Talking about Redwing Carriers in the last post reminded me of my first job after moving to Florida.
The guy that talked me into moving myself and family to Florida had lived there before and worked at Redwing, so we applied there the first day we arrived and both were hired. At that time it was called "Wyle-Redwing of which Lucile Ball owned part of Wyle Labs and later they sold Redwing and it was then called Redwing Carriers. The main business of Redwing was local, wet and dry bulk hauling, mostly in Florida and surrounding states.
I had never pulled an unbaffled liquid tanker before so it was a new experience for me. We hauled molten sulfur from Ybor City, a suburb Tampa, to the chemical plants just east of Bartow on Rt 60 and depending if you were doing the sulfur/rock double or just the single sulfur run back to Tampa. The double would unload at Farmland or W.R. Grace and then go about 15 miles into the countryside to the phosphoric rock mines and pick up crushed rock in a saddle enclosure over the barrel tank. Then return, 3 rounds a night that took about 8 to 9 hours and paid the driver $13 per round or $39 a night. The single run just went to W.R. Grace and came back to Tampa empty. 4 loads a night that took 9 to 10 hours and paid $9 per or $36. I preferred the singles which was a good thing because we were dispatched according to seniority which put me on the bottom anyway as everyone else wanted the doubles.
Now comes the good part! Driving a two stick Mack has a learning curve from a week to a month depending on how coordinated you are. I had lots of experience with the duplex or triplex from some of my earlier jobs but, not while pulling an unbaffled tank.
You never can fill the tank completely full due to product weight, so that allows room in the tank for the liquid to slosh from end to end and side to side constantly as long as your stopping or starting, slowing or adjusting your speed in traffic. With the weight of the load at around 40,000 lbs. you can imagine how hard it is to control and trying to shift when it's sloshing back and forth, as it is a timing problem because you are also timing your shift to match the motor and transmission so you can see the turmoil.
It's not real bad in a Road Ranger 10 speed with just one gear shift but try it with a duplex, that if you get both boxes out of gear at the same time, all you can do is stop and start over.
The road from Tampa thru Bartow was usually packed with rush hour traffic when we got started at 6;oo p.m. and their was a lot of stopping and starting. The first week I drove an International city cab tractor that was ok and I just about had the shifting and sloshing thing figured out, but the second week it was in the shop and the only truck available was a 2 stick Mack. I spent a lot of time on the berm trying to get the damn thing back in gear, that second week. I finally got it worked out and preferred that Mack to any other tractor there. I became very good at timing the slosh and carried that knowledge with me into hauling swinging meat and again later hauling hazmat liquids all over the U.S. and Canada. Which just reminded me of some interesting trips to Canada I'll save till next time.
Keep on Keeping on, Dutch
P S, I didn't tell you how to accomplish the shifts because you don't find these anymore. Suffice it to say, there would be a lot less new drivers on the road if they had to start out on one of these. LOL
