TRUCK FORECAST
I think it has become obvious that many of the ever increasing number of trucks we see on the nation's widening highways and narrowing streets are getting some age on them. Not the smaller ones,of course, but the big rigs, 16-wheelers, semis or "semi-articulated lorries" if you speak Kinglish. The "Michigan Train" of two or three semis lugged by one tractor are limited pretty much to the flatish midwest area.
What's your guess? What changes do you think truck designers will be making in forthcoming trucks to keep pace with our rapidly changing highway? The airlines, it appears, have decided to for go far away from the sleek, thin, fast and long super-sonic monsters they have tried in recent decades, in favor of simply getting longer, wider, taller and heavier. The new Airbus now being ordered in big numbers by all major airlines - passenger and freight - is simply a double-deck version of their present mini-monsters already in service. The new planes can handle a crowd of five-hundred or so up to eight-hundred head with seats everywhere instead of non-essential amenities. The tail assembly on the new plane measures about the same height as that of a of seven-storied building, believe it or not!
Run a test of your. Examine the next dozen or or so trucks which pass you on the Interstate. Look in under the rigs riding along beside you and judge about how old the equipment you see dangling under here might be. If you feathered-out and find you don't like "riding along with" such an old companions - drop back a bit and just glance at the next one to go rumbling by. How'd those recaps look to you?
Look at the price tags on new rigs in they better trucking magazines and you can see another good reason why so many older trucks are considered to be roadworthy. Cabs, too. Some with frontier-decor.
"Luggers" and "Chasers" alike - both ends are aging.
The entire trucking industry is getting set to change radically; this long haul side, in particular. It is difficult to see how changes can be made "to make better use of " existing space which does not exist. I find old timers with money enough to make it troublesome, who have a steamy message of seeming salvation for us all through a totally new rail system! They do a great deal of talking about "bullet" trains which Japan proved many years ago to be impractical and unprofitable. The rail enthusiast dreams of vast north-south east-west rail networks as if they had once existed. Much of it is quaint nostalgia remembering "the good ole' railroad days" they and their fathers killed about eighty years or so ago.
Truckers, put on your thinking cap. What do you want your "truck" of tomorrow to look like and to be?
A.L.M. February 12, 2005 [c494wds]
