Uncommon Carriers

Abstract

This is about the every day, hard working people who make the freight transportation system in this country work, deliver the goods, maintain the schedules and deserve all the credit. The author travels the country in a chemical tanker between Atlanta and Tacoma getting to know the owner/operator, the truck stops, the perils and benefits of cross country big rig driving and the economics of long haul trucking. He participates in ship handling classes at a school in France where captains of the largest ocean going vessels refine their skills and capabilities in simulation models. The author gets involved with the sorting of a million packages a day at the UPS distribution hub at Louisville's International Airport and becomes an observer on a towboat pushing a triple string of barges over a thousand feet long up the Illinois River. With an eye on history, the author also travels by canoe along the same commercial waterways made famous 164 years ago by Henry David Thoreau and his brother John. This book provides a personal perspective about the often unseen and unknown efforts by all those who work in the nations's transportation field.