interesting as usual was when Google Maps told me hew to get there. The exit was marked "DOWNTOWN BUSINESS DISTRICT."

Not a good sign. But I had my instructions…

I got to the DOWNTOWN exit and started up a steep hill on a two-lane street. Halfway up the hill I saw a parking lot, exactly where two GPS's agreed I was supposed to be.

Making the turn was…interesting. Going down the lane between the rows of cars was…more so. I think I had a solid six inches of clearance on each side, but I'm not sure.

A huddle of security guards watched me in fascination. When I stopped to ask for suggestions, their first comment was "I've never seen anything that big here." Encouraging, that. But they did point out a place where I'd wouldn't be too much in the way as long as I was gone in a couple of hours.

Getting there involved slipping through the rest of the parking lot, pulling out ioto the opposite street, then backing back into the lot at another angle. But I made it. The I entered the clinic and said "I'm here for--" and they said, "Yes, we know."

They'd spent the last ten minutes watching in horrified fascination as that huge THING tiptoed past their helpless cars and came to rest beside their window.

Turns out no one had ever brought a truck like that into their parking lot. A few had parked on the street I'd backed in from (I hadn't known it was there till then), but even that was iffy--the street was pretty narrow.

Ah, well. No damage was done, the company received evidence that I wasn't a druggie, and all was well. And I threaded my way back out, turned onto the street I backed in from (trying not to imagine getting past a semi parked on it) looped around the building, made my cautious way back down that two-lane street, and escaped back onto the glorous expanse of urban Interstate

Getting back into the truck stop? Past a dozen drivers waiting in line for a fuel pump? Skimming parked trucks to line up and re-connect to my trailer? How could that be difficult? I had a foot or more of air around me all the time!

17 JANUARY 2014, 20:44 There's a service plaza on the Indiana Turnpike that sells dark chocolate mochas.

It's the one just over the border from Ohio, if you happen to be going in that direction someday. The, um, snack bar is run by, I think, the South Bend Chocolate Company. And they make their chocolate drinks with chocolate. As in, melt the chocolate and pour it it the milk. Oh, my.

This is a nice thing to contemplate, especially in truly cold weather. Which has suddenly come upon me. This morning it was barely below freezing in Pennsylvania. At lunchtime it was a fairly comfortable forty-something in Ohio. Then I hit a wall of snow as the temperature dropped ten degrees in an hour.

That actually wasn't too bad, except for the cars disappearing in front of me. I don't like following invisible cars. I'm never sure they won't reappear, much closer. And nobody else wants to slow down.

Oh, well. Eventually things cleared up, and we all tooled along happily again. For about another hour. Then it started snowing again. And the temperature dropped another ten degrees.

And things stated getting weird.

The first hint that this was no longer a normal day was when the engine started to overheat. In a snowstorm. At twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately, I'd run into thiis before, though. So I pulled over at the next service plaza, climbed out of the truck with a walking stick, and started pounding on the grille.

A couple of minutes worth of gratuitous violence, and the ice that was keeping the air away from the radiator was mostly gone. So I climbed back into the truck and headed on down the road, admiring the new and more reasonable temperature readings.

At the next service plaza I stopped again, this time to knock the ice off the windshield wipers. When I started again, I noticed a new odd thing.

The engine wouldn't rev up all the way.

The engine in this truck has a redline around 1900 rpm. You usually shift somewhere around 1700. Suddenly it decided anything over 1500 was just Not the Thing. No stumbling, no roughness, no hint of mechanical problems. It just spun up to 1500 rpm and stayed there.

Fortunately, 1500 is enough to let you shift. Barely. And like I said, it ran like a sewing machine otherwise. I suspect something happened to the engine computer. Maybe something to do with the governor.

In any case, it made a nice excuse to shut down a little early. Hopefully sitting all night will give the engine computer a chance to reset. Hopefully that will get the engine back to normal.

And meanwhile, I get a dark chocolate mocha.

And a good night's sleep. Sweet dreams.

...not the fault of your set...

16 JANUARY 2014, 08:18
The sky is blue and the snow is falling.

Okay, I suspect that's rare even in upstate New York. And sure enough it's slacking off. It wasn't heavy even when the clouds were thicker. But it makes for an interesting sight.

Cheerful surroundings will be a plus. I could be here a while. I'm at a plant that makes the compressed wood pellets they use in the fancy stoves nowadays. For some reason they're popular right now. I just delivered twenty-something tons of them to a store up here, and they promptly sent me here after twenty-something more for a store in New Hampshire. Odd. They don't sell like that in Georgia...

Got here last night and walked in to let them know I was here. The shipping office was on a wall in the loading area, about halfway down. Even in tennis shoes my footsteps echoed in the cavernous, empty space.

(Note the word "empty." It's important.)

The office was empty, too. This did not bode well.

But I was patient, and patience is sometimes rewarded. After a fashion. A fellow eventually crossed the echoing space to give me the news. The plant was shut down. Something about serious repairs. Hours before any product would be available.

Believe it or not, this was only mildly upsetting. For once, my delivery schedule wasn't terribly tight, and it was getting on for evening. So I moved down to a spot I'd seen coming in, parked, and settled in for the night.

This morning I came back, admiring the column of steam that marked a functioning plant. Sure enough, they told me they were back in business, and would load me as soon as they had enough product.

In about eight hours.

(postscript: When I informed my dispatcher of the good news, he said they were taking me off this load and would find me something that was ready to move.

We'll see.

Some people may have a harder time staying warm for a while, but I can at least say it wasn't my doing...)