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By John White
Our June 2007 Rig of the Month owner is Doug McIlwrick who lives
in Calgary, Alberta. This is his story:
My hometown of Wolfe Island didn’t have a hospital so, like
everyone else from our area, I was born in Kingston Ontario. As a
kid I often got in trouble at school for looking out the window
when I heard a truck go by. Usually it would be one of the local
feed trucks or the gas truck delivering to the farms in the area.
My punishment would be to stand in the corner but since it was a
one-room school with grades one to eight and only twelve students
in total, I could still see out the window anyway.
As a farm kid I was driving tractors at eight years old, and by
the age of ten I was the official grain hauler at harvest time. The
trip from the field to the graineries on the farm was about two
miles; half a mile in the field, and the rest on the country road
and I loved every minute of it.
My dad had had a heart attack in 1962 and I gladly left school
to help run the farm. By 1964 we had sold the dairy cattle
and the farm, so I was off to join the work force. I got my license
within a week of turning 16 and, since back then you could get a
commercial drivers license any time after you had a driver’s
license, a couple months later I got that too.
I was 17 years old in 1965 when I got my first real driving job.
It was at United Co-operator of Ontario driving a 1963 three-ton
GMC fuel truck with a 1200-gallon tank and again I was in my glory.
While working for the Co-op I met Eric Cooney who worked for his
father next door at Brownlee Cartage. It was Eric who took me out
for my first tractor-trailer ride. It was a 1953 tandem
International with a 40-foot trailer and man, it was big.
My first job pulling a trailer was with Kingston Iron and Metal.
Now I was getting into some serious work. I drove a 534 hp gas Ford
Super duty Lugger pulling a 3 axle wagon hauling scrap out of
various plants in a 200-mile radius of Kingston. That job holds
some real memories for me - like the first trip to Toronto. It was
around 10 pm when I pulled into Toronto and I immediately got lost
looking for the consignee. I turned down a driveway that was about
3/4 of a mile in length, with the intent of turning around and
heading back into Toronto. The driveway had a few S turns and then
at the very end there was a tree with a huge branch going across
the road at about the nine foot mark. My trailer was twelve feet.
That was where I learned to back up a trailer. It wasn’t a quick
lesson. I’m not sure what time I finally got out of there but it
was getting light out.
One time I backed into the passenger side of another Ford Lugger
and I didn’t know what to do. Run came to mind but while I was
contemplating that the other driver jumped into the truck and
started to pull away. So then I had to stop him and tell him I hit
his new truck. I’ll never forget how grateful he was. He said,
“Man, thanks for telling me. I would have pulled away and never
seen it, and I would have been blamed for it.” (I wonder if he
learned to do his circle check after that?) I left Kingston
Iron and Metal about a year later a little wiser. I new what bob
tail meant, what a fifth wheel was, and what happens to it when you
never ever grease it.
While driving for Co-op and Kingston Iron and Metal, I got to
know Fred Taylor, a mechanic who worked at the garage that both
company’s dealt with. He was at least 15 years my senior but
we hit it off well. He and his wife started to socialize with my
new wife and me. Then he moved to Nappannee and started working for
a small charter company, Wager Coach Lines. When they needed a
driver he told Claire Wager about me and arranged for me to go meet
him. A short time later I became a 19-year-old bus driver doing
charters mainly with schools and universities.
This was yet another learning experience. Did you know when you
first start a bus and its engine is not warm you shouldn’t rev it
up till you can hear it running to set the idle? If you work for
Claire Wager and you do this he will step into the bus and explain
to you that the engine is about 40 feet behind you, and in order to
hear the 671 Detroit it will be turning about 2400 RPM, he then
will explain how long of a future you will have working for him if
you do it again.
Expo 67 in Montreal was in full swing and the bus driving
business was great. 10 cents a mile, 360 miles round trip
every day it doesn’t get better then that. I also learnt not to
park the bus in Montreal, go for a walk then to a movie without
first taking note of where you are parked.
In May of 1972 I moved west to Calgary and got a job with
Brewster Bus Lines a division of Greyhound. It was a great job and
I would have been laid off in September but because of my
experience with Wager Coach I managed to work into October. When I
was laid off they said there wasn’t any work until ski season so I
went to work for Phil Kirly at PJK service hauling gas for Shell
from Bowden to points south of Red Deer.
Phil purchased a company called Linden Milk Transport and I
drove straight milk truck with a wagon for the next three years. It
was a 365-day a year job and I never missed a day. It was a great
job dealing with the farmers but I never had time to do anything,
like getting a hair cut. One morning I was coming into town to
unload when I decided to stop at Chinook Centre for a haircut. It
was 7am and the barber opened at 7:30am. I was south bound on
MacLeod trail and I got a red light at 61st street. I put my head
down on the steering wheel just for a minute, and woke up at 9:30!
I had slept in the left turning lane on Macleod Trail from 7am to
9:30 am, right through rush hour traffic, and no one had bothered
to wake me up! I decided it was time to move on.
I got a job at Canadian Auto Carriers first as a driver, but
during the training I was approached about a dispatcher’s job. The
salary was $1100 per month. At this time drivers were taking home
approximately $1800 per month. I went home and talked to my wife.
We discussed the advantages of a five-day week and being home at
nights with her and the kids. We looked at our cost of living,
rent, power, etc., made a few changes, and went for it. I will
never forget my 1st check of $340. I opened the envelope, looked at
it, and put it in my desk. I opened up the drawer a few more times
that day, looked at it, and put it back. Finally the lady next to
me, Lorret Grego, looked over and said, “Doug, no matter how many
times you look at it, it isn’t going to change.” Boy was she right.
After a year the dispatcher that had the job before me wanted to
come back and I was asked if I would be interested in taking the
job of safety coordinator. I would be responsible for the hiring
and training of drivers and putting on safety meetings every 3
months. I did this for two years and felt that the company really
was not interested in providing me with a budget that was workable.
I was still getting $1100 and even though when I gave them my
notice they offered me $1300.00, it was still not enough so that
was the end of my career in very low level management. I must
say the learning experience was worth thousands to me. This is not
a slight toward the management of CAC, having a safety department
was new to them in 1977 and it was not considered as critical as it
is today. That being said, someone should have seen the value since
CAC went from several accidents a year to only one minor accident
during the two years I was in this position.
In 1977 I went to work for Finnie Hauling driving a Kenworth
with an eight-ton picker on it. Larry Finnie and
Jack Spillman ran the company, two of the best people I ever worked
for and honest in every way. The oil field slowed down in 1981, so
I went to work for Spiess Construction. Alberta was building roads
and the average work week was 115 hours. Fox Creek, Medicine Hat,
High Level, the Yellowhead from Hinton to Jasper, Fort Mc Murray to
Tar Island, as well as a few private roads in the Potash mines at
Sea Beach. I hauled equipment of every description back and forth
to all these road-building sites over the next three years. In the
winter we moved camps and construction equipment back to Calgary
for maintenance. This took us all of November and right through
March; just in time to start hauling it back out again. Then big
cuts came and the company replaced all of the drivers and hired new
ones for less pay. This was the only time I know of a company
realizing and admitting to making a very big mistake. Within 6
months they were calling us every day, and asking us all to come
back. As far as I know not one driver went back.
As for me I bought a 1977 Astro and went to work for Remple
Trail, a company I had worked for part time during my CAC
days. I was there until 1987 when everyone thought Trimac was
going to buy Remple out. I made the move to Trimac but the
Trimac-Remple deal never flew and a few years later Remple was
gone. It is my option that this was a terrible loss to the trucking
industry.
My stay with Trimac was very fulfilling to me personally. After
a couple of years, the Shop Steward, Dave Hunt, left to go to work
for Porter and I was asked by the owner operators to become the
Shop Steward. During my time there I was involved in contract
negotiations twice and a change in union representation. At the
time of the change I was very much in favor of it, but before I
would leave Trimac I came to regret the change. I knew how others
felt at the time but I have no idea if it worked out for the better
or not. By 1991 cuts were coming at Trimac so I moved my truck from
the highway into the city of Calgary to deliver fuel in town. I
watched as the lease operators were slowly cut back until, two
years later, I was the only one left. I double shifted my truck
with two very good drivers, my son David and Nick Seara.
In 1993 I bought a vacuum truck and started my own business
while my son David took over the contract with Trimac. For the next
couple of years I drove a few shifts a week for him at night and
ran the vacuum truck during the day. I did this until 2000 while
building the business up to two 82 barrel trucks and one 1 ton
pulling a trailer with a 500 gallon tank. This was a very good
business but my shortcoming was in hiring drivers. I had nothing
but trouble with them and there was no one to blame but myself.
A year earlier I had bought a 1998 Freightliner and leased onto
Mullen Trucking. I found that running both the vacuum truck,
babysitting drivers, and driving the Freightliner proved to be too
much for me so in 2002 I closed the business. In August of 2006 I
purchased the 07 Peterbilt you see on the cover and to date I have
not regretted this move.
I’ve hauled a lot different things through the years but I’ve
never worked for a bad company. Yes some were better than others,
but none were what I would call bad.
Today 80% of my loads are oversized and I find myself some what
surprised that the people I know outside of work don’t realize even
1/10th of what we do as drivers.
I often think that even the people I have worked for don’t
realize 1/20 of what we have to do to get up and down the road
safely. I have over 4 million accident free miles on the highway.
However I did have a backing accident in a truck stop in Cheyenne
Wyoming and it was while I had someone directing me! To make
matters worse it was my first trip with Mullen!
As for snow storms we have all seen lots of them. Bad runs, well
that’s all in your mind. The bad miles never come close to the good
ones and you must look at the whole picture. I’ve had lots of
things go wrong. Sometimes in a long row, but you learn to deal
with them one at a time when they happen and then move on so when
the next thing happens it’s only one incident.
Over the year’s I have been the first on scene for many
accidents, some with good out comes but too many that ended in
tragedy. I guess that’s part of a trucker’s job, sorting out the
mess and picking up the pieces from someone else’s inattentive or
uncaring mistake.
As for law enforcement personnel, I have had almost no problems.
I have to tell you though, I never believed the stories I heard
from other drivers about the ticket they got in California that was
unjust until one day I got stopped for speeding. He said he clocked
me at 72 miles an hour in a 55 zone. I could tell by his demeanor
that there was no point at this time to inform him that my truck
was governed at 63 mph, and I had the cruise set at 60 mph. The
ticket was $400 for speeding, and the logbook ticket that was
justified but no other trooper I’ve ever met would have written it
- was $600. Of course this was in U.S funds and the exchange rate
at the time was $1.60, so California got a little over $1600.00
from me.
Borders and custom officers don’t bother me; I just smile and
say yes sir. When I approach the customs people I get my paperwork
in order before I get to the booth. I have the license plate number
of the trailer, and this is the important part, at night I turn on
my inside cab lights so they can see who is in the cab. It makes a
difference. Because of this there have been only three times in
seven years where I have been held more then two minutes at the
booth.
Four wheelers don’t bother me. I don’t care if they cut me off,
don’t dim their lights, or even if they salute me as long as they
don’t run into me and I don’t run into them. I’m a happy guy and
when I get the salute I know they must have seen me. I firmly
believe the best driving strategy will be your attitude.
Of the many runs I’ve had there are two that are especially
memorable for me. One took me into Norman Wells in the Yukon. The
only way into Norman Wells is by barge, up the Mackenzie River. We
had to drive to a spot were the barge could come into the shore,
then, at 15 mph, we would drive onto the barge and jump on the
brakes, this would propel the barge out into the river again for
our six hour trip. The barge was small and we were pulling trains,
which were heavy enough that when we started up the river the water
would come over the front and cover the deck. I have a picture that
looks like the truck is driving on water. There was only about
three feet in front and behind you so the trick was to go fast
enough to propel the barge off the bank but for obvious reasons you
had to be sure your whole unit was on board.
The other memorable run are the trips I’ve made into the North
West Territories in the winter when the northern lights are in all
their glory - the colours are absolutely breathtaking. Photography
is a hobby of mine and when I retire I hope to take a trip to
Alaska were I can photograph the lights.
When it comes to my family, this is the area where I am among
the richest people on earth. My wife’s name is Anja and she hails
from Holland. Our children Elizabeth, Patricia, David, (no longer a
truck driver) and Tina are all professional people the two oldest
are in medicine and law, David is a tradesman and Tina runs a very
successful nail business out of her home. At twenty years of age
Tina was sent to Indonesia by her employer to train people to do
nails. When she came back the lady she worked for returned to
Indonesia, and gave Tina all her clients. I also have three
wonderful grandchildren who from left to right are: Carly, Madalin
and Vanessa.
The children have been very good to us. My wife and I just came
back from an all-inclusive weekend in Banff that they paid for and
they have also given us a cruise to Alaska leaving mid August for
our fortieth anniversary on May 5th.
There are things in this life that I would do differently if I
could do them over, but that is only because of hindsight, and like
they say - that’s 20/20.
All in all trucking has been a good life and, to be honest, I
feel like it’s just getting started. If the next 20 years are half
as good as the last 40 then it’s going to be fantastic.
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