(Part One)
PART ONE, ---
For part of a season in 1957/58 A friend of mine wanted to go out on his own. There was a gas station he wanted to take over, on the Burlington Beach strip, at Hamilton Ontario. It was a strip of land, like a causeway, separating Lake Ontario, with the Hamilton Bay.
It was a totally new field for him, but he was determined to try it anyway. During one of my between the job travels, I stopped in for a visit. Before I had a chance, he had me talked into staying on, and give him a hand to get started.
Well eventually things did not go to well, and he put it up for sale. A few days later a fellow showed up, and was interested in the place. He was John Grant, and was looking for a location near Clarkson Ontario. He was in the cement hauling business, and had about 5 tractors and an assortment of trailers. I think it was 3 Fruehauf cement tanker tri-axels, that had a Wisconsin, V-4 air cooled engine, driving twin augers for self unloading. Also he had 2 or 3 flat decks for hauling bagged cement, and a full set of dump trailer "A" Trains, for bulk loading.
The location was great for his purpose, plenty of parking in the rear, plus he could get a truck and trailer in the drive through bay for servicing. His brother was a licensed mechanic coming in from Cornwall, Ontario, to look after the servicing and repairing of the equipment. It would be 6 weeks before he could get away, and be here at Burlington. John took over the garage and I stayed on and ran it till his brother could get here. After he arrived, I was given a single axle, Diamond "T", with a Turbocharged, JT Cummins Engine, (Rated at 165 hp.) The transmission was 5 speeds main, and a 2 speed axle, with a short 4th. It was to be my dedicated tractor.
The main customer was St. Lawrence Cement. It was a good product to haul in the 1950's, with the Trans Canada Pipeline, and the St. Lawrence Seaway construction, going full blast. The demand for cement was incredible.
My first trip was a load of bagged cement going to Pembroke Ontario. I grabbed the map and made my way to Kaladar, Ontario. I stopped and phoned ahead, and gave them an estimated time of arrival. Well as we all know, it being a straight line, and only a couple inches on the map, I gave them a 3 hour estimate, of around 5:00pm. I had lunch and then took off.
I started up the first hill on highway 41, and never gave it a thought. I was grossing out at over 75,000 lbs. with 165 little horses, (more like pony's) to pull it with. The grades were starting to get a lot higher and my speed was getting slower as I went farther along. I was down to the bottom gear, when an empty tandem dump truck caught up to me. I seemed to pick up all of a sudden. I then broke over and roared down the narrow, twisty road on the other side of the hill with the brakes starting to smoke. I was either crawling along, an inch at a time or was flying down the hill almost out of control. When climbing the other side of the hill I was holding up the dump truck again, just crawling along and almost running out of gears and RPM. It would pick up again just before dieing out completely. I finally pulled over at the top of the next hard climb, and waved the other truck on. He pulled up beside me, rolled down his window. I yelled at him to go ahead, as I am running to slow on these hills and I did not want to hold him up. He said no way, I was to stay ahead of him or I would never make it to Pembroke. Why? I said, I'm holding you up. Well every time I was down and out of gears, he would catch up and had to push me up over the hills. I would be flying down the other side so fast that he could not keep up. The brakes would barely hold me back. The tri-axle trailer only had brakes on 2 axels.
They tried brakes on all 3 axles, but when running empty or light, the front axel would grab and bounce up and down, and screw up the tires as well as viciously vibrate the whole truck, and sometimes drift into a jackknife, or even break a spring. In the 1950's, there were no engine brakes, or high horsepower to hold a heavy load back. No maxi brakes as we know them today, or any safety device to help you live longer. Ah, but it did have a metal WIG-WAG hanging from the top left corner of the windshield. It was hooked up to the air system as a warning device. If, and when your air pressure was below 60 lbs, it would stay hanging down. When over 60 lbs it would fold and stay up. Then you were, supposedly safe to travel. If the pressure dropped down, it would drop and that would tell you to start dragging your feet, and start pulling on the mechanical hand brake, because you were totally on your own to get stopped. A great device to have as you were running away on a long hill with your brakes on fire. Well I may as well mention too, about the right angle turn at the bottom of the hill that you were just approaching, ---- That's when all the praying and the swearing start to get mixed together.
It was one long process, trying to get to Pembroke, especially in one piece. I was being pushed over another 4 or 5 hills and there was one worse, still to go. The driver told me how to get around it on a dirt road. This was as far as he could go with me, as his final destination was in another direction. I really thanked him for his help and sticking with me. It could have turned into a real disaster had I been on my own. I offered him some money, (what little I had) but he would not accept anything. He just said that I owed some other driver help if it was ever needed.
Well, I finally pulled into Pembroke, 3 hours late. It was getting dark out and I met the crew walking down the street, heading for home. They thought that I was not coming, but turned back and got me unloaded. They were 100 lb. bags, and had to be carried off the floor of the trailer, and stacked one at a time, in the warehouse.
When we were finished, they asked what took so long. I explained what happened, and they told me that no one comes up 41. They all go around the hills and travel about 60 miles farther to get here, and do it in better time. I was lucky to have even made it.
NOTE, --- The bumpers on the trailers in the1950's, were real bumpers, and not like the tissue crap of today.
END PART ONE.
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