All in. Days work for a milk truck driver

Bruce from Can. · Dec 12, 2016

Milk temps and wet snow , made a long morning for my milk transporter. Tanker almost full , and the steering tires just slide, and don't bring the truck around. Took a few tugs, but my little Kubota did the deed. Driver said that I was the third tractor hooked on to him today. First time truck was empty, and after the tuck was stopped the empty trailer just started to slide and jackknifed off to one side. This fella is a great driver and this is just a condition related thing. He never quite smiling, all in a day's work he told me.

Bryce Frazier · Dec 12, 2016

How often do you have to off load to a truck from your farm Bruce? We had a local dairy here, but they were the last ones in Idaho, and they only got unloaded like once a week if I remember right? You have a big enough operation he must be there every other day if not every huh?

Bruce from Can. · Dec 12, 2016

Milk gets picked up every other day. There are still many dairy farms near me , and most loads of milk travel less than 100 miles to get to the plant . There is a city of six million only 80 miles away from my farm. Most of our milk goes there. In the 36 years that I have been shipping milk , the truck has never failed to pick up my milk. Bruce

Tech 7 · Dec 12, 2016

Those drivers have to be a special breed. If I needed a truck in the yard today they wouldn't have got off the highway onto our gravel road. Our local municipality was having equipment "issues" with 5 machines(?) Our road was done by 11:30 or so. Glad the load of 28% N didn't show today.
Back in the 70's/80's when I last milked snow removal was an almost daily chore. I liked to try and keep the lane as bare as possible. Every bit of gravel that would show was a help.

coonie minnie · Dec 12, 2016

Here in WI most of the farm pickup trucks are quad axles, so that more of the load is on the drive tires. Semis are not so handy on steep farm drives in the snow. Ours on the otherhand leaves on a semi trailer. We fill the trailer directly, and do not use our bulk tank any more.

notjustair · Dec 12, 2016

Too bad there isn't a good snowpack everywhere - I'd say chain up the drivers and the trailer. I don't know whether it would even be safe, but could you you chain up steer tires? Maybe they just need turning brakes on those trucks.

I can remember the feed grinder staying chained up through the spring just so it didn't slide on you. I haven't had to do that since I've been farming. My uncle fed silage with my 35 Chevy ton-and-a-half. It had chains on it every day of its life.

centash · Dec 12, 2016

Milk truck drivers gotta be some of the best on the road. Lot tougher job than driving a school bus. Ben

WI Dan · Dec 12, 2016

Nice they let you pull them. Some guys wouldn't due to the liability.
When the weather turns, it's everybody in it together.

JerryS · Dec 12, 2016

For a couple of years back in the 70s I had a second, after-hours job driving for my neighbor who hauled for Borden. He had two trucks. We started our runs about 6 p.m., and usually got back to the processing plant about midnight. Most of our stops were at small dairies at the end of narrow dirt roads. Some of them had no outside lights, and not a lot of turnaround room. Somehow I managed to bash up only one roof overhang. If I had had to contend with snow and ice on a daily basis for months at a time, I would have quickly found a second part-time job. My hat is off to the drivers you guys are talking about.

sms · Dec 12, 2016

Neighbor/friend drove in the Boonville Tughill area, said one time he was pushing snow with the front bumper almost all the way to NYC. Roads were clear for the trip back empty.

showcrop · Dec 12, 2016

Milk tankers are tougher than other tankers due to the lack of baffles.

rrlund · Dec 12, 2016

As big as some of those trucks are getting to be,they really weren't made for country roads or small farm driveways.
Our last hauler had an old tandem axle straight truck that he used to pick up some of us in less than perfect conditions.

Bruce from Can. · Dec 12, 2016

I think you are right Randy, our road surface isn't much over 16 feet wide. Tandem trucks or triaxel seemed to make more sense, but the guys calling the shots don't drive the truck. They just steer a pencil.

rustyplow · Dec 12, 2016

No pics from yesterday, but I had the chain on the front once also. Three stops to load then a nice easy 40 mile an hour ride from east side of Michigan the west side. Traffic was light being sunday, but the roads were crap. Got home bout 2 this morning.

DMP62 · Dec 12, 2016

I met a milk truck driver who wasn't smiling but rather a very spooked look on his face. A number of years ago we were having a winter with a good amount of snow and were in the middle of a nasty blizzard. I left work a couple hours early so I could get home in the daylight. I had to make a left hand turn on the road to my house and there was a milk truck (twin screw type tanker) sitting at the stop sign at the end of that road, as I start to turn I see his window start to come down so I stopped and rolled mine down. How far you going he asked, not far I said I'm almost home. Well there's a huge drift all the way across the road just ahead he said. I told him I was pretty sure that was off the end of a windbreak and my driveway was just before that. He had a shook up look on his face so I told him again I wasn't going far and then I asked how big was it? Came over the hood he said.

When I got to my driveway I kept going the 200 feet or so to the end of the windbreak and I could see his tracks though the drift. He was traveling east and on the south side of the road, you could see in the tracks the truck had gone sideways enough that he was on the north side when he got though the drift. Given the blizzard conditions It's very possible that he never saw the drift before he hit it coming from that direction, probably a heck of a ride. I could see it and his tracks because from my direction there was a little protection from the windbreak.

Brown Swiss · Dec 12, 2016

Any time winter comes here it has a BAD amount of snow, no matter how much it is!

DMP62 · Dec 12, 2016

Yep, didn't choose my words very well. Only a good amount if you own a ski hill or a snow removal company.

37chief · Dec 12, 2016

How long can the milk be kept in the tanker trucks before it goes bad? Do the trucks have a pump if they need to pump to another tank, if the truck has a serious break down? Stan.

markct · Dec 12, 2016

Pretty long in winter! Summer tho it can get too warm. Usually if a breakdown occurs they just swap tractors. I suppose with a generator they could run the pump and transfer it to another tank. Trouble with spare tankers is they have to have been sanitized within 48 hours, can't just have an extra outback waiting to hook onto.

casecollectorsc · Dec 12, 2016

Always wondered how that rig would steer on a slick road with that many tires on the road. I'd think it would want to continue in a straight line instead of follow a curve. Had my share of slick roads in a 18 wheeler, don't think I would want the tanker.

JayinNY · Dec 12, 2016

I Was told by a milk truck driver that the tanker was like a big thermos, to keep the milk cold.

1Plowboy · Dec 12, 2016

Saw this video a few years ago, dangerous for the horses, slipping ect. but they are beauties and got the job done.
Horsepower

1Plowboy · Dec 12, 2016

Try this one, gets you to the vidio
Horsepower

Donald Lehman · Dec 12, 2016

You don't have to be crazy to drive milk truck in the West Lyden/Constableville/High Market/Redwood area of Tug Hill in the winter............... But it sure helps!!!!!! Lol!

K Effective · Dec 12, 2016

Nice they let you pull them. Some guys wouldn't due to the liability.
When the weather turns, it's everybody in it together.

I passed the UPS truck up in a snowbank on the way home tonight, he was shoveling like crazy. I would have stopped if I had the truck, but my little Civic would have been useless.

coonie minnie · Dec 12, 2016

We pump the milk directly on to the semi, it is 34-35 degrees going on. It takes nearly 48 hours to fill a load. Despite a hot summer, temp was never over 40 at unloading. The milk stays cold a long time.

Philip d · Dec 12, 2016

Yup been there done that will likely be doing it again soon too lol

sms · Dec 13, 2016

He worked for a wire company in Utica until they closed down then he needed a job he eventually moved back down here to find work. He said that at one point on NY Thruway cars were stopped in the right lane on a hill and he wasn't going to stop so he went into the untracked left lane and was able to keep going (pushing snow with the bumper as I said). Said he was about the only truck moving on the thruway.

Leroy · Dec 13, 2016

Havent milked since 1980 and then it was cans but pickup was every day no skiping a day. I think they still pick up every day around but not sure. Don't think state regs allowed every other day.

All in. Days work for a milk truck driver

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