I know there are still P.I.E. and Ryder drivers alive. SO post something.

[powerstroke]

I drove for Ryder /P.I.E. in Jax Fla Houston TX. Dallas Tx. Memphis Tenn.and Oklahoma City OK. Patton ([email protected])

 

[Shadow251]

How 'bout ya Super Bee? Gotta copy on Shadow?:o

 

[AKDon]

In 1967 I drove for P.I.E. It was not known as P.I.E. Nationwide in those days. I drove tankers for PIE (known to the drivers as, "Power Isn't Everything", out of it's San Pablo/Richmond CA terminal. I used to be good at tests and one had to take some kind of general intelligence test to work for P.I.E. The terminal manager (can't think of his name) saw the results and took me to the headquarters in Oakland (CA). The vice president or some such honcho was going to make me a manager. I had a choice of becoming a manager in Salt Lake City or Houston. When I was told what managers were paid, I opted out as I could make much more as a driver. P.I.E. didn't like my response so after 12 dispatches, I was no longer called. In those days, under the tanker supplement to the national master freight agreement, one became a regular employee after 13 dispatches. As I recall, the good part of working at that yard was that it was a money board. Seniority was an issue in choice of loads, equipment, etc. But we all had to be within (some forgotten) range and the range or actual dollars earned was posted. But I digress. After getting the hint that I was not longer going to be used, I didn't go to the hall (Local 315, Martinez, CA), I hustled a job at CF Bulk Commodities out of its Martinez, CA terminal. And when things got slow for tankers, I transferred to Clark Farnsworth which was a wholly owned flatbed/heavy haul division of CF in those days (CF Bulk Commodities and Clark Farnsworth shared the Martinez yard which had been the terminal of a tanker outfit bought out by CF). The Clark Farnsworth trucks were CF green Freightliners with only CF on them. I wasn't much into taking pictures of trucks in those days, so I have no pictures of the P.I.E. yard in San Pablo (it still had a tanker wash rack when I was in the area last year). Here's hoping that this helps you or others looking for glimpses of yesteryear.

 

[goldenrod60]

I was a line haul manager in Sacramento from 1979-1985, manager in Fontana for a few months, and director of line haul-west from 1985 to 1989.
There were many really great drivers there. Would like to hear about any of them.
Jim

 

[AKDon]

Did many silver, black, and red PIE drivers go over to PIE Nationwide? As mentioned, I worked for 12 shifts out of the San Pablo/Richmond (I'm not sure of where the political boundary was) tanker yard. They wanted to make me a boss. Took me to the Oakland headquarters (the HQ for the company) and told me I could go to Salt Lake of Houston. When they told me what it paid, I refused to become a boss as it meant a substantial pay cut. Under the tanker supplement to the national master freight agreement, after 13 dispatches, one was a regular employee. I figured out the game and then worked for CF; the tanker/heavy haul (Clark Farnsworth) yard in Martinez.

As you mention, there were some great guys at the San Pablo PIE tanker yard. When there, we didn't interact with PIE tanker drivers in other yards as our trips were generally long local trips. Nowadays I do much the same thing. I drive for Sourdough Express. I generally do "switches". That means I drive from Anchorage to Mile 196 of the Parks Highway and switch trailers (generally two 45 footers as the maximum length of doubles in Alaska is 120') with a Fairbanks driver and return to the Anchorage yard.

I learned to drive from an old PIE tanker driver, George Bryant. His son and I remain friends. His son, Gary, is an OO out of Portland. He hauls mattresses out of Sealy in PDX or out of King Coil out of GEG.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now I got to get ready to get my prostate nuked.

 

[rag-a-muffin]

My dad was with PIE in Dallas until they closed the doors. I cant get him near a computer now, but I know he would love to hear from anyone who worked there. (He is battling cancer, and still loves to talk about the "GOOD OLD" days.

Pm me if you worked there and I will pass the message along.

 

[SuperCourse]

rag-a-muffin, best wishes for a full recovery for your dad. I wasn't a PIE guy, worked for the Big R (Roadway). I, like your dad, love reading about the old days, unless you were there, you can't understand. Tell your dad an old Big R gearjammer gave him a shout. If you haven't been to Hankstruckpictures.com check it out. Search PIE and you'll find a bunch of pics of old PIE trucks your dad might enjoy seeing.

 

[big blue]

Hi everyone, I drove out of Charlotte, nc started at Ryder Truck Lines 6/73 Those were some good days. I am working at Averitt local. Things are nowhere close to what they were back in the day. Thanks to all the older guys who gave this 22 yr old back then.

 

[AKDon]

My dad was with PIE in Dallas until they closed the doors. I cant get him near a computer now, but I know he would love to hear from anyone who worked there. (He is battling cancer, and still loves to talk about the "GOOD OLD" days.

Pm me if you worked there and I will pass the message along.

.

Tell your Dad to hang in there. I think that I've recovered from prostate cancer diagnosed in January 2011. So far the tests have been good. If I can make it, he can make it.

 

[Top Freight]

I remember you well, goldenrod60.

You were my boss for awhile. Later on, we celebrated your birthday about once a month at lunch time.

 

[bowmaniac]

worked as a casual on the dock 1981 then when it was nationwide.i thinf a guy named harold adams was tm

 

[Fageol]

My earliest impression of PIE was in the early 1950s. I was raised in El Sobrante, CA a few blocks from what is now the I-80/Hilltop Drive on and off ramps. My father is buried in the cemetery that can be seen from the freeway. I used to play in the gullies and fields where that massive cut and fill project was made -- more earth was moved in the San Pablo -- Carquinez Strait section of I-80 than for the Panama Canal. We used to play in those gullies until the kids from the Rollingwood Subdivision below us used to shoot at us with their 22s -- we only had BB guns -- fortunately the gullies were transected by lots of subgullies (I doubt that "subgullies" or gullies within gullies is an approved geological term). Before I-80 was built, folks traveled East (but first north to Donner Pass) on Highway 40. Hilltop Drive (then County Road 24) terminated at the old Highway 40. In those days Highway 40 and San Pablo Avenue were the same roadway. The termination was on a grade known far and wide as "Tank Farm Hill" as Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) had tanks all over the hills feeding or receiving product from its refinery at Point Richmond. When going to and from Richmond for groceries, church, whatever, we headed nominally west on County Road 24 and nominally south down Highway 40. The SOCal refinery supplied much of the fuel to Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Nevada. So there was a constant stream of tankers (mostly truck and trailers and mostly PIE) traversing Tank Farm Hill. That hill was a tough climb for those old 150s and 200s some of which had chain drive and all of which drug (what kid would have used the word "dragged" when "drug" has a better sound and that was in the days before drugs seemingly became a recreational necessity) chains to discharge static electricity. So to a kid from El Sobrante, PIE was lots of fun, particularly at night. We got the noise from the straining engines, the sparks from the chains dragging the ground, and the flames from the stacks (no turbos in those days).

Somewhere around the first of second quarters of 1967 I drove for the PIE tanker operation out of its San Pablo (or Richmond, the boundaries were somewhere around that location) yard. Some vice president in its national headquarters in Oakland wanted to make me a boss in Salt Lake City or Houston for less pay than a driver. PIE wouldn't give me the 13th shift that would have made me a permanent employee under the Tanker Supplement to the National Master Freight Agreement. But as mentioned in a prior post, I was at P.I.E. long enough to find some driver's interpretation of P.I.E.: Power Isn't Everything. I got the hint so I hired on at the Consolidated Freightways tanker operation out of Martinez. PIE must have been a big player in those days. Before I drove for PIE or CF or so many other tanker lashups in those days, I did a stint as a rate clerk for Mitchell Brothers Truck Lines. Mitchell Brothers participated in the Pacific Intermountain Tariff which was probably centered at PIE. Of course that was when truck freight was regulated by the ICC.

Mitchell Brothers was a proud outfit. It had about the best looking fleet of flats on the road; its lease operators had the prettiest and most powerful rigs of any flat/lowboy outfit (Southern Tank Lines followed closely by Western Highway Oil had the prettiest tankers). Now all you see of Mitchell Brothers are a bunch of scroungy looking trucks around PDX. I don't understand why that proud outfit had to go down the tubes; perhaps the brothers saw deregulation coming. Deregulation of freight may have benefited the national economy but I think us truckers paid for those benefits. But this is not to advocate a return to truck freight regulation; I haven't studied that subject sufficiently to form an opinion about returning to "the good old days."

 

[Deleted member 5115]

Helluva nice story, ***eol, thanks for sharing.

 

[SuperCourse]

I'll second that, thanks. It's good to document these memories, it's on the internet now and will be there indefinitely. What may seem insignificant now could be fascinating reading for some in the future.

 

[Fageol]

Helluva nice story, ***eol, thanks for sharing.

I see that this forum still is PC. Maybe some trucker of influence could mention to whomever runs this lashup that "F A G E O L" was the name of a quality marque in the old days. It made some of the best trucks on the road and the old plant in Oakland became the first Peterbilt plant. I went to a small college near Mills College (famous as an all-girls college in those days) in Oakland. To condition myself for the basketball team I used to run to and return from the boarded up Peterbilt plant -- Peterbilt manufacturing and engineering had moved to Newark, CA. Maybe the boarded up status of the old ***eol/Peterbilt plant was prophetic as I got booted out of that college in 1959.

 

[pietrucker]

I was a line haul manager in Sacramento from 1979-1985, manager in Fontana for a few months, and director of line haul-west from 1985 to 1989.
There were many really great drivers there. Would like to hear about any of them.
Jim

Toler hope alls well..I talk to Vancleve once in a while he is retired as am I Ron

 

[Mush for Brains]

The company was Pacific Intermountain Express. I started with Ryder Truck Lines in 1977, and they merged with P.I.E. around 1985, and became P.I.E. Nationwide. They lost money out the whazzo then forward. Then 1990 another merger with bankrupt Transcon that took the whole thing out off business. Was a drag starting all over elsewhere!

 

[Mush for Brains]

The company was Pacific Intermountain Express. I started with Ryder Truck Lines in 1977, and they merged with P.I.E. around 1985, and became P.I.E. Nationwide. They lost money out the whazzo then forward. Then 1990 another merger with bankrupt Transcon that took the whole thing out off business. Was a drag starting all over elsewhere!

It was called Ryder/P.I.E Nationwide before settling as P.I.E. Nationwide!

 

[SuperCourse]

Ryder Truck Lines "Best In The Long Run"

We called them "Blue Chip".

 

[ROADY]

Ryder Truck Lines, one of the best jobs I had. I started there in 1980 when Johnson Motor Lines went out and stayed until P.I.E. Nationwide bought Transcon. I knew there was no hope left then and started to work for Roadway.