FreightWaves Classics is sponsored by Sutton Transport, an LTL leader in the Midwest for more than 40 years. Sutton Transport proudly services Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Request a quote here.
IMC Companies began as a regional drayage firm in Memphis 40 years ago. Since then, its leaders have developed a national network of drayage companies. IMC Companies leverages its companies’ local expertise, and has built a technology infrastructure that moves containers faster. IMC...
FreightWaves Classics is sponsored by Sutton Transport, an LTL leader in the Midwest for more than 40 years. Sutton Transport proudly services Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Request a quote here.
FreightWaves Classics missed an important milestone last month – Groendyke Transport and its employees, friends and customers celebrated the company’s 90th anniversary on July 12! Belated best wishes, and a hope for many more years of success to come!
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classicshaul-of-fame-groendyke-transport-turned-90
History
Acme Truck Line, Inc. is an industry leader with a fleet of more than 1,500 trucks, more than 40 service points, and nationwide and Canadian operating authorities.
The Acme of 2022 is a nationwide operation headquartered in Gretna, Louisiana. According to the company’s website, its success is due to its pledge – “Serve our customers by keeping their freight moving safely and on time with the best and most highly trained employees in our industry.”
But Acme’s...
Crete Carrier Corporation was founded as a family-owned company in Crete, Nebraska in 1966. Today, it is one of the largest privately owned trucking companies in the country. The company has three divisions – Crete Carrier, Shaffer Trucking and Hunt Transportation.
Now headquartered in Nebraska’s capital city of Lincoln, Crete Carrier serves customers throughout the continental United States. The company operates 20 terminals around the country to serve its drivers.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-crete-carrier-corporation-keeps-moving
Background
Charles Hammel, Sr. founded Hammel’s Express in 1919 with a horse, a buggy and one customer. His son, Charles Hammel, Jr., continued in the family business beginning in the 1940s. The company founded by his grandfather and continued by his father was where Charles (Chuck) Hammel, III began to learn about and began to love the transportation industry.
Chuck, Bob and Ken, the three sons of Charles Hammel, Jr., purchased three trucks and leased a small, one-door warehouse in East...
There are many people interested in former transportation companies, whether they were trucking companies, railroads, airlines or ocean lines. These companies are called “fallen flags,” and the term describes companies whose corporate names have been dissolved through merger, bankruptcy or liquidation.
Today’s FreightWaves Classics profiles another fallen flag in the trucking industry – Pacific Intermountain Express, which was known as P.I.E. and P-I-E. Unfortunately, there is not much...
Oak Harbor Freight Lines, Inc. is a privately owned and operated company headquartered in Auburn, Washington. Auburn is about 25 miles southeast of Seattle.
The company’s founding
Oak Harbor Transfer was the predecessor of Oak Harbor Freight Lines. It was founded in 1916 by Ben Koetje in Oak Harbor, which is about 100 miles northwest of Seattle. At that time Oak Harbor Transfer was a local cartage carrier servicing Whidbey Island.
Located at mile marker 284 on Interstate 80 in Iowa (about 10 miles west of Davenport and the Quad-Cities area) is the Iowa 80 Truckstop. “It’s a place where people want to stop. On the eastern edge of Iowa, not far from the Mississippi River, adjacent to the small town of Walcott, you’ll find a place like no other in the world. Some say Iowa 80 Truckstop is like a small city, others have likened it to a trucker’s Disneyland…” The Iowa 80 Trucking Museum is on the same property.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-iowa-80-trucking-museum-is-a-real-treat
In 1924, Alexander Duie Pyle worked for Lukens Steel in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. But he wanted to own his own business, so he purchased two trucks and began A. Duie Pyle, a trucking company. Lukens Steel (now part of ArcelorMittal), his former employer, became Pyle’s first customer (a relationship that lasted more than 90 years).
Nearly 100 years later, A. Duie Pyle, Inc. is one of the largest trucking companies in the...
On July 8, 2019 FreightWaves’ Mark Solomon reported that New Penn Motor Express (“New Penn”), one of three U.S.-based regional less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers controlled by YRC Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:YRCW), that it would close its corporate offices in Lebanon, Pennsylvania after 88 years, and consolidate operations there with YRC’s Field Resource Center at the parent’s Overland Park, Kansas headquarters.
Prior to that announcement, what was the company’s history for the 88 years leading up...