The view from the driver's seat of a Peterbilt 379.




Looking out over the long hood.




The truck I was driving.

[Charlie Victor]

Wow! Nice perspective; I trust your co-driver took the pics from the cab! TFS>
Best.

[Racer X 69]

Wow! Nice perspective; I trust your co-driver took the pics from the cab! TFS>
Best.

Thanks for the comment.

In the five years I drove big trucks for a living, I never had a co-driver, always driving solo. Every photo I took while driving was one handed. I always had the camera ready, prefocused or in autofocus mode (although I usually like it prefocused so the camera wouldn't try to focus on the bugs in the windshield), and usually in aperture priority mode. I would simply pick up the camera, point it out the window, and squeeze the shutter button.

I covered all of the lower 48 states and 6 Canadian provinces, over 800,000 miles, and managed to snap a lot of great photos.

[lesmore49]

The Peterbilt 379 is truly the king of the road. Very distinctive looking truck. A 379 and the IH Lone Star always catch my eye. Nice pics. Were you an owner/operator with the 379 ?

[Sailor]

Good stuff, my friend! Composition and PP on the third one are simply outstanding.

Jer

[Racer X 69]

The Peterbilt 379 is truly the king of the road. Very distinctive looking truck. A 379 and the IH Lone Star always catch my eye. Nice pics. Were you an owner/operator with the 379 ?

Thanks for the comment Les.

That was a company rig, and a pool truck. I had only recently moved into my last company owned rig, Monstro, the black Volvo. I was home from a three week run and Monstro had to go to the dealer for some warranty work, and the carrier I drove for offered me a "local" run, an overnight trip picking up a 28,000lb compressor that came from Belgium, at the Port of Tacoma, to be delivered to Intel in Portland, Oregon.



The compressor was in the large wooden crate to the left.

The trip was supposed to be myself, and another driver, dispatched to pick up two compressors, and deliver the next morning at the Intel campus where a new building was being erected. There was a crane appointment, and we were supposed to meet up at the customer at something like 8 am.

I stayed overnight at Jubitz truck stop in Portland. Got up early, had a shower, had a nice breakfast in the restaurant at the truck stop, did the pre trip inspection on my truck, trailer and load, and headed out at around 5 am. As I was getting on the interstate the low air alarm started buzzing, then the "wig-wag" dropped down in front of me, indicating critically low system air. I took the next exit, and managed to get the truck off the road and parked at the front gate to Portland International Raceway, seen in the early morning picture above.

I called the shop, they got road service coming, and then I sat, all day, waiting on a mechanic to arrive, asses the situation, then run after a new air compressor, and swap it out for the defective unit on my truck.

The other driver made the crane appointment, then stopped by and we swapped trailers, and he delivered my load too, albeit quite a bit late. Crane appointments are very important, as large cranes require a crew, and cost big bucks. Making them wait costs everyone money. As I recall my load was about 4 hours late getting delivered.

As I mentioned, I was in a shop pool truck, not my regular rig. All I had was a change of clothes, sleeping bag and pillow, snacks and a couple bottles of water, my laptop, and some camera gear. It was December 18/19. It was freezing that morning and most of the day. I walked to the opposite side of the interstate to a cafe, about a mile or so away for lunch, grabbed some more water and snacks at a convenience store on my way back, and spent the day sitting in the truck, surfing the web and freezing my butt off.

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when the mechanic finally got me going, and I headed back to Seattle, getting into the middle of the Portland/Vancouver area rush hour.

The only upside to the trip was since it was "local" I got paid hourly, including the downtime waiting on repairs. Over the two days I only had about 8 or 9 hours of on duty driving time, the rest was on duty not driving (while loading, and performing posttrip and pretrip inspections) and off duty waiting for road service repairs.

And it was a fun truck to drive, even though it didn't look like much. It had a Cat engine, and a Super 10 transmission (you split every gear, so shifting is very quick). The exhaust was straight through, quite loud. It was fun in traffic to go up and down through the gears, and when gearing down flipping on the Jake Brake, hearing the "BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB" of the exhaust brake barking away as the rig slowed down.

[Racer X 69]

Good stuff, my friend! Composition and PP on the third one are simply outstanding.

Jer

Thanks for the compliment Jer!

I was pretty happy with that last one although I might have overcooked the saturation a bit. There is some purple fringing along the lower edge of the bumper that isn't in the unprocessed original.

The truck was quite dirty when I got into the day before, and I ran it through the Beacon truck wash at Jubitz when I got there the end of the first day, so it was shining as best it could for an old, beat up, high mile truck (it had about a million miles on it!).

Those 379 Petes ride very nice, as the driver's seat is near the middle of the chassis between the steer and drive axles. Even for an old rig it drove very nicely, and had plenty of power.

[cg57]

Peterbilt, woodgrain dash, lots of switches! Great series. Nice looking 18 wheeler. One of my friends dad from long ago was a trucker. He did a lot of local trips though.

[Racer X 69]

Peterbilt, woodgrain dash, lots of switches! Great series. Nice looking 18 wheeler. One of my friends dad from long ago was a trucker. He did a lot of local trips though.

Thanks for the compliment.

The majority of my trucking experience was long haul, 800,000 miles in five years. The last 6 months I ran exclusively local, getting hourly pay rather than mileage. To be honest, I made better money getting mileage and running lots of miles, and oversize loads which paid a premium on top of my base mileage rate, but not being home (most) every night got old quick.

I got so used to sleeping in an idling truck that when I got home from a few weeks on the road I couldn't sleep. My dispatcher said I should start the lawnmower and place it outside the bedroom window.

[cg57]

Thanks for the compliment.

The majority of my trucking experience was long haul, 800,000 miles in five years. The last 6 months I ran exclusively local, getting hourly pay rather than mileage. To be honest, I made better money getting mileage and running lots of miles, and oversize loads which paid a premium on top of my base mileage rate, but not being home (most) every night got old quick.

I got so used to sleeping in an idling truck that when I got home from a few weeks on the road I couldn't sleep. My dispatcher said I should start the lawnmower and place it outside the bedroom window.

Dude -- 800,000 in five years! Taxing on you, no doubt. Sleeping with the truck idling would be comparable to a sailor. You would need to get your land legs again when home ...

[lesmore49]

Thanks for the comment Les.

That was a company rig, and a pool truck. I had only recently moved into my last company owned rig, Monstro, the black Volvo. I was home from a three week run and Monstro had to go to the dealer for some warranty work, and the carrier I drove for offered me a "local" run, an overnight trip picking up a 28,000lb compressor that came from Belgium, at the Port of Tacoma, to be delivered to Intel in Portland, Oregon.



The compressor was in the large wooden crate to the left.

The trip was supposed to be myself, and another driver, dispatched to pick up two compressors, and deliver the next morning at the Intel campus where a new building was being erected. There was a crane appointment, and we were supposed to meet up at the customer at something like 8 am.

I stayed overnight at Jubitz truck stop in Portland. Got up early, had a shower, had a nice breakfast in the restaurant at the truck stop, did the pre trip inspection on my truck, trailer and load, and headed out at around 5 am. As I was getting on the interstate the low air alarm started buzzing, then the "wig-wag" dropped down in front of me, indicating critically low system air. I took the next exit, and managed to get the truck off the road and parked at the front gate to Portland International Raceway, seen in the early morning picture above.

I called the shop, they got road service coming, and then I sat, all day, waiting on a mechanic to arrive, asses the situation, then run after a new air compressor, and swap it out for the defective unit on my truck.

The other driver made the crane appointment, then stopped by and we swapped trailers, and he delivered my load too, albeit quite a bit late. Crane appointments are very important, as large cranes require a crew, and cost big bucks. Making them wait costs everyone money. As I recall my load was about 4 hours late getting delivered.

As I mentioned, I was in a shop pool truck, not my regular rig. All I had was a change of clothes, sleeping bag and pillow, snacks and a couple bottles of water, my laptop, and some camera gear. It was December 18/19. It was freezing that morning and most of the day. I walked to the opposite side of the interstate to a cafe, about a mile or so away for lunch, grabbed some more water and snacks at a convenience store on my way back, and spent the day sitting in the truck, surfing the web and freezing my butt off.

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when the mechanic finally got me going, and I headed back to Seattle, getting into the middle of the Portland/Vancouver area rush hour.

The only upside to the trip was since it was "local" I got paid hourly, including the downtime waiting on repairs. Over the two days I only had about 8 or 9 hours of on duty driving time, the rest was on duty not driving (while loading, and performing posttrip and pretrip inspections) and off duty waiting for road service repairs.

And it was a fun truck to drive, even though it didn't look like much. It had a Cat engine, and a Super 10 transmission (you split every gear, so shifting is very quick). The exhaust was straight through, quite loud. It was fun in traffic to go up and down through the gears, and when gearing down flipping on the Jake Brake, hearing the "BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB" of the exhaust brake barking away as the rig slowed down.

---------- Post added 10-26-19 at 05:08 PM ----------

Thx for posting. Very interesting. Years ago I drove commercial trucks, but never Class 8 highway tractors as you did. I drove city delivery and grain trucks at the family farm.

The details you provide really do illustrate well, what a trucker's job can be like. A lot of hurry up and wait, downtime, waiting for your turn in the queue to get to the shipping/receiving dock, etc.

A couple of weeks ago in my province, we were smacked by a Colorado Low which came in fast and hard through the Dakotas...producing blizzard conditions...lots of snow, sleet, rain that froze hard on the roads , etc. The Trans Canada highway (main route) in this part of the country, was shut down by the Mounties for a couple of days and the main route south through North Dakota, etc...was shut down by state authorities..due to the dreadful weather and horrible road conditions during this early winter storm.

Highway tractor drivers and their truck/ trailers were marooned at truck stops, on the road, etc...for a couple days till the roads were cleared. For them , many drivers of the transport vehicles have to be moving in order for them to be paid, yet they still are burning fuel while stationary, buying food, etc...in other words immobile..till weather abates, roads are plowed, etc.

Bad winter conditions are not uncommon...they've always been with us in the northern plains or prairies...and when Mother Nature strikes...things get closed down.

Thanks for describing and providing pictures of what it is like from the driver's perspective in a Peterbilt 379. I've often seen drivers perched inside these massive cabs and wondered what the visibility is like.

Les