Never Stand Still

They said in the late 1970's the Surface Transportation Act was in acted and that was a federal law that allowed doubles CF never did win the fight with PA, they just appealed to the federal government and they over ruled PA.

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/dfaust/slides/frtlnr_cf_pa_doubles.html

 

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/df_cf.htm

 

Here is where they talk all about them:
http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?topic=1685.0

 

So for a minute we need to take a break and discuss CF's corporate structure. The book Never Stand Still at times while it's not a hard read, it is a little choppy. The dates are kind of hard to keep track of like they didn't quite do them in order and the book tends to try to stay on time line in the general sense and it does, but it tends to jump around a little and in my opinion get ahead of it's self some, not a bad book to read if your into trucking history not at all, and it's got some cool pictures and stuff, but some of it is hard to gather and is hard to keep track of especially CF, because CF had a parent company and then all the little companies that ran underneath it, so I'm am going to the best I can try to explain CF's corporate structure.

It would have been nice if they had a chart or something a company tree if you will, but they didn't so here goes it:
CF which was the common carrier and the core business
Then you had
Arrowhead @DougA which was from what I can gather the Owner Operator Truck Load business?

Then CF also had there tank and bulk division which were sold off in the 1960's Bill White the CEO of CF from 1960-1975

Did CF get rid of Arrowhead too or did they keep that forever?

Then CF had gotten into the package business that was very short lived.

They also owned a company called Freightliner and will get to Freightliner in a minute and they owned another company called Road Systems which was there trailer and converter dolly manufacturing division.

They kept up with the trailer and converter division, but Freightliner they ended up getting rid of.

 

One of the things I failed to talk about was CF Air Freight.
In the 1970s CF got into a couple different things, the only one of them though that really stuck was the Air Freight division of the company which by the way doesn't exist any more go figure...

This is a pretty cool find if you would like to know a little bit about CF Air Freight:
http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?topic=37447.0
Any how CF got into the Air Freight business and in 1989 CNF the parent company of CF bought out Emery Air Freight.

Emery is since been disbanded went under in 2001. Although CNF made good money with Emery. During the 1970s.

 

Alright back on track where do we stand with CF?
Well I'll tell you to the best of what I learned.
CF was like the Union Carbide of the Transportation Industry back in the day. Besides rail( rail was around long before CFN and that's a whole different ball game completely, I think that was even for a company like CFN way outside of what they did and knew.) they had there hands in almost everything.

They had trucking, they had air freight, they tried and failed with steam ships, but they still tried it, they had small package delivery again a flop, but they tried it.

They also had manufacturing, they built there own trailers and converter dollies although the book nor does the internet give a great deal on CF's trailer and converter dolly manufacturing operations they talk a lot about Freightliner, but they really do not talk much at all about Roadsystems I don't know why Roadsystems is always tossed to the side like it didn't exist the book doesn't talk about it at all.

Anyhow here we are late 70's early 1980s now were starting to get into more modern times.

In the late 1970s CF actually was doing alright the US economy as a hole uh not so great, but CF was holding on, the trucking industry was headed towards deregulation and nobody could stop that the writing was on the wall.

CF at the time during regulation had all the premo routes and say I'm Mike the CF Salesman and I am going around selling CF services.

Well I go into Acme Manufacturing Corp and I meet with there traffic man (sounds like a sweet name for a forum member to have) and I say "So Traffic Man how's it hanging?" He says "Not so hot, our latest shipment of anvils didn't make it on time. Wyle Cyote isn't going to be happy."

I say "Oh well that's to bad? May I ask who you are using?"

Traffic man says "Oh some small time outfit that you guys missed in your spending spree from 1955-1960."

I say "Yes we did miss that company, well let me tell you this, that company does not, does not have access to the premium traffic lanes, but we at CF we do. Plus we have the best at the time best relay system around for moving your freight as quick as a wink!"

Now here is a side note, Roadway was actually a little better at moving freight long haul then CF, CF used sleeper teams for years and what happened was they were using relay system with the day cabs when the union contract got to expensive to run the sleepers, plus and gee doesn't this sound familiar, the sleeper people didn't like being on the road week after week and the quality of life in the sleepers back in those days was awful no heat no ac a thin blanket to keep you warm loud obnoxious truck and road noise. So most people worked in the sleepers for a year and then when they had experience left to go some place better, have we ever heard that before?

Anyhow in the 1970s and I'll put up a picture CF said you know Roadway doesn't use relay points like we do they use what is called a spoke and hub system.

This spoke and hub system is used by major air liners and LTL'ers and Food Service companies today!

So CF said lets adopt this spoke and hub system so they fired up there computers and the computers said yes this is cost effective and a go:
Here is a nice video made in 1988 that explains CF's spoke and hub system. This was actually used as a sales tool for salesmen who were showing this to big time clients:


Anyhow 1970s CF adapted the spoke and hub system.

So now here we are back at Acme Industries and I the sales man tell the client "Look we have the best trucks, drivers, management trailers and equipment we pretty much invented this industry and we also have the best routes and lanes."

By the way in the late 1970s and early 1980s CF like Brand Jacobs of XPO today and isn't it funny how these Meme's end up coming full circle decided that they wanted to haul more profitable freight in there profitable busy lanes. They didn't care so much about tonnage as they cared about is this profitable and so salesmen were instructed to sell freight to profitable shippers who would use the profitable lanes.

Meaning if Acme Anvil was in a bad spot shipping low value goods in a crappy lane the sales men were directed to stay away from Acme Anvil, because IBM for example was shipping high dollar high service computer systems in big time premo main line lanes.

However what you have to understand was back in those days trucking was regulated and rates and lanes and all that were regulated. If Bill at Bills garbage manufacturing called up and said "Hey Mike I need you to sing me up to be a CF customer, because I have a lot of garbage freight on garbage lanes that I need shipped. So better sharpen your pencil." I had to sharpen my pencil and sell him freight service I was not allowed to say no, or I could say "Well that's good, but Uncle Hal's garbage truck business also can ship in those lanes and they are much better at hauling garbage freight then we are, were really not that good at it will probably break the garbage."

Well the 1980's came a long and that all changed they said the old ICC was antiquated and out of touch and trucking was deregulated. In the 1970's CF knew that trucking deregulation was coming and here is a helpful video this gets a little political, but he gives the meat and potatoes of deregulation:


I don't totally know, because I work for a private fleet and were not in the trucking business nor are we a trucking company and it's a little different in the private fleet business.

Anyhow deregulation came and CF knew okay this will not be good for us, but were big enough we can handle it CF also around that time got a deal on a line of credit and had some money available so they were sitting pretty. Well deregulation came and the race to the bottom was on!

All of a sudden and gee doesn't this sound familiar a salesman for CF that's me is talking to the traffic man at IBM and I'm telling him yeah we still got it at CF the best lanes and service we got it. Well sure enough a sales man for Overnite comes up and goes "Will undercut CF by 10%." The traffic man goes "Well heck for all shipments in your service area will take you up on that."

In the begining CF's corporate motto was "We will sell quality service with no discounting."

Yellow Freight at the time actually did more Truck Load then LTL and immediately when deregulation hit Yellow Freight was attacked truck load carriers got right in and started attacking Yellow Freight for there business Yellow Freight had to jump through hopes and like a girl I once dated give away the farm in order to get people to stay with them. As @LoneCowboy has taught me all people care about is fast service and low price 99% of the time quality counts for zero.

So any how, CF had to do something they swore they would never do that's right they discounted prices.

Now, CF had no choice it was the way of the world and all the shippers they all made out like bandits. Now not everyone made it through deregulation a lot of guys came in and lost there behinds.

I mean I started this thread over on the Swift Forum:
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...t-ever-happened-to-this-great-company.325949/

Think of all the companies that have come and gone big one's too not small time potatoes operations, but big time companies like Dick Simon, Burlington Motor Carriers, Glennmore, MS Carriers, TRL, NBS Trucking, Cannon Express, Gordon Trucking, Gainey the list goes on and on we could be here all day.

Think of all the LTL companies that have folded even some in recent years like MidStates and MDS or MSD what ever they called them selves which was bought out by Saia GI Trucking Garret-American and UPS and FedEx buying out Motor Cargo and American Freightways and Viking and Spartan and all those companies there's tons of trucking companies that went under.

At any rate the economy was changing and CF needed to decide what it wanted to be and in the late 1970s real early 1980s CF decided to get rid of it's manufacturing division.
White Motors was in the tubes and CF was dependent on White for there dealer network. By the way Freightliner was always a good money maker for CF, but they didn't have there own dealer network and White didn't want Freightliner to go the trucks sold good in Whites dealer network, but the market for big trucks was going soft and the executives at CF at the time were not manufacturing people they were "freight men" and CF decided it needed to put all it's eggs in one basket and do transport trucking.

I think the reason Road systems never gets talked about is because CF was not in the retail trailer sales business they were more just building trailers for them selves and that business survived all the way through Conway Freight who knows what XPO will do with it, but it's there.

Anyhow White Motors was headed down the tubes and CF decided it was time to cut ties with Freightliner so CF decided to sell Freightliner off, Volvo and Diamler were the two bidding for Freightliner and bottom line was Volvo couldn't afford Freightliner and Diamler could and Diamler bought Freightliner in 1981 for like 274million dollars or something like that. Volvo ended up getting White and they merged there heavy truck division with GMC and became WhiteGMC and then Volvo bought GMC out dropped the White and GMC and became Volvo here in the states:

1992 First Generation Volvo White GMC tractor.
So that takes us into 1981 and will see what happens in our next installment of as CF turned.