The History of the Semi Truck

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Aside from electricity, it could be argued the no greater 19th century invention shaped shipping in the United States of America more than the semi truck. Predating airplanes and interstates, semi trucks allowed American farms and businesses to sell beyond their borders in ways that trains simply could not. In fact, semi trucks are still such an integral part of the American economy that they haul over 70% of the goods we consume. So, where did the semi truck come from and how has it kept up with technology to evolve into the dominate force in shipping that it is today?

Prior to the invention of trucks, freight was hauled by horse drawn carriages and trains. Railroads were highly efficient at moving large amounts of cargo but could only deliver those goods to centralized urban centers where train stations were. While this helped grow urban areas, it fundamentally limited the growth of rural areas and even towns located miles away from city centers.

That was until when Scottish immigrant, Alexander Winton, owner of the Winton Bicycle Company shifted his focus from peddles to engines. He initially experimented with single-cylinder automobile before starting his car company.

In the Winston Motor Carriage Company was incorporated in Cleveland, Ohio and they launched with a series of handcrafted automobiles. Each vehicle had ornate exteriors, with hand painted sides, as well as padded seats, a leather roof, and gas head lamps. The cars rode on B.F. Goodrich tires.

Winton was a firm believer that auto racing was the way to market his vehicles. So, in May of that year, Winton showed off his 10-horse power model with a race around a Cleveland horse track. There it impressed onlookers after being clocked with a track speed of 33.64 MPH.

Despite the fast track times, critics were still concerned about the practicality of the automobiles. To assuage his doubters, Winton ordered an endurance run that saw his car make the 800 mile drive from Cleveland to New York City.

The marketing worked and just over a year after launching his car company, Winton made his first sale to Robert Allison of Port Carbon, PA. Winton would go on to sell 21 more cars that year at the list price of $ (roughly $30,000 in today&#;s dollars)

By , Winton would sell more than 100 cars, making his company the largest manufacturer of gas powered automobiles in the USA.

However, due to the success of the Winton automobile, the company was faced with a new problem. How to get their car to buyers, some spread out across the country, without adding significant wear and tear to the vehicles by driving them directly to customers. To solve this problem, Winton built the first ever auto hauler. This worked by converting a standard Winton automobile into a tractor and then attaching a trailer to the rear which could pull one car at a time.

In , a Winton Automobile made the first successful drive across the US, as Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson made the trek from San Francisco to Manhattan in 63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes. Since interstate highways didn&#;t yet exist, this was quite the trip that often saw Jackson and his passenger, a mechanic, driving miles out of their way to get beyond impassable roads and terrain. They even needed to use a series of pulleys, horses, and good old fashion sweet equity to hoist the car over rocks and pull it free from sand.

By , improvements in engines, transmissions, and expanded roadways gave rise to the popularity of shipping via truck. In there were over 100,000 trucks on America&#;s roads. At this point, there were so many trucks in operation that 4 states enacted the very first weight limits for semis ranging from 18,000 lbs. to 28,000 lbs. Still, solid tires, a lack of practical trailers, poor rural roads, and a 15 mph speed limit kept trucks confined to short-haul urban routes.

While it was the need to move cars that saw the development of the first semi-truck, it was a rich guy with a boat that had to get to Michigan who&#;s order for a trailer began production on what would eventually become the modern semi trailer. It was that Frederic M. Sibley asked August Charles Fruehauf to build a trailer for his Ford Model T that would pull the businessman&#;s boat. In fact, Sibley was so impressed by Fruehauf&#;s work that he then commissioned him to make trailers for his lumber yard.

Fruehauf, who was a blacksmith and carriage maker by trade, began the Fruehauf Trailer Company in . Industries like dairy, lumber, and fuel oil took notice of these &#;go-anywhere&#; trailers almost immediately. Their original marketing campaign gave birth to the slogan, &#;A horse can pull more than it can carry, so can a truck.&#; Fruehauf trailers would eventually see action in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. During this period of extreme success, the company would hold over 150 military patents.

Like most industrial technologies, a war time need rapidly aided in the development of long-haul trucking. Congestion on the railroads highlighted the need for alternative modes of transportation to move cargo. During the war years of &#;18, Roy Chapin began work on the development of long distance trucking shipments. Chapin soon realized that trucks could travel much further on inflatable tires as opposed to the solid ones that trucks currently used.

Concurrently, two truck manufacturers would rise to prominence by , White Motor Company and Mack Trucks. By the start of 20&#;s there were over a million trucks on America&#;s roadways.

Through the next decade, a number of improvements would go a longways in increasing the proliferation of the truck. Diesel engines increased fuel efficiency by 25&#;40% over gasoline engines, truck and trailer sizes started adhering to standards, and power assisted steering and brakes were developed. By , trucks would become so common that all states had some form of truck weight regulation.

Trucking would undergo a number of refinements and changes in the ensuing years, but none were as impactful as what would in occur in . The Federal Highway Act of was the first step in connecting the country. Enacted by President Eisenhower, the bill authorized $25 billion (roughly $232 billion in today&#;s money) for the construction of over 40,000 miles of interstate highway over a 10-year period. It was the largest public works project in American history up until that time. The act also included the first set of federal maximum gross vehicle limits for trucks, which capped at 73,280 lbs.

Just as the Federal Highway Act was breaking ground on America&#;s freeway system, Malcom McLean introduced his revolutionary new shipping container. This standardized metal box would change the way modern containerized intermodal shipping would be handled from then on. It allowed trucks, trains, and ships to all use similar equipment for transporting the same loads. This dramatically increased efficiencies and allowed for fluid transfer between multiple modes of transportation.

It wouldn&#;t be until the &#;s, when trucking hit Hollywood, that life behind the wheel of a big rig became synonymous with cool. With over 18 million trucks on the road, Americans took notice and gave rise to trucker culture. Seen as lone wolf outlaws, renegades, and free birds, truckers found their niche amongst an interested public. Movies like &#;Smokey and the Bandit&#; and songs like &#;Convey&#; rose to the top of the box office and Billboard charts. Even CB radio slang became popular enough to find its way into everyday conversation.

Unfortunately, by the end of the decade things would change. The energy crisis availed the favor that truckers had just received from a once endearing public. A series of violent protests and strikes, as well as changing cultural dynamics would push the mainstream perception of truckers back into the shadows.

The Motor Carrier Act of deregulated the trucking industry and opened the floodgates for the number of companies that could operate as carriers. This, along with rapid de-unionization, ultimately hurt driver pay. The public spotlight moved on, and truckers were now relegated to horror movies where they&#;re portrayed as sociopathic, road-raging, highway stalkers.

By this point, trailers had undergone their own evolution. This was due to the use of standardized shipping pallets. The typical North American grocer&#;s pallet is 48 inches long by 40 inches wide. As trailers grew in size they would often do so at multiples of 4 feet. For a long time, the 48-foot dry van was the de facto standard in shipping due to regulation which limited overall vehicle length to 75 feet. Once those regulations were changed, the industry adopted the 53-foot trailer. These have room for 13 rows of pallets, plus and extra foot so that the door will close.

Last year the ELD mandate went into effect causing an industry wide uproar. This has spurred new debate over mandatory break times and hours of service regulations. In addition, the new regulations have changed the way carriers conduct their business. Shippers who delay drivers with significant dwell times are struggling to find decent rates and capacity as the industry adjusts to new demands. Shipper of choice has become the buzz term for what carriers think shippers should aspire to be.

In trucking accounted for $719 billion in total revenue, across 15.5 million trucks, which transported 71% of all US goods. By , trucking shipments were outpacing the number of available trucks as the US faces a capacity crisis fueled by a nationwide driver shortage.

Over the next decade trucking revenue is projected to hit $1.25 trillion. In the &#;s we&#;re likely to see wide spread use of new technologies like platooning, autonomous trucks, and digital freight matching services as cargo gets uberized. As the history of the semi truck continues to be written, the next chapter in this industry changing saga could be its most exciting one yet.

We&#;ll leave you with some facts & figures:

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• There are just under 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States.
• Trailers are typically 53 feet long
• One-third of all of the semi trucks operating in the U.S. are registered in California, Florida, and Texas.
• $41.3 billion the amount paid by commercial trucks in federal and state highway-user taxes in .
• 450.4 billion total miles traveled by all registered trucks in . To put that into perspective: the sun is 93 million miles away. That&#;s a round trip to the sun and back more than 2,421 times!
• Trucks get roughly 7.2 MPG
• The maximum weight for a U.S. semi truck and full trailer is 80,000 pounds spread over 18 conventional wheels.
• How much power does it take to move a fully loaded semi and trailer? A Detroit Diesel DD15 14.8-liter inline six-cylinder engine weighs pounds, or 345 pounds more than a Mini Cooper. This colossal powerplant makes up to 560 hp and lb-ft of torque.
• The top-selling brand of semi truck is Freightliner. Freightliner is owned by Daimler Trucks North America, which also owns the Western Star brand. Second most popular is Navistar International, followed by PACCAR, which owns the Peterbilt and Kenworth brands. Fourth is Volvo, which also owns the Mack brand.
• Antilock brakes on semi trucks have been required since , which has significantly reduced the number of jackknife crashes, in which the rear wheels of the truck lock up and the trailer swings around to an acute angle with the truck. Today the most dangerous semi accidents are rollovers.

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The Full History of Semi Trailers

Semi trucks carrying 53&#; trailers seem as common as anything you could see on the road today. Regardless of your location, trailers are moving on every road at all times of the day. What may be lost on some of the younger folks is that it hasn&#;t always been this way. In fact, 53&#; trailers were illegal to tow even as recently as 30 years ago. The history of semi trailers has been long and mostly glossed over. Semi trailers power the trucking industry, the backbone of the economy, so how has it looked throughout history?

Alexander Winton, a self-titled &#;horseless carriage maker&#; (now known as a carmaker), was a Scottish American man living in Cleveland in the earliest days of the automobile industry. Winton founded The Winton Motor Carrier Company of Cleveland just a decade after the first motor vehicle hit the dirt roads of the late s. As customers began purchasing his vehicles from all across the country, he hit a metaphorical speed bump (pun intended) &#; how is he to deliver these vehicles to the other side of the country?

To tackle this problem, Winton began working on a prototype for a large truck capable of carrying his passenger vehicles long distances. In , the &#;automobile hauler&#; was born with the world&#;s first diesel engine. He made the first trip to test the truck from Cleveland to New York City. The 800 mile trek took 78 hours, an average of 10.2 MPH. The sluggish speed seems cartoonish by today&#;s standards, but was astounding in . If this machine was able to haul a vehicle cross-country, what&#;s to stop it from hauling other consumer goods? Thus, the trucking industry and semi trailers were born.

According to TruckInfo.net, there were only an estimated 700 commercial trucks in America. That number ballooned into over 416,000 by . The spike, fueled by new companies like Mack Trucks, quickly showed that the future was no longer constrained to the confines of locality. In a matter of years, lumber, coal, and other raw materials were being transported hundreds of miles from where they were sourced.

The early stages of commercial trucking and semi trailers had its fair share of roadblocks. From strict local laws to unsafe and unpaved roads, it was not a friendly landscape by any metric. Most semi trailers were not semi trailers at all, rather elongated flatbed trucks of no longer than 24 feet. Early stage tanker trailers were also common, as the explosion of motor vehicles created much greater need for refined fuels. Box vans were rare, if not nonexistent, in most areas during the s.

By the s, box vans began to pick up in popularity, boasting of easier and safer transport of many commercial goods. There was no strapping, tarping, or fear of spilling product on the newly-paved highways. These new box vans were not &#;box&#; shaped by any means. Shaped like an Airstream camper trailer, the curved body helped reduce drag as truck speeds began to improve from the previous 15 MPH limits. Local and federal governments quickly introduced new legislation to allow for faster semi trucks and longer semi trailers. However, don&#;t get confused when we say &#;longer&#;. Semi trailers were typically regulated to range between 30 and 40 feet. This dimensional limit for semi trailers slowly increased over the years as truck hauling capacities improved.

The first refrigerated trailer was deployed in by Fred Jones. This refrigeration unit went on to be known as Thermo King, one of the most utilized refrigerated (or &#;reefer&#;) units on the road today.

As World War II took over the US economy, the trucking industry was given an unparalleled adrenaline shot. As the US produced resources and equipment for our allies across the world, efficient transportation of these products was essential. New equipment, such as the intermodal trailer, began to take hold. Ground transportation utilizing all types of semi trailers was a necessity to supplement the railroad industry and aid in the war efforts.

In , a bill was passed that allowed trailers to increase in length to 48 feet. The ability of carriers proved beneficial for the US economy, while the public continued to be concerned about the safety of such large trailers. What followed were a series of studies to determine the risk factor involved with longer trailers. Studies typically concluded that, given proper training for drivers, public safety was not notably affected. Given this new information, individual states began introducing regulations that allowed for 53 foot trailers to be used in intrastate roles. In , a truck safety law straightened out the state frameworks and paved the way for modern 53 foot trailers to operate across state lines without separate permits.

Today, there are dozens of trailer types and hundreds of variations. From dry vans, refrigerated trailers, flatbeds, tankers, and lowboys to custom trailers capable of moving entire Airbus airplane wings, there are very few things that aren&#;t able to be transported by a semi truck pulling a semi trailer.

Semi trailers were born out of necessity to transport goods. Today, there are even services available to transport the trailers that are used to transport things themselves. Oneway Trailers is the industry leader in trailer relocation services, used by large fleets, trailer owners, and trailer dealerships across all of North America. By leveraging an incredible pool of highly qualified carriers, Oneway Trailers can move trailers to and from any location in North America. Used to cut down on carriers&#; bobtailing costs and balance trailer pools or deliver trailers to new owners,  we are proud to assist in driving the legacy of the incredible trucking industry into the future.

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