Canadian Trucks

MikeJ

TB Veteran
Credits
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So I was watching the TV series Highway Through Hell about the Jamie Davis Tow Truck Company in southern Vancouver British Columbia Canada, and I really like watching all the different Canadian trucking companies and all the different equipment they use. They have a lot of stuff you never see here in the states like B-Trains and Tri Axles and they must be allowed to handle more weight then us.

GFS also makes a cameo on that show if you watch season 1 episode 3 about 39 minutes in you see a set of GFS doubles on the Coq highway going the opposite direction. Now the GFS Canada doubles are different then the USA doubles for one while the trailers are only 28' long there 13'6" high they are deffinatly higher. I know GFS Canada uses a lot of different equipment then regular GFS United States of America. They have straight trucks and everything. Also the truck they were towing from a wreckage I swear was a Core Mark truck it sure was wrapped like a Core Mark truck and the trailer 28' was all busted open full of plastic red totes.

Personally I can tell an American truck from a Canadian truck out on the highway just by looking at it Canadian trucks have a different look to them you can just tell by the livery if a truck is Canadian or not.

I don't make it out to Vancouver British Columbia very much (gee really? Were shocked!) however they had some carriers out there I never heard of, probably because there Canadian and operate in that part of the world.
Like Van-Kamp and a few others. Now I've heard of STI and XTL see them here in Cleveland because were not that far from Canada.

Anyhow what I like about Highway Through Hell was they spend 3/4 of a million dollars on some super duper Western Star Miller Wrecker Rotator that can do it all. It's so typical Miller ends up making a mistake and builds the thing wrong leaving a gap a foot and a half between the cab and the body then as there driving it back from the factory the step falls off the cab I mean what do you want for 3/4 of a million bucks? Then of course there out doing a job with it and a tree limb falls on it and breaks the mirror and bangs up the air cleaner. So typical one of the transit drivers at work said "Ehh here in Ohio it doesn't pay to have anything nice." He has an old Dodge Durango and I said "Bill your trucks rusty like mine." He laughed and went "Yeah last night driving here the trim piece around the wheel well just fell off it just fell off. Doesn't pay to have anything nice around here."

You know if it was me, I would have just bought a Miller Rotator used for $100,000 and just had it remarked to have my name on it and put another $75,000 in it to get it fixed problem solved, I mean there has to be a used one for sale somewhere, however they have there reality TV show money.

The funny part is, it shows him going "Yeah we have a couple new trucks, but I also have a few old 1980s Peterbuilts and Western Star's because I need spares and also stuff that's paid for."

What I want to know is you call Mr. Davis out and he brings his Western Star Miller Rotator Super Wrecker and his other super duper Kenworth W800 wrecker to clean up a 10 truck pile up. That tow bill has to be $30,000 dollars of course gee with 2 million dollars worth of equipment out on the road and you have $20,000 a month payment I tell you what that's a lot of debt to be in, that's a big risk man.

You guys ever watch that show what do you think?

Or you could be SYGMA Group buy a bunch of fleet Volvo's brand new at discount and go off and sell $100,000 worth of steak to Texas road house on 1 delivery. Of course I'm simplifying that because SYGMA has huge warehouses with expensive refridgeration, but still $100,000 dollars worth of steak and all you need is a guy a ramp and a two wheeler a little less can go wrong until the two wheeler breaks down.
 
So I was watching the TV series Highway Through Hell about the Jamie Davis Tow Truck Company in southern Vancouver British Columbia Canada, and I really like watching all the different Canadian trucking companies and all the different equipment they use. They have a lot of stuff you never see here in the states like B-Trains and Tri Axles and they must be allowed to handle more weight then us.

GFS also makes a cameo on that show if you watch season 1 episode 3 about 39 minutes in you see a set of GFS doubles on the Coq highway going the opposite direction. Now the GFS Canada doubles are different then the USA doubles for one while the trailers are only 28' long there 13'6" high they are deffinatly higher. I know GFS Canada uses a lot of different equipment then regular GFS United States of America. They have straight trucks and everything. Also the truck they were towing from a wreckage I swear was a Core Mark truck it sure was wrapped like a Core Mark truck and the trailer 28' was all busted open full of plastic red totes.

Personally I can tell an American truck from a Canadian truck out on the highway just by looking at it Canadian trucks have a different look to them you can just tell by the livery if a truck is Canadian or not.

I don't make it out to Vancouver British Columbia very much (gee really? Were shocked!) however they had some carriers out there I never heard of, probably because there Canadian and operate in that part of the world.
Like Van-Kamp and a few others. Now I've heard of STI and XTL see them here in Cleveland because were not that far from Canada.

Anyhow what I like about Highway Through Hell was they spend 3/4 of a million dollars on some super duper Western Star Miller Wrecker Rotator that can do it all. It's so typical Miller ends up making a mistake and builds the thing wrong leaving a gap a foot and a half between the cab and the body then as there driving it back from the factory the step falls off the cab I mean what do you want for 3/4 of a million bucks? Then of course there out doing a job with it and a tree limb falls on it and breaks the mirror and bangs up the air cleaner. So typical one of the transit drivers at work said "Ehh here in Ohio it doesn't pay to have anything nice." He has an old Dodge Durango and I said "Bill your trucks rusty like mine." He laughed and went "Yeah last night driving here the trim piece around the wheel well just fell off it just fell off. Doesn't pay to have anything nice around here."

You know if it was me, I would have just bought a Miller Rotator used for $100,000 and just had it remarked to have my name on it and put another $75,000 in it to get it fixed problem solved, I mean there has to be a used one for sale somewhere, however they have there reality TV show money.

The funny part is, it shows him going "Yeah we have a couple new trucks, but I also have a few old 1980s Peterbuilts and Western Star's because I need spares and also stuff that's paid for."

What I want to know is you call Mr. Davis out and he brings his Western Star Miller Rotator Super Wrecker and his other super duper Kenworth W800 wrecker to clean up a 10 truck pile up. That tow bill has to be $30,000 dollars of course gee with 2 million dollars worth of equipment out on the road and you have $20,000 a month payment I tell you what that's a lot of debt to be in, that's a big risk man.

You guys ever watch that show what do you think?

Or you could be SYGMA Group buy a bunch of fleet Volvo's brand new at discount and go off and sell $100,000 worth of steak to Texas road house on 1 delivery. Of course I'm simplifying that because SYGMA has huge warehouses with expensive refridgeration, but still $100,000 dollars worth of steak and all you need is a guy a ramp and a two wheeler a little less can go wrong until the two wheeler breaks down.[/QUOTE
So I was watching the TV series Highway Through Hell about the Jamie Davis Tow Truck Company in southern Vancouver British Columbia Canada, and I really like watching all the different Canadian trucking companies and all the different equipment they use. They have a lot of stuff you never see here in the states like B-Trains and Tri Axles and they must be allowed to handle more weight then us.

GFS also makes a cameo on that show if you watch season 1 episode 3 about 39 minutes in you see a set of GFS doubles on the Coq highway going the opposite direction. Now the GFS Canada doubles are different then the USA doubles for one while the trailers are only 28' long there 13'6" high they are deffinatly higher. I know GFS Canada uses a lot of different equipment then regular GFS United States of America. They have straight trucks and everything. Also the truck they were towing from a wreckage I swear was a Core Mark truck it sure was wrapped like a Core Mark truck and the trailer 28' was all busted open full of plastic red totes.

Personally I can tell an American truck from a Canadian truck out on the highway just by looking at it Canadian trucks have a different look to them you can just tell by the livery if a truck is Canadian or not.

I don't make it out to Vancouver British Columbia very much (gee really? Were shocked!) however they had some carriers out there I never heard of, probably because there Canadian and operate in that part of the world.
Like Van-Kamp and a few others. Now I've heard of STI and XTL see them here in Cleveland because were not that far from Canada.

Anyhow what I like about Highway Through Hell was they spend 3/4 of a million dollars on some super duper Western Star Miller Wrecker Rotator that can do it all. It's so typical Miller ends up making a mistake and builds the thing wrong leaving a gap a foot and a half between the cab and the body then as there driving it back from the factory the step falls off the cab I mean what do you want for 3/4 of a million bucks? Then of course there out doing a job with it and a tree limb falls on it and breaks the mirror and bangs up the air cleaner. So typical one of the transit drivers at work said "Ehh here in Ohio it doesn't pay to have anything nice." He has an old Dodge Durango and I said "Bill your trucks rusty like mine." He laughed and went "Yeah last night driving here the trim piece around the wheel well just fell off it just fell off. Doesn't pay to have anything nice around here."

You know if it was me, I would have just bought a Miller Rotator used for $100,000 and just had it remarked to have my name on it and put another $75,000 in it to get it fixed problem solved, I mean there has to be a used one for sale somewhere, however they have there reality TV show money.

The funny part is, it shows him going "Yeah we have a couple new trucks, but I also have a few old 1980s Peterbuilts and Western Star's because I need spares and also stuff that's paid for."

What I want to know is you call Mr. Davis out and he brings his Western Star Miller Rotator Super Wrecker and his other super duper Kenworth W800 wrecker to clean up a 10 truck pile up. That tow bill has to be $30,000 dollars of course gee with 2 million dollars worth of equipment out on the road and you have $20,000 a month payment I tell you what that's a lot of debt to be in, that's a big risk man.

You guys ever watch that show what do you think?

Or you could be SYGMA Group buy a bunch of fleet Volvo's brand new at discount and go off and sell $100,000 worth of steak to Texas road house on 1 delivery. Of course I'm simplifying that because SYGMA has huge warehouses with expensive refridgeration, but still $100,000 dollars worth of steak and all you need is a guy a ramp and a two wheeler a little less can go wrong until the two wheeler breaks down.
Never heard of the show what network does it come on?
 
It was on the weather channel here in the states. Some of the episodes were up on You Tube and it's on Netflix as well it's actually pretty good give it a try. I'm not a big TV fan either, but it's not bad. It's like the Canadian version of O'Hare Towing.
 
This is a bit off topic, but the title of the thread caught my eye and reminded me of it, when I road tested for C-M and after a lengthy speech by the trans manager about company policy regarding speeding, we jump in a Columbia day cab, hook a trailer, pre-trip, and the whole works, so we head out and he tells to jump on the freeway which is close to the warehouse, which I did, but at the same as I'm watching my speed on the ramp as I brought it up,and thinking to myself somethings wrong here but also not wanting to screw up a road test, I'm a couple gears lower than I should of been for the speed I was going, and traffic seemed to be flying, so as I'm checking my mirrors I see him looking at me "like what are you doing, let's go", so I motion with my hand at the speedometer, he looks at it, and then glances around the inside of the cab and says " ah crap this is so and so's truck, it was supposed to go to Canada, but we're keeping it and they haven't change the speedo yet", so I looked again at the speedo and KPH was in big bold numbers and MPH numbers were very small on the dial, well that was deal, road went fine after that and we actually had a good laugh about it, but I'm sure you all know how it is on road tests, just do the best and don't screw up but I never figured I had to look to see how or in what in speedo was calibrated in.
 
Z I've decided that I am going to graduate up the line in the world one day and pull B-Trains for DCT Chambers on Coq in British Columbia. Normally, the Pacific North West isn't really my thing although I did visit Vancouver, CA in 2002 and it's a pretty nice place, however I do not want to pull B-Trains in the winter time for obvious reasons, however they keep those wood chips going all year round.
 
Z I've decided that I am going to graduate up the line in the world one day and pull B-Trains for DCT Chambers on Coq in British Columbia. Normally, the Pacific North West isn't really my thing although I did visit Vancouver, CA in 2002 and it's a pretty nice place, however I do not want to pull B-Trains in the winter time for obvious reasons, however they keep those wood chips going all year round.
Is that a good job to have?
 
I don't really know, I just want to do it for the experience to say I pulled Canadian B-Trains in Canada. Sometimes I do things for me for the experience if you will and those things might not sound fun to others, but there fun to me. I'm kind of odd like that, I guess like you know how some people like to go to bars and drink and others like to spend money gambling or what ever it is it doesn't really matter.

Me I do what I do for the experience of it all, kind of like how Adam the tow truck driver said his thing is towing that's what he likes to do for job and for fun. Me I guess I'm kind of like that, doesn't mean I love every route I have at work trust me, but I would do B-Trains in Canada for A. Yes I want to get paid, but money isn't my one and only motivator experience and knowledge are learning new skills are also a motivator of mine.

Now there's certain jobs I don't really care to have, like I wouldn't really want to be a tow truck driver and I don't really have any interest in oil field work either.

Actually and I bet you can believe this a lot of oil field people were getting out of it because it kind of has dried up and they were coming over to the food world. In Canada and I can totally believe this oil field is big work for GFS Canada because GFS is good at getting non-profit type accounts (hospitals, schools, etc) so who supplied most of the work camps with food? That's right GFS. Kind of like how we do a ton of schools. Actually there's more at Gordon's I would like to see like our chain division and I know transit and volume truck I've done both of those, but I'd like to go to Canada and work with GFS Canada even just as a helper just for that experience alone.

I know sometimes GFS will ship drivers around the system if a particular area needs help. Like if they need guys to go down to Florida and help out I would certainly sing up to do that for a little while temporarily and you know I would do what ever down there weather it be transit or volume truck or sales service.
 
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