Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/708

 �If the truck becomes mired, it is equipped with a power-winch to pull itself out

ONLY a few years ago the plan of establishing a regular freight-carry- ing service with big motor-trucks over a distance exceeding fifty or, perhaps, seventy-five miles, would have been con- sidered extremely visionary if not im- possible. Today a large manufacturing concern in Akron, O., maintains a regular freight service by five-ton motor -trucks between Akron and Boston, a dis- tance of 740 miles one way or 1480 miles for the round trip.

The concern manufactures automobile tires and rub- ber goods and has a great number of branches in cities along the Eastern seaboard. To these it must deliver goods regu- larly and promptly- The inability to get cars when needed often meant that some })ranch would run out of tires and would be comi)e]|ed to refuse busi- ness because it could not

��Truck Service Overland

��Congestion of railroads and scarcity of cars causes long-haul motor truck service to be instigated

By Joseph Brinker

deliver the goods when a call came. There seemed to be little prospect of an improvement in the situation and, fearing that the railroad congestion would eventually make it impossible for the company to carry on its business, the heads of the corporation decided to employ a number of large motor-trucks to deliver its goods to all of its branches east of the Mississippi River. They fully realized that it would cost more to ship tires cross-country by trucks than by rail, but they would rather pay the additional cost and continue their busi- ness than shut down and do no business at all. Nothing is more expensive than doing no business. The expenses of main- taining the factory and the branches continue, as do the interest on the in- vestment, de- preciation, etc., whether one tire or a thousand tires are made a day.

The trucks now in oper- ationmakethe 740-mile run between Akron and Boston in four days, w h er e a s it took from ten to fourteen days to make the shipment by railroad. When this saving from six to ten days is con- sidered, it may readily be seen that it pays the company to stand the ex- tra cost of truck trans- portation which is prob- ably somewhere between seventy - five cents and

���•Jn the way. This i> (nu ol the trucks which make the seven-hundred-and-foity mile journey across country

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��Details of bunking facilities. The crew sleep right in their machines

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