Mark Dalton – Smartdriver 1 Highway Trucking
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Mark Dalton – SmartDriver 1 Highway Trucking A fleetSmart Novel by Edo van Belkom Fuel Efficiency Program for Highway Trucking Natural Resources Canada – through the Office of Energy Efficiency’s Fleet Vehicle Initiative (FleetSmart) – helps commercial and municipal fleets reduce fuel consumption and emissions through improved energyefficient practices. This contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gases and helps Canada meet the challenges of climate change. Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency Leading Canadians to Energy Efficiency at Home, at Work and on the Road © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada and Edo van Belkom, 2010 Cat No. M144181/2010E (Print) ISBN 9781100149714 Aussi disponible en français sous le titre : Mark Dalton — Conducteur Averti 1 — Camionnage routier Un roman d’Edo van Belkom – Mark Dalton Recycled paper Acknowledgements The development of SmartDriver for Highway Trucking would not have been possible without the assistance of a dedicated committee of volunteers from the trucking industry. The Fleet Vehicle Initiative (FleetSmart) from Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency would like to thank the following organizations for volun teering their professional knowledge and commitment to the content of this project. • Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, ON • HighwaySTAR Magazine, ON • L.J. Bourque Trucking Ltd., NB • Markel Professional Transport Training, ON • National Truck League • Truckers Business Consulting Group, ON and the many individual professional drivers who gave their knowl edge and experience to this project. Special thanks to the author Edo van Belkom for lending his character Mark Dalton to this project. CHAPTER 1 Mark Dalton was running out of country. Two weeks ago he’d mentioned to his dispatcher—an overweight, overbearing block of a man named Bud—that he hadn’t seen very much of Canada’s East Coast. Sure, he’d been out west to Vancouver plenty of times, but for some reason the eastern part of the country had been like, well, a whole “other” country. So he’d asked Bud for some loads out east, and after a few days he was heading along the TransCanada, leaving Quebec for New Brunswick or NouveauBrunswick, as a few of the signs had read. That had been two days ago. Now he was bobtailing through Newfoundland, on the Rock and south of St. John’s, still heading east but without much of the country left in front of him. In fact, the bright blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean were beginning to loom large across his windshield. And while his truck, Mother Load, sometimes seemed blessed, he doubted very much that it could drive on water. Bud had been sketchy on the details of the load, other than to say it would be a reefer of fresh fish heading to Montreal. As for directions, he had simply said to follow this road all the way to its end, and that there was no way he could miss the loading dock. Well, he was following Bud’s directions, but his destination was nowhere in sight. 6 Mark Dalton: SmartDri er 1 Just then the road crested a slight hill and Mark slammed on the brakes. The road had fallen away, sending him rushing down a steep incline toward the ocean. Mark pressed harder on the pedal, and the brakes gave a momentary squeal before the ABS kicked in. For a moment it felt as if momentum and the weight of Mother Load’s big diesel engine would throw the tractor end over end, but then she stopped dead in her tracks. “That was a close one, eh?” somebody shouted over the sound of his nowidling engine. “What?” Mark took a deep breath, his nostrils filled with the smell of fresh fish. “I said you nearly flipped it.” A pause. “Wouldn’t be the first.” Mark ran a hand over his sweatdampened face and then looked out his window. There was a middleaged man standing by the side of the road, his plaid shirt rolled neatly over his elbows and his dark pants tucked into his green rubber boots. “You picking up the load?” he asked. Mark wondered how small the place was if its shipments were thought of in terms of the load. “Yeah, I guess I am.” “Then you’d best go down backwards,” he said, flashing a crooked smile. “Not much room down there to turn around.” Mark looked down the hill and marvelled at how well Newfoundlanders had learned to use every inch of available space. There were three buildings nestled up against the cliff face: the larger one built in the centre of a level patch of rock, two smaller ones built half on the rocks, half over the water. The big building had a single loading dock and a reefer parked out front. There was a thin strip of asphalt on either side of the trail er, and even the cars parked at the side of the building looked as if they’d been backed down the hill. “Great,” Mark mumbled under his breath. He shifted Mother Load into reverse and stuck his head out the window. “Can you make sure no one’s coming up behind me?” “Don’t worry,” the man said with a wave. “There’s nothing else coming down that road today.” Chapter 1 7 Mark sighed, checked his mirrors, then slowly backed up over the hill. But even when he was back on level ground, he still had to back up nearly half a kilometre before he had enough room to turn Mother Load around. Then it was backwards again, over the hill and down the steep incline towards the water’s edge. It took just over three minutes to make the descent. When he was safely at the bottom and parked in front of the trailer, Mark looked up to the top of the rock face and wondered how on earth he’d done it. Then he wondered how he was going to climb back up, pulling a fully loaded trailer behind him. Suddenly there was a man at Mark’s window. “Get yourself hooked up,” he said. “They’re just gettin’ the tractor ready.” “Tractor?” Mark asked. “What tractor?” “To pull you out.” So that’s how I’m going to get out, Mark thought as he climbed out of the cab to connect the gladhands and pigtail to the trailer. It sort of made sense since Mother Load was spec’d for longhaul highway driving, and this little adventure required the sort of gear ratios they had on dump trucks. Without help it was quite possible that Mark would blow his engine just trying to get back up to the road at the top of the rock face. A moment later a loud roar came from somewhere behind him. A tractor—more like a bulldozer, really—began chugging out the open door of one of the smaller buildings. The dozer was an old squat machine coloured here and there with alternating patches of rust and orange paint. As Mark watched the machine rumble into position in front of Mother Load, the shipper came out to meet him, carrying a clipboard and a big yellow envelope. “Twentysix thousand pounds of fresh fish, that is,” he said with a nod in the direction of the reefer. He handed the envelope to Mark. “People here are depending on it getting to Montreal on time.” 8 Mark Dalton: SmartDri er 1 “It’ll get there, my friend,” Mark said, glancing up toward the top of the cliff. “As long as I can get it up that hill.” The man laughed and flashed a smile that was missing several teeth. “Don’t you worry, none. Phyllis hasn’t lost one yet, eh.” Mark looked at the dozer, wondering if it was named Phyllis, but then he realized that there was a woman behind the wheel— a woman, no doubt, named Phyllis. He climbed into his truck, backed it into position until the king pin was locked in the jaws of the fifth wheel, and stepped out to wind up the landing gear. He did a quick check of the trailer, and when he was satisfied, he got back into Mother Load and gave Phyllis the “thumbs up.” The dozer eased forward, and the chain connecting it to Mother Load pulled taut. Mark shifted into first gear and slowly let out the clutch. But before he was even in gear, the big orange machine was pulling him along at a slow and steady clip. Mark left Mother Load in first, but kept a light touch on the throttle lest he put any slack in the chain. Things went smoothly at first, but a quarter of the way up the incline the dozer’s right track began to slip. Mark stepped on the accelerator to help ease the machine’s burden and the dozer immediately straightened out with both tracks digging into the roadway. Mark let out a sigh of relief but didn’t take his eye off the chain, or his hands off the wheel, until both the dozer and Mother Load had crested the top of the cliff. “Piece of cake,” Mark said as the sweat on his face and down his back began to cool. “You kiddin’,” she said, unhooking the chain from Mother Load. “I never slipped like that before. Thought we were both gonna be sleepin’ with the fishes tonight.” “Really,” Mark said under his breath, a chill running the length of his spine. He’d never been happier to be on level ground in his life.