I drove for 3-4 years in the mid-1980's, company based out of Davenport, Iowa that's long gone now. Ran Day Trips mostly to the Chicago area. We did quite a bit of cartage work mostly for International FARMALL PLANT, and a tiny bit for East Moline combine plant.
I drove a tilt cab maybe 4-5 times, aTransStar IH mostly, a "2-Story Ford 9000" once, I tried to stick with one of the 5 '79 White Road Boss 2's they had, 320 hp 903 Cummins and 6-spd Spicer, they were governed to 67 mph and would hold that speed loaded to& from Chicago to Iowa when I first started driving there, and they slowly slowed down due to poor maintenance. The slowest truck was an IH S2200 with shiny 290 Cummins and 10 spd Road-Ranger, it got so it would barely run 55 mph. It just made a Long day that much longer. The longer I drove the more local cartage work I had to do in Chicago, and then they found deliveries and pickups for me as far away as Osh Kosh, WI.
I started running to Kansas City for a change of scenery. They had me pick up in Neosho, Missouri once, huge storage cave, ran several miles back into to hills from the entrance loading dock. Two truck loads of El Paso Taco shells loaded out ahead of me, I got my split load of BFG backhoe rear tires, half for JICase in Burlington, Iowa, other half for Deere Dubuque. Then for about a month I had to pull 6 empty 45 trailers out of the Milwaukee Piggy-back rail yard and spot them at BFG's warehouse about a mile away. Next day I had 6 loads to take back to rail yard and pulled 6 empties out of the railyard. It was kinda sad, I was tire, rim, & wheel buyer at Farmall for 3 yrs, I knew about 5-6 people at BFG that when I was done shuttling trailers they would be out of work.
I hauled ready- mix 2 summers, summer of '75 in a '74 Diamond Reo, 9 yard REX mixer I could only scale 7 yards with. The little 555 Cummins and Allison 6-speed auto Trans really struggled to move the truck. The sticker on the engine said 208 HP @3200 rpm. The 7.3L Powerstroke in my '96 F-250 made 215 hp. The mixer had a huge crankshaft driven hyd pump to turn the drum, it really ate up the HP. The mixer had a 3-speed Brownie aux Trans, a 2:1 reduction underwrite, a direct, and a .8:1 overdrive. I REALLY needed that underwrite to get around off pavement at construction sites. Empty I'd run home empty in Overdrive.
I drove for several months for a guy whose main work was delivering paper for Leslie Paper, I ran from Davenport to Des Moines every night for 6 months, and on Friday's I'd delivery misc freight north to Dubuque one week or south to Muscatine, Burlington, Fort Madison, and Keokuk the next week. He had an '82 F-700 Ford single axle tractor with a Detroit 8.2L Fuel Pincher engine, 5&2, was about like driving my F-150 except for the air brakes. The days I delivered to Dubuque I'd have 2, maybe 3, maybe 4 skids to a downtown print shop that had their dock on the alley with only about 40 feet from the dock to the brick building across the alley. I could only get INTO the alley 2 blocks north of the print shop, way too tight of turns to get a 45 ft trailer into any closer. Little things like huge electrical transformers hanging on power poles in the way. But the fun was just starting. I'd drive past the print shops dock and stop, jot down license #'s of any cars parked in my way, go inside, give my list to the shipping Forman, people would come out, move there cars, and I would jack-knife the trailer back into their dock at an angle, 45 ft trailer in a 40 ft space, they had a BIG aluminum dock plate we'd slide into the trailer and start wheeling pallets. I even backed in there once with a 1970 Kenworth tilt cab twinscrew tractor, 6-71 Detroit and 10 spd Road Ranger. What a PITA. My F-700 had power steering, the Kenworth didn't.
Buddy I drove with hauling ready-mix considered buying a short nose Louisville tandem axle dumptruck. I BRIEFLY considered buying one with him. My cousin did that as a side-line to his farming. And a guy in the little farm town I grew up by tried to make a living with a '64 C-60 Chevy single axle dumptruck with a cheater axle, not sure what Chevy had for big block power then, maybe 366 & 5+2. That's what the '67 C-65 and '74 C-65 I drove for the township had.
Even the readymix company I drove for found out that it was cheaper having someone ELSE hauling material for them. They had two tandem axle '66 White tractors, 220 Cummins & 4x4 Trans and matching aluminum dump trailers that they last used in about 1975.
Back in the 1980's when I was hauling lots of groceries, there was a husband & wife team that I'd see about once a week, I forget who they were leased on to, Wife normally navigated but I heard she drove a little too, Ford 9000 tilt cab. They retired out of farming and thought trucking was less risky.
