TRI-STATE (WFIE) - What's in that truck or on that train?
Here in Evansville, there are no designated hazmat routes for trucks, no matter what they're carrying, the same goes for trains.
So, what happens if something goes terribly wrong?
Thousands of trucks travel through Evansville each day, so do dozens of trains and you may be surprised to know that trucks carrying, dangerous, hazardous materials are allowed to drive right by your front door.
May 18
posted by Jared Flinn in
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AMBRIDGE, Pa. - A truck driver charged with assaulting officers after police said he broke into an Ambridge, Beaver County, home has accepted a plea deal of 18-36 months in prison.
May 18
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Industry news
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May 17
posted by Jared Flinn in
Transportation News
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The Associated Press
5/17/2012 HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says an Athens-based trucking company has been ordered to shut down because of federal safety violations. BM&L Trucking, affiliated company IDM Transportation and its owners Isaac and Heronda McWilliams must immediately cease all transportation services based on serious safety violations that posed an imminent hazard to public safety. The FMCSA said the shutdown order follows a review of BM&L Trucking operations, finding multiple federal safety violations in the areas of hours-of-service compliance, driver qualifications and vehicle maintenance. According to the FMCSA website, the company had four BASIC scores above the intervention threshold -- Unsafe Driving at 99.2 percent, Fatigued Driving at 86.9 percent, Driver Fitness at 95.4 percent and Vehicle Maintenance at 99.4 percent. The FMCSA said IDM Transportation had a 79 percent out-of-service rate on 19 vehicle inspections during the past 24 months. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ADVERTISEMENT THE RECENT INCREASE IN FREIGHT VOLUME MEANS NEW JOB OPPORTUNITIES ON GOTRUCKERS.COM. CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The agency says it completed an investigation late last week. The DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says BM&L management was unable to provide investigators with the number of commercial motor vehicle it owns, leases or otherwise operates, and drivers it employs. Kevin Jones of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at kevinj@thetrucker.com. Find more news and analysis from The Trucker, and share your thoughts, on Facebook.
CASCADE- A grain elevator that started the day as a landmark in the town of Cascade is now a pile of rubble.
Cascade resident Jackie Berger watched the historic structure come down on Tuesday morning, noting, "One minute it was there...one minute it wasn't. So it was that fast."
Some residents saw it as an eyesore, while others saw it as a reminder of the past.
"It's kind of bittersweet. I mean we've been working on trying to get these down now for five years now. They were becoming a health hazard. They're pretty historical buildings. This is the old Simmon's grain elevator that just came down,"Jodie Campbell, the town clerk and treasurer, said.
Cascade city officials asked BNSF to consider tearing down the more than 80-year-old grain elevator near Front Street on its property and said they worried about teens inside smoking and goofing around.
Residents also say it had heavy graffiti and many animals had taken up residence inside.
"The metal was falling off of it and flying out. So it was falling apart. The windows were broken and then it was boarded up,"Jodie explained.
After tearing down two buildings near the elevator, construction workers moved toward the elevator, and within an hour, all that was left was a pile of rubble.
Phillips Construction officials say now that the elevator is down, they will try and recycle the metal and reuse the wood on other projects. If they can't, they take it to the landfill.
For some, like Jackie, who has lived across the street from the elevator for 25 years, it's hard to watch a piece of history go, but they understand why.
"It's just something that you go to the park and it's there and have seen it for all your life probably most people that live here and so you just have to blink to see 'where's the elevator?," Jackie said.
There is only one grain elevator left in Cascade and officials say they don't foresee it coming down anytime soon because it is not a health hazard.
May 17
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Industry news
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CLEARFIELD – Pennsylvania Grain Processing, LLC (PGP) has closed upon the purchase of a grain processing facility in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. The facility can process up to 40 million bushels of grain per year into 110 million gallons of ethanol and 330,000 tons of dry distiller's grain with solubles. Ethanol is a renewable, cleaner burning, high-octane, domestic source of fuel that today meets 10 percent of U.S. gasoline demand. DDGS is a high-value animal feed. PGP plans to have the facility back into production sometime during late June or early July. PGP expects to make a positive impact on the community while bringing new business opportunities to the region. The company has hired all of the plant's previous employees and plans to hire additional employees for new positions. Apart from direct employment at the facility, some of those opportunities include supplying grain and services to the plant, rail and truck transportation, and a new source of ethanol and distiller's grain for the marketplace. "We are optimistic about PGP's future and look forward to commencing production at the plant. As with any production facility, Pennsylvania Grain Processing will face challenges but also has many strengths and opportunities," said Dan Meeuwsen, company manager. "We are committed to developing those strengths and opportunities to soundly position the facility for long term success." PGP is an affiliate of Zeeland Farm Services, Inc. (ZFS) , a 60 year old, diversified agricultural and transportation company headquartered in West Michigan. ZFS comprises four separate divisions: Zeeland Farm Services, Inc., Zeeland Farm Soya, Inc., Zeeland Freight Services, Inc., and Zeeland Food Services, Inc. ZFS' wide array of specialty products and services include soybean processing, feed ingredients, grain marketing, a full-service elevator, ZFSelect® soybean seeds, Zoye® soybean oils, transportation and maintenance. Another affiliate of ZFS, Nebraska Corn Processing, LLC (NCP), owns and operates a facility that processes grain into ethanol and distiller's grain in southwest Nebraska. ZFS has taken innovative measures to be environmentally friendly, including running its soybean processing facility on renewable energy from a local landfill, co-generating renewable power and steam and building a LEED silver certified administration building.
May 17
posted by Jared Flinn in
Transportation News
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By Joseph Cress, Sentinel Reporter
Truck driver Alan Larde is sick of hauling around a spare tire that is slowing down his rig. A quarter-century of life on the highway has taken a physical toll on the man from Rockwood, Tenn. "I'm overweight," he said. "I'm concerned about my health. I really need to bring it in check."
Read more: http://cumberlink.com/news/local/man-aims-to-get-truckers-on-track-with-fitness/article_ab0b1432-9fc1-11e1-b409-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1v8mOdwBJ
May 17
posted by Jared Flinn in
Transportation News
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JOHN METCALFE
Truckers in Los Angeles may want to rotate their driving music soon. Switch out the Red Sovine, pop in some Tron soundtrack by Daft Punk.
Why's that? Oh, only because L.A. may be about to usher in the E-HIGHWAY OF THE FUTURE!!!!
That's the name that engineers have chosen for a proposed electric highway for trucks. The concept was touted last week at the 26th Annual Electric Vehicle Symposium, no doubt causing a few conference-goers to cough out breakfast pastries in surprise over how far this futuristic-sounding idea has progressed.
See full coverage The eHighway, as its known, would operate much like a 'roided-out trolley-car line. The key word here is pantograph. That's the flexible doohickey that you see on the top of a streetcar connecting it to an electric wire. The idea is to work with truck manufacturers to develop a hybrid vehicle with a pantograph that couples with a power line running above the highway.
When a truck pulls onto the enhanced highway, its pantograph grips the line and allows the trucker to switch off the gas and cruise solely on voltage. Braking would activate a mechanism to transfer the dragging momentum into energy, which would be shot back into the grid for all the cargo trucks to use. When the driver is ready to exit, he disengages his or her pantograph from the overhanging line and switches over to diesel fuel.
Renderings of the eHighway concept courtesy Siemens
The company behind the project, Siemens, is currently testing out the eHighway tech on an inactive airstrip outside of Berlin, driving Mercedes hybrid electric trucks down a mile-long runway outfitted with overhead catenary wires. The eventual goal is to deploy an eHighway pilot on Southern California's Interstate 710, which handles tons of truck traffic from the ports of Long Beach and L.A.
The electric highway would, with luck, reduce some of the foul air that currently makes the L.A. region the country's No. 1 city for ozone pollution and No. 3 in particle pollution, by the American Lung Association's ranking. Several key groups have expressed early interest in the project, including the Southern California Association of Governments, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and Southern California Edison.
Siemens (which, yes, is coincidentally one of our sponsors) has assured doubters that its coupling gadget is savvy enough to automatically disengage in the event of sudden swerves. It also claims that this concept will be "very easy" to integrate with America's existing highway system. And yes, iPad fans, the trucks will have touchscreen counsels for the pantographs.
The eHighway might seem laughable at the moment to all but the most fervent environmentalist, but just wait. Air pollution in Long Beach and Riverside costs these communities an estimated $18 million annually in asthma bills, docking residents on average an incredible 8 percent of their household income. And the toxic stew isn't expected to waft away anytime soon. Here's Siemens infrastructure chief Daryl Dulaney laying out the grim prognosis for the future in a press release:
"When most people think of vehicle emissions, they assume cars do most of the damage, but it's actually commercial trucks that are largely to blame," says Dulaney. Freight transportation on U.S. roadways is expected to double by 2050, and by 2030, carbon dioxide emissions are forecasted to jump 30 percent due to freight transport alone. So while electric trucking takes a little away from the exhaust-cloaked, chaw-stained trucker archetype, no doubt Californians will embrace it with both arms if it means hacking a little less brown goo into the Kleenex each morning.
May 16
posted by Jared Flinn in
Transportation News
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By Eric Miller Staff Reporter Transport Topics
Over the next five years, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to significantly reduce truck-related crash fatality rates by developing new credentialing and driver safety fitness standards, expanding its regulatory reach to include shippers and other industry players and creating new programs aimed at weeding out high-risk motor carriers.
May 16
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By Mark B. Solomon
What would happen if the nation went to a 97,000 pound gross vehicle weight limit on its interstate highways?
MillerCoors, the giant Chicago-based brewer, estimates it could cut by 25 percent the number of trucks it deploys each week to move products from its eight breweries to its six distribution centers. That would translate into 1.15 million fewer vehicle miles traveled each week, the company said. Based on a diesel fuel price of $4.50 a gallon, Miller estimates it could cut its weekly fuel bill by nearly $181,000 and reduce weekly carbon emissions by more than 4.5 million pounds.
Kraft Foods, the snack foods behemoth based in Northfield, Ill., says that, in a typical year, it would be able to move the same product with 66,000 fewer loads, resulting in a 33 million drop in vehicle miles driven, a savings of 6.6 million gallons of diesel fuel, and a 73,000-ton reduction in Kraft's carbon emissions.
Campbell Soup Co., the iconic Camden, N.J.-based canned goods producer, said it could cut its annual loads by 41,000, reducing vehicle miles driven by 23 million, saving nearly 4 million gallons of fuel, and eliminating about 39,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
International Paper Co., the Memphis, Tenn.-based paper products titan, said it would carry the same amount of tonnage per year on 68,000 fewer truckloads, achieve a 27-percent annual productivity gain per truck, and shave up to 20 percent a year from its truck freight bill.
All compelling numbers, to be sure. For now, however, it is just data on fact sheets. Arguably the best shot to date to increase both the weight and size limits for big trucks plying the nation's highways has vanished into the legislative ether, helped into oblivion by a trade group whose members move these companies' goods for a living.
BITTER BLOW For shippers that have long fought to effect what would have been the first legislative change to truck weights and size limits in 30 years, it was a bitter and expensive blow. By one estimate, though impossible to quantify, upping the per-vehicle weight limit to 97,000 pounds from 80,000 pounds would have yielded shippers between $32 billion and $37 billion a year in cost savings and productivity improvements.
In early February, Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, personally inserted language in a first draft of federal transport reauthorization legislation that would have allowed states to raise the weight limit for fully loaded trucks traveling on their portion of the interstate highway system. The vehicles would have to be equipped with a sixth axle to improve braking and to better distribute the load's weight in order to minimize road wear. Currently, six states--five of them located in New England--allow the heavier vehicles on their interstate highways.
The language would also have allowed the nationwide use of twin trailers each with 33-foot lengths, and would have permitted the deployment of triple-trailers in states that currently don't have them. The longer doubles are allowed in 22 states, and the triples in 16 states.
Shipper and business groups that have tried unsuccessfully for years to convince Congress to raise maximum gross vehicle weights were thrilled by the news. Unlike other bills that have been introduced only to quickly wither on the legislative vine, the initiative was being pushed by the head of the House committee that oversees transport programs, and it was included in the multiyear highway bill rather than standing legislatively naked on its own.
DASHED HOPES However, even this version was not to be. Almost immediately, and expectedly, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the association representing owner-operator drivers came out in opposition. The railroads argued that heavier and longer trucks would jeopardize public safety and cause road damage that would put taxpayers on the hook for repairs.
The owner-operators group maintained that the heavier trucks would worsen an already-deteriorating infrastructure, and that longer trucks would put drivers and motorists at risk because of their limited maneuverability. The group also said there was no evidence that allowing bigger trucks on the highways would lead to an overall reduction in rigs and trailers.
Supporters of the Mica language knew the tide had turned against them when the full committee then called for a three-year feasibility study by the Transportation Research Board into the issue. But the death knell came on Feb. 13 from an unexpected source, when the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the AAR penned an extraordinary joint letter calling on House members to move forward on a highway bill without the controversial language.
ATA Chairman Bill Graves made it plain in the letter that the group was urging the abandonment of the provision in order to maintain harmony among the many players with much at stake in the transport reauthorization process.
"What this agreement allows us to do is take one potentially controversial issue off the table in the interest of moving the legislation, which is nearly 30 months overdue, forward," the joint letter said.
As early winter turns into late spring, it is clear ATA's position hasn't changed. "Is it an important issue? Yes. Can it be the only issue? Unfortunately, no," Boyd Stephenson, ATA's manager for safety and security operations, said May 3 at an international trade conference in Norfolk.
Shippers' groups have come to realize what they probably already suspected: that the trucking industry as a whole pays lip service to the issue, even though a honcho like David S. Congdon, president and CEO of Thomasville, N.C.-based less-than-truckload carrier Old Dominion Freight Line Inc., has gone on record saying an increase in size and weight limits would represent a "quantum leap" in supply chain productivity.
TEMPORARY SETBACK? For now, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, U.S. shippers will have to be content with the status quo, even though their two border partners, Mexico and Canada, have weight limits of 106,000 and 95,000 pounds, respectively. They are also left to ponder what remedies will be available to deal with the consequences of a doubling or tripling of U.S. truck volumes by 2025 on an infrastructure where truck traffic is already growing 11 times faster than road capacity.
John Runyan, executive director of the Coalition for Transportation Productivity, which has lobbied extensively to increase truck size and weight limits, said the recent legislative setbacks are temporary and the joint ATA-AAR letter didn't make anything better or worse for the group's members.
Runyan said, however, that he would have advised ATA officials not to sign the letter.
"The days of a carrier group speaking on behalf of American shippers are over," he said. "They simply may not be aware of that yet."