(1957)

"Ontario's pipeline on wheels"

In the first part of 1957, I hired on with Bulk Carriers at Sarnia, Ontario. I had never hauled a tanker before, but they were willing to teach me the ropes. The highway asphalt season was coming on and they needed drivers for the new Trans Canada Highway building boom.

I went through the usual road testing process and passed with flying colours. The B-61 Mack and the Fruehauf, tri-axle tank trailer was to be my dedicated equipment. The next item was my first load. They said that, I was to be at the refinery at 10:00 pm, load, and then deliver to an asphalt plant near London, Ontario. They told me that the refinery crew would show me the loading procedure. The instructions included, that under no circumstance, was I allowed to let moisture or water get into the tank after unloading. It would create a serious danger. KEEP IT DRY.

I was at the plant on time, and was instructed and helped in the loading. The loader gave me the same warning as the company did. I was also told to never wear short sleeve shirts, or short pants, in case of a splash from loading, or unloading. The product was in the 400 to 500 degree F.temperature range. If I were to get any on my bare skin, find cold water and submerse the area. Try to bare the pain, and do not try to wipe or brush it off, as the flesh could come off with it. With fabric covering, you could take it off right away. I acknowledged the information and I was on my way.

I arrived at the London plant on time and all I had to do was to open the loading hatch on top of the trailer, hook up a single stainless steel hose to the storage tank pump, start up the electric motor and crack the valve open. Simple enough, except nothing happened. The receiver came along and said that the valve on the tank was cold and frozen solid. He gave me a heavy steam hose and said to direct the steam onto the trailer valve till it thawed out and begins to flow, and then the hot product would eventually melt its way through and be pumped off. After an hour of hot, wet steaming, it cleared and began to move. If the top hatch was not opened, the pump would not only move the product, but would also suck the sides of the tank in. Then you would really be in deep sh**.

The load was eventually pumped off and all valves closed. It was just starting to rain, and after all the warnings about keeping the tank interior dry, I went up top and closed the loading hatch, to make sure that any moisture would not enter. (BIG MISTAKE).

I hit the yard and was told to go home and get some sleep. One of the yard men was going to load the truck for me, and then I could come in and leave directly on a long trip.

Well my mistake was to close the loading hatch with the trailer interior still hot. A closed hatch, holding in all that heat makes the tank sweat, and then leaves moisture on the bottom of the tank as it cools. The hot, airtight tank creates a vacuum as it cools, and could suck in the walls and collapse them, destroying the tank.

The yard man went over to load up. Fortunately the tank resisted collapse, but did have some water, spread out on the bottom from the sweating. Loading at night, they did not see it in the black interior. When the product hit the bottom of the tank and mixed with the water, all hell broke loose. The loading temp was well over 400 deg. F and was coming out of a high speed 6" loading pipe. The product started to foam like hell and the trailer started to bounce violently, then came out like a geyser. The loaders flew off the platform and the safety valve shut down. Creating a bloody dangerous mess, over a little bit of water.

The safe way to keep it dry is to drop the hatch latch into the opening then drop the lid down on top of it, leaving an opening of about 2". The heat escapes, no vacuum is created and any rain water cannot enter. That's the part about keeping dry, that no one had explained to me.

Well I was forgiven for having creating the problem. They accepted the fact that I was not properly informed, and fortunately, no one was hurt and no real damage occurred. It was just a messy cleanup. That incident was really engrained into my brain. All the theoretical instruction that you receive is no match for practical experience.

I ran like a madman after that, there was so much work; we had a hard time keeping up. The time came when they were looking for 4 volunteers to go up North to the Lakehead, for the balance of the season to work on the Trans Canada Highway. Today, it is known as Thunder Bay, Ontario. I jumped at the chance. Jim M. and I ran up there together. It was just over 1,000 miles, north and west of here. It was bad road and muskeg, and took us over 30 hours from Sarnia, to make the trip running empty. There was no such thing as a log book in Canada, at the time. You ran till you couldn't go another inch, flaked out for a few hours then carried on. Two other drivers would follow us up there, a couple of days later. Once at the Lakehead, (at the time, properly called, Fort William & Port Arthur, the twin cities) Jim and I decided to split a double room at a hotel downtown. The other two drivers would share a room in the same hotel next to us. We saved a lot of money, that way.

It was what you could call a long hot summer. It was full of crazy happenings and experiences, some comical and some dangerous. It was a great time.

END PART ONE,

(Click on photo to enlarge)

These example photos are of a recent (2005) insulated, double walled stainless tanker trailer, hauling hot liquid chocolate. The driver failed to open the top hatch before pumping the load off. As in my earlier days with hot loads, this is what could of happened and to some drivers, it did. In this case the vacuum created, collapsed & destroyed a tanker worth around $200,000 Cdn.

        ---------------William (Diesel Gypsy) Weatherstone.                  RETURN TO STORY MENU