busy week at work

[racinchef]

Originally Posted by beezer

How's chances of someone turning you and your truck into a hostage situation and you fill my 1000 gal. tank up and then they can show you driving your truck back across I-84 towards home?

It will get to that soon. I am surprised that the manhole covers on the top of our trucks aren't locked at night. My truck fully loaded has the potential value of $12,285. I now lock my truck when I stop for coffee or if I park it in a busy area and I am out of sight making a delivery. However, they can't disengage the parking brake when the PTO is working.

Originally Posted by racinchef

All the propane trucks I have ever seen are kind of egg shaped while distillates delivery trucks have that classic tanker truck look.

You're right of course. It's just that people don't see what they're not looking for. I'm never looking for an oil truck, so of course I didn't see one. ;)

Originally Posted by racinchef

The only difference between delivering oil and propane is that the oil driver says "oh sh*t" when he spills. The propane driver runs like hell.

In a previous life I had to fill propane tanks (stationary--not from a truck) and actually you do spill all the time. It's called "venting" however, to sound more ecologically friendly.

But I'm sure there are times...

One of the scariest moments of my life happened around propane.

It was twilight. I was driving my kids up highway 99, and we pulled off the ramp at Traver to get a coke at the truck stop there. They sold lots of diesel and propane, and they had a propane tank that was at least 2000 gallons. There were lots of trees along the ramp, but as I came down it I could see truck drivers running out to jump in their cabs and lurching out of the lot in a big hurry. Then I saw the fire.

There was a big Ford Galaxy, fully engulfed, flames shooting 30 feet in the air, parked about 10 feet from the big propane tank. I never made it off the ramp. I panic stopped, put the car in reverse, and backed as fast as it would go, up onto the freeway going the wrong way of course, and got the hell out of there. That's the only time in my life I drove in reverse on a freeway or went south in a northbound lane.

The tank is gone now. The truck stop is still there, but it's been closed for years. It didn't burn down, so evidently the tank never exploded. But for a couple minutes there lots of truck drivers were saying "Oh SH1T!"

[ringadingh]

A guy my wife went to school with drove a propane truck, one day he was hit by a train at a crossing, there was a big boom, and not much left.

Omg...that's horrible!