Pulling smooth bore tankers

Exactly, trucker tall tales are very prevalent when it comes to tankers and I've heard some great ones. Literally, every time this topic comes up you can bet good money someone is going to tell a story about how surge did something crazy to them once. Look sometimes when the conditions are just right you get absolutely hammered by a hit, I had one hit me so hard it knocked both drinks out of the cup holders but even then I never felt like I wasn't in control of the truck and hits like that are rare. I've driven tanks up hill, down hill, in the snow and ice you name it. It's no big deal. Any decent driver can handle it.

Also, I shift when the RPMs say I should. Shifting with surge may help a bit but it doesn't stop it, you can't stop it, the second you move it moves regardless how smooth you are. Trust me, you will see and you will laugh at these ridiculous stories.

 

On the topic of surge, I know it's not to scale but I took a 2 liter bottle and layer it horizontal on my dash. Top toward the front and bottom to the back. Filled it with water about 3/4 full and tried driving easy. Yeah, that water never quit moving. I found it interesting.

Even in my compartmentalized tanker I feel surge but it feels like you're on a boat, riding small waves.

 

I always noticed a slight side to side when I pulled compartments. I haven't pulled many of those though.

 

Yeah when I run around corners with compartments that aren't full all the way I can really feel the side to side surge.

 

While I agree with the rest of this, you can almost eliminate any major surge if you drive right. I ran team when I pulled smoothbores, and could easily keep the other driver asleep if I had to stop. It's all about timing, waiting until the product is coming back forward before easing back into the throttle makes a night and day difference in how much surge you get.

Another trick to use is to heel and toe downshifting, using the ball of your foot to maintain braking while using the outside of your foot to blip the throttle for downshifting. By keeping a more constant rate of deceleration, you reduce how much surge you get going.

It's like every other aspect of driving, the smoother you are, the less stress, on you and your equipment.


Funny story about surge: With rare exception, my tanker hauls were loaded out/ empty back. And the way our schedule worked out, we usually crossed the Collinsville, IL scale in the middle of the night. And that scalemaster consistently made us sit on the scale far longer than necessary, especially considering we were empty. So one night I got my revenge.

We had one customer who took product in ISO containers, we take a full one up, swap out the empty and loaded, and drag the empty home. But at the end of their production season, we'd go get the ISO and bring it back with whatever leftover product the customer hadn't used. Sometimes very little, others quite a bit. This particular trip, it was about 1/2 full, and that short wide tank let the surge really get going if you weren't paying attention. So I'm coming back west, rolling into the scale, and the thought occurs to me that I should have some fun.

So I carried some speed deep into the scale, and braked fairly hard just before I got to the platform, and proceeded to roll onto the scale. Got up the line, stopped, and took my foot off the brake. The truck is now visibly moving back and forth with the surge, probably a foot or so. After the 3rd or 4th rock, I hear "Driver apply your brakes!" NO PROBLEM! The truck stops moving, but as you can imagine, the surge is still rocking and rolling, so I know the scale weights are bouncing so bad he couldn't hope to read them. And we waited about another 30 seconds... and it's still going pretty good. I was expecting a call to go around back, but instead I heard him mutter something that didn't sound repeatable as he flipped the light green.

And so, on that night anyway: Hammer 1, Scalemaster 0

 

Back in the day when I was hauling 125 000lbs with a 285 hp highway spec Mack there were times when I had to abuse the clutch. Now days with a crawler/granny gear and high torque engine I don't see the need.

As for smooth bore tankers , one of my drivers was moving a supposedly empty cryogenic tanker that as it happened still had about 6000lbs of liquid argon in it. Coming out of an s bend he parked it on its side. He was not doing more then 20mph and it only flipped once he was totally out of the bend on the straight. He says he watched the trailer going over in his rear view mirror before it whipped the cab over.

 

The wall climbing happens on any tank, no baffles, side to side. It's most obvious in round tanks,

 

This happened about 2 weeks ago and he went straight on to his annual leave after giving a statement. I have not seen him myself but will early Jan.
Accidents happen so I will just deal with the facts.
We have run around 30 trucks for 30 years and this is our 3rd serious class 8 accident.
That is 3 to many and all happened this year.
Luckily all 3 were single vehicle accidents and all drivers were discharged from hospital with in an hour of arriving.
The one truck was a total wreck and its hard to believe the driver only suffered a sore hand.

The tanker driver will however have to answer for getting his wife to collect him and not staying at the Motel across from the salvage yard for 3 days till our lowbed could collect his truck.
He will also have to answer why he just let it rain in to the cab for 4 days before letting me know rain was pouring in. He had told me the truck was drive-able but for the computer rollover shut down.Only after I said to him then wait in the truck for a couple of days did he say the rain was pouring in. Then we put him in a Motel but he did not wait and got his wife to fetch him. I can handle mistakes but to leave others to pick up his mistakes is not on in my book. Will however get his take on things before deciding on an any actions.

This driver had driven explosives for years but not tankers so he had the hazmat certification. The tank was supposed to be empty so I thought it would be okay.
Next time I will get the driver to blow off all remaining argon.