Trucking it in?

[Bob Wright]

Last Wednesday my niece, my wife, and I drove up to Reelfoot Lake, leaving home around 6:00 am. Driving up I-40 I was passed by a tanker truck, one of those big rigs of 33,000 gallons or so.

In big letters across the rear bulkhead read "COFFEE."

Puzzling enough, but yesterday I was driving down I-55 towards Southaven when I spotted a second truck so lettered.

Obviously not liquid coffee, and surely not grounds. But what?

Never could get alongside to see any other identification.

Bob Wright

 

[ChiefMuzz]

I would have flagged it down for a quick refill.

 

[Bob Wright]

I would have flagged it down for a quick refill.

My first thought exactly!


Bob Wright

 

[JFB]

did it look like this

 

[graygun]

He has trouble staying awake.

 

[tinman]

More than likely I was a fuel hauler advertising the food portion of the chain. QT, RacTrac, etc. have similarly "wrapped" some of their fleet in this area.

 

[308dave]

It's a gasoline tanker. Look for the red diamond in the lower right corner of the oval. Red indicates a flammable product, the 4 digit # tells what the product is. Emergency responders (used to be one) have a guidebook with all the #'s in it and guidelines for dealing with emergencies. Some of the the tankers up here are sporting fancy graphics advertising various products too.

 

[jlmtr6]

There are those of us who need 92 octane coffee just to be able to talk in the morning.

 

[BROKENBEAR]

The Flyin J Group of truckstops tankser truck ...advertising their pretty fair coffee for a pretty fair price

Bear

 

[redhawker]

That must have been a heck of a tanker truck considering that most of them hold from 5,500 to 11,600 gallons. That's a load of caffeine!

 

[welder]

Haz-Mat ID UN #1203, Gasoline

 

[gtxmonte]

It's just a Pilot fuel tanker advertising their coffee. Plainly says "best coffee" and something else I can't read on the back, right above the Pilot logo

 

[Mobuck]

33,000 gallons of water based product would be around 264,000# (net weight) and something like gasoline/diesel would be around 198,000#(net weight)--must have been Canadian(?).

 

[CoolLogic]

Years ago I was traveling through Kentucky and passed a similar truck with the "Jim Beam" logo on the back and sides. I'm not sure what it was carrying but a man can dream....

 

[308dave]

Rail tank cars carry 33,000 gallons, gasoline tankers 7,500 to 9,000.

 

[Colonialgirl]

Years ago I was traveling through Kentucky and passed a similar truck with the "Jim Beam" logo on the back and sides. I'm not sure what it was carrying but a man can dream....

When I worked for a paint company in CA, we use to get Titanium Slurry delivered by stainless Steel tanker trucks. Got to know some of the drivers and one told me that on occasion he had been lucky enough to haul whiskey in his tank truck ( it was a national company's truck) ; I forget the brand of the whiskey, but he said it was inspected before loading, weighed, loaded, weighed and inspected again, then ALL openings sealed. Same type routine before, during and after unloading. OKAY? WOW< Government and Company at work !!
He said that after unloading, and four or five miles from the distillery/warehouse (?) He would pull over, get out his gallon jug and open the drain valve on the bottom of the tank; He said he always had several gallons of some MIGHTY FINE WHISKEY for free because it would finally drain down the sides of the tank. (Ever dumped a glass of water or a bucket and then looked in the bottom a bit later? Yuppers there she be !!

 

[mohavesam]

Haz-Mat ID UN #1203, Gasoline

This.

The placard is required from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and its state counterparts for over 30 years. Otherwise simple advertising.

 

[Bob Wright]

Rail tank cars carry 33,000 gallons, gasoline tankers 7,500 to 9,000.

O.K. Thanks for the info. I assumed that figure, as it was stuck in my mind. I've been around both rail cars and truck tankers, and the 33,000 gallon figure was waaaaay back in my memory.

At the oil extraction plants, hexane was delivered in tanker trucks, and soybean oil shipped out in rail cars, and I remembered seeing those figures.

Bob Wright

 

[welder]

At the oil extraction plants, hexane was delivered in tanker trucks, and soybean oil shipped out in rail cars, and I remembered seeing those figures.

Bob Wright

I used to haul hexane to a Soy bean processor back in the 80's, very mean stuff used to extract the oil from the bean. The soy bean company would buy a train car load at a time and we would haul it the 35 miles or so from our chemical plant to their plant, four tanker loads to the car. We treated it exactly like gasoline, had a very low flash point.

 

[308dave]

You're quite welcome Bob. I missed it on my first reply and when I looked at the OP again, I realized that amount was way too high for a road tanker. The Emergency Response Guide can be found online in PDF form if anyone cares to look it up. You can look up hexane and see what it says about handling spills & fires.