Bulk Freight News & Industry Updates - Stay Ahead in Trucking

By Dan Charles You've all heard a lot about this year's devastating drought in the Midwest, right? The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last Friday that the average U.S. cornfield this year will yield less per acre than it has since 1995. Soybean yields are down, too. So you'd think that farmers who grow these crops must be really hurting. And that's certainly the impression you get from media reports. Nick Guetterman, president of the Johnson County Farm Bureau in eastern Kansas,

Written by WKYC Web Staff BROOK PARK -- An employee has been arrested in an arson at a Brook Park trucking company. Fire raced through Valley Sterling Trucks on August 6 causing $4 million in damages. The fire could be seen for miles from the company's West 150th Street location. Police say a 54-year-old Canton man who worked at the company has been taken into custody and is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail pending a grand jury hearing on aggravated arson. "While no investigati

By Susan Morse Sewall's Bridge was reopened with a reduced weight limit Monday after a pickup truck had crashed through the wooden guardrail Sunday night and gone into the York River, according to York Police Sgt. Brian Curtin. Driver Michael E. Chandler, 50, 3 Harvard St., Schenectady, N.Y., escaped the submerged truck and swam to safety, according to a prepared statement from Curtin. A York ambulance transported Chandler to York Hospital, where he was treated and released, Curtin said.

Written by Andrew Taylor Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Come January, be prepared for fewer air traffic controllers, FBI agents, border patrol officers and park rangers, as well as lower farm and winter heating subsidies. Less meat might get inspected. Furloughs will likely sweep across the government. Even the weather service could be affected. The looming funding crisis in domestic spending is the result of automatic across-the-board cuts, called a sequester, that go into effect Jan. 2

The Associated Press PAOLA, Kan. -- Union Pacific Railroad is cleaning up after a train with 22 cars filled with grain derailed in eastern Kansas, sending at least two cars into the Marais Des Cygnes River. The Miami County Sheriff's Office says the train went off the tracks at 2:24 a.m. Wednesday near Osawatomie, but there were no injuries and no roads were blocked because of the derailment. Union Pacific officials were on the scene Wednesday morning to investigate the crash. A spokes

By Keith Veronese What incredibly important profession combines horrible hours, bad pay, and a poor lifestyle? Truck driving. This is a job that destroys so many lives that it could soon become unsustainable. Here's why. Lots of Work, Little Pay - Truck drivers are expected to drive up to fourteen hours straight a day, receiving roughly ten hours off prior to the beginning of the next shift. Legislation regulating the amount of driving a trucker performs over the course of a day and week

By Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa -- Cooler weather and rain in the middle of the country have slowed the deterioration of the nation's corn and soybean crops, but experts said the drought isn't over and the recent respite won't make much of a difference. The weekly crop condition report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture rated the corn and soybean almost the same as the week before and marked the first time months that the news wasn't significantly worse. In the

By Rick Jordahl, Associate Editor, Pork Network The 2012 drought is not only taking its toll on U.S. Midwest crop and livestock producers. Ethanol plants also are succumbing as high corn prices dry up their operating margins. Suspension of operations, along with reduced production at many plants, has reduced the supply of distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a co-product of ethanol production widely-used in swine diets. "High corn prices are not only affecting pork producers, but

(Reuters) - A fire Saturday morning at an Oklahoma trucking company owned by Cheseapeake Energy was extinguished but the cause is under investigation, the company said on Monday. "The fire has been completely extinguished and the site is secure. The investigation to determine the cause of the fire is ongoing," said Chesapeake spokesman. Read Full Story and View Original Post Here

By Rod Nickel WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Aug 12 (Reuters) - After spring floods drowned his seeding plans two years straight, Canadian farmer Walter Finlay is harvesting what looks to be an average or slightly better crop of wheat and canola. Average will do just fine this year. The worst drought in a half century in the U.S. Midwest has scorched corn and soybean crops, igniting grain and oilseed prices and leaving farmers in Western Canada poised to profit nicely off the misery of U.S. grower

By KEN MILLER An explosion at an Elk City trucking company sent thick, black smoke billowing into the skies in southwest Oklahoma on Saturday and left two employees injured. Beckham County Emergency Management Director Lonnie Risenhoover said it wasn't immediately clear what caused the blast at Hodges Trucking Company, LLC, other than there was some kind of spark. He said investigators would need to interview the two people working when the explosion happened. The workers, whose names

By John W. Schoen, NBC News The worst American drought in more than half a century is driving up grain prices and deepening worries about global food shortages. With much of the corn crop already lost, farmers are holding out hope for some weather relief that could help salvage the harvest of soybeans and other. But the latest data from the government Friday showed that the damage to the food supply chain already has been done. "This is worse than 2008 -- we're in kind of a perfect stor

By Allan Janssen with Today's Trucking Meet Sergio, Matt, and Steve. They're 25 and they love driving truck. The question is, are there more where they came from? For Steve Andrusyshyn, it was either hockey or trucking. The 25-year-old Calgarian had his sights on the NHL for a while... but in the end, trucking won out. He's been hauling aggregate for three years now, learning the ropes from his owner-operator father, Ken. And he plans to make a go of it in the family trucking business, Nor

By Alex Breitler Record Staff Writer LODI - Tom Howard gestured toward his big rig. "Step inside my office," he said. With pleasure. It was 75 degrees in the cab, unlike the broiling asphalt parking lot at the Flying J truck stop. And Howard's "office" muffled the noise of an endless parade of trucks outside. This is the comfort and peace that a long-distance trucker needs to get a good night's sleep. And on Thursday, it got a lot easier to rest while complying with no-idling laws.

By Dan Piller and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave its assessment of the historic drought Friday, forecasting national corn production at 10.8 billion bushels, down 13% from 2011 and the lowest production since 2006. The report is the USDA's first official assessment of the impact of the drought that has hit the Corn Belt and is considered to be the worst since 1956. Analysts knew lower projections were coming but "this is a substantial drop. Wow," says

The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave its assessment of the historic drought Friday, forecasting national corn production at 10.8 billion bushels, down 13% from 2011 and the lowest production since 2006. The report is the USDA's first official assessment of the impact of the drought that has hit the Corn Belt and is considered to be the worst since 1956. Analysts knew lower projections were coming but "this is a substantial drop. Wow," says Harry Kaiser, head of the Food and Agricultural

OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Subsidiaries of The Gavilon Group, LLC today announced they have entered into multi-service commercial agreements with subsidiaries of Advanced BioEnergy, LLC with dry mill ethanol facilities located in Fairmont, Neb.; Aberdeen, S.D.; and Huron, S.D. Under the terms of the agreements, Gavilon will be Advanced BioEnergy's exclusive ethanol marketer for all three facilities effective immediately. It will also be the exclusive marketer for distillers dried grains with

By Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration asked for comments on changes in its CSA safety enforcement program, it got an earful. Almost everyone supports the concept of the overall CSA program, but the details do not get much love. The changes, part of an ongoing CSA revision process, apply to several of the seven safety performance categories that are at the heart of the program. The agency plans to move cargo and load-securement v

Submitted by Marissa Jasek on Wed, 08/08/2012 - 3:35pm WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- The morning commute got a little sticky for drivers trying to make their way to work in Wilmington. A truck spilled its load of liquid asphalt along a busy road, causing delays and damage to dozens of cars. Drivers along North College Road had to deal with the wet, sticky mess Wednesday morning after a Hilco Transport truck leaked much of its 52,000 pounds of liquid asphalt for about four miles. "I've got ta

Go short! By Mark B. Solomon Since the recession hit, truckload carriers have tried to push their shippers into one-year contracts rather than locking them in for two, three, or more years at a time. For the carriers, the reasoning was simple. With their costs rapidly escalating, they wanted the flexibility to change rates and contract terms on short notice and not be saddled with static multiyear pricing that lagged behind their dynamic expense structures. But short-term contracts mig

Associated Press TICONDEROGA, N.Y. -- A trucker is recovering after being rescued from an overturned rig partially submerged in a North Country lake. Officials say 40-year-old Michael J. Rodriguez apparently lost control of a tractor-trailer hauling paper at about 1 a.m. Tuesday on a sharp curve in Ticonderoga, near the Vermont border. The truck flipped over into Eagle Lake, leaving Rodriguez trapped in cab filled with eight feet of water. Rescuers told the Press-Republican of Plattsbur

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--A now-defunct North Carolina trucking company has been ordered to pay $120,000 for refusing to hire black loading dock workers, according to a settlement agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Caldwell Freight Lines Inc., which had been based in Lenoir, N.C., hired 38 white dock workers at its Newton, N.C., facility in April 2011, purposefully overlooking six equally qualified African-American applicants for the positions on the basis of their race,