A Trucker's Tale – Escape From Black Mountain!

Nov 22, 2023 - one year ago

Shortly after I secured my chauffeur’s license at the age of 18, my grandfather Obie asked me to go somewhere with him. I pre-tripped a single-axle H model Mack with a 10-speed, two stick duplex transmission. We bobtailed several miles where we borrowed a two-axle lowboy equipped with eight to ten chains and binders.

A Trucker’s Tale Escape From Black Mountain! — *The H Model Mack with which I hauled the D-6.*

We drove through Asheville, NC and then headed west into the Nantahala National Forest. After traveling up and down an extremely curvy road for many miles, Obie instructed me to turn onto a wider than normal gravel road. This road wound through the woods close to a mile and then opened to reveal an immense rock quarry. I soon learned the purpose of our trip was to pick up a D-6 Caterpillar bulldozer Obie had purchased from the quarry owner.

Many heavy equipment movements require highway permits, sometimes escorts, and most importantly, the tractors and trailers must be able to legally transport the weight of the equipment. We were driving a single-axle tractor and a two-axle lowboy, so we would have been legal to carry a little over a 30,000-pound payload. You guessed it, Obie drove the 36,000+ pound dozer onto the lowboy. We should have removed the ten-foot-wide blade so it wouldn’t be over the eight-foot width limit, but since the weight was illegal, I guess Obie figured “What the hell,” and we left it attached to the front of the dozer, although we did angle the blade as much as we could.

I knew for certain we were in some serious trouble when we reached the NC Weigh Station on Hwy 70 at Swannanoa, mostly due to us being overweight, too wide, not enough axles, and having no permits. As I pulled into the facility, Obie told me to “Park over there on the side.” He got out of the truck, hitched up his britches and strode into the office like he owned the place. Twenty minutes later, Obie walked out of the office, climbed into the truck, and said, “Don’t go over the scale. Just stay to the right of it and let’s go home!” I never did learn what this “bypass” had cost Obie, but I have always wanted to have been that fly on the scale-house wall while Obie was stating his case.

My elation of the scale bypass ended when we reached the top of Black Mountain on I-40. Many truckers know about this east bound, treacherous, trucker-unfriendly, descending, 6% grade, 5.5-mile-long highway. NC law now requires all eastbound trucks to pull over and stop at the top of the mountain to inspect their vehicle’s brakes. Truck speed is 35 miles per hour, and there are four sand-filled truck escape ramps spaced at one-mile intervals. NC Highway Patrol strictly enforces the speed limit.

Forty-plus years ago, there were no signs, trucks did not have to pull over at the top of the mountain, and there were no truck escape ramps. The ramps were installed approximately 30 to 35 years ago, shortly after a tractor-trailer lost its brakes coming down the mountain. The truck driver made it to the final curve, where he crossed the median at more than 100 miles per hour, where he tragically wiped-out a carload of Western North Carolina College kids. As happens all too often, construction of the escape ramps began shortly after this tragic accident.

Shortly after these ramps were opened, I drove-by one afternoon after a rig had gone into one of them. The sand did such a good job that the tractor came to an extremely abrupt halt. Unfortunately, the trailer’s momentum kept it going fast enough to tear the fifth wheel off the tractor’s frame and slam into the cab. The trailer broke the locking mechanism on the back of the cab and broke the two hinges that connected to the frame on the front of the cab. The driver was standing beside the cab of the International CO4070, which was cleanly sitting upright on the sand in front of the trailer, as though it had been placed there by a forklift. (I think the Highway Department experimented with several different sand and gravel mixes until they finally got it right.)

Did I mention the fact that we were overweight for a four-axle vehicle? Even though I had the truck in a very low gear, we hadn’t traveled more than a half-mile down the mountain before the brakes on both tractor and trailer were smoking. Obie instructed, “Keep your foot on the brake pedal, as you continue to apply pressure, and do not take it off,” because this would have allowed air to reach the very hot brake shoes, possibly causing them to catch fire.

The farther down Black Mountain we went, the more smoke poured from the brakes. No vehicles could see to pass us, because the smoke screen we created was so dense that the drivers had no idea what was ahead of them. To say I was scared shitless would be an understatement. My friend Frank, who I will write about later, had a saying for any similar situation, “He was so scared you couldn’t have drove a nail up his ass with a BIG hammer!”

In what seemed like hours, we finally made it past that last curve at the bottom of Black Mountain, and Obie instructed me to take the Old Fort exit. The good folks of Old Fort remembered us for quite some time, as the “smoke shrouded truck” left a cloud, and the smell of burned brake shoes, behind us as we traveled down Main Street. I actually enjoyed driving the next 11 miles on the mostly flat highway, although I had to hug the right side of the road due to the dozer blade’s width.

When we finally arrived in Obie’s driveway, I shut off the truck, and then Obie looked over at me and nodded his head. That was as much of a pat-on-the-back as I would get, but that was enough.

Ed Miller has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in the trucking industry. Today, he is a part-time tour bus driver, published author of “A Trucker’s Tale” and regular contributor to Supply Post. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.