When I pulled into the yard I saw there were nine trailers dropped willy-nilly, all facing in different directions. All of them, I knew, would be full of empty cartons, garbage, and unfolded moving pads. The cleanup would be a massive job that reminded me of that chapter in Moby-Dick after a whale has been caught and killed and the oil has been boiled off. The whalemen spend several days cleaning the ship and themselves, from the bilges to the top of the mainmast. Once they’re done, or sometimes in the middle of the job, they spot another whale and start the process all over again. Cleaning up a previously fully loaded trailer takes two men almost a full day. There are a couple hundred pads to fold, tape to take off, cartons to empty of paper, and trash to haul. Then it’s off to the recycling center to dump the cardboard. If I have time, I’ll hose out the trailers. It’s hard to believe how filthy trailers can get hauling household goods. Not as bad as a chicken choker, but bad enough.
I called Julio and Carlos and told them we had a week’s worth of cleanup. They weren’t thrilled. First, I’d need to put some order in the lot, which meant I had to put the trailers in a line. I started with the one hooked to my tractor. I backed it onto the property line, set the brakes, laid down a sheet of plywood, and went around to the far side and cranked the trailer landing gear onto the plywood. I’ve set trailers down on dirt before, and sometimes the landing gear sinks down a couple of feet so the trailer looks like a cat stretching itself with forepaws low and ass in the air. (You need a heavy forklift or a tow truck to get the thing high enough to slip a tractor under when that happens.) After the landing gear was down I pulled off the gladhands that hold the service and brake hoses, and disconnected the electrical cord. Then I reached under and pulled the fifth-wheel lever, releasing the kingpin. (The fifth wheel is the roundish flat metal plate on the tractor that the trailer sits on. The kingpin is the rod that sticks down from the trailer that fits into a slot on the fifth wheel and locks the apparatus together.) Next, I climbed into the cab, released the air ride bags, thereby lowering my tractor, disengaged the air brake, and slid off the trailer. Now I was a bobtail tractor looking for a trailer. I backed up to another one to the point where my fifth wheel was just under the trailer. I set my brakes and hopped out to eyeball the levels to be sure they were about even. If I was too high, my fifth wheel would bang into the trailer body and damage it. If I was too low, the kingpin would bypass the fifth wheel, and my trailer would hit the back of my tractor and damage that. If I was only a little too low or a little too high, the fifth wheel hook wouldn’t engage, so when I pulled away the trailer would drop onto the ground.
I’ve done this twice and it’s horrible. The first time was on the Post Road in Cos Cob in my early days. I didn’t check the coupling, and when I made the hard left from Cross Lane onto the main road the trailer slipped off, breaking the hoses and blocking all lanes of traffic. I’m very lucky I didn’t kill anyone. The idea of traveling down a highway and watching the trailer slide away into an oncoming lane of traffic gives me nightmares even now. Especially now. Anyhow, when I dropped that one, John Callahan came out with a forklift and an extra set of hoses. He replaced the hoses, lifted the trailer with the forklift, and had Little Al slide the tractor underneath and hook up. An operation like that takes about twenty minutes, provided you have the forklift and hoses to hand.
The second time I did it was relatively recently, when a driver dropped a trailer at residence and I was to take it away. I checked the coupling and the hook was engaged, but when I started moving I could see the trailer sliding off in my mirror. I didn’t bust the hoses that time, but I did have to spend a half hour cranking the landing gear all the way from the bottom. Nowadays I always have a flashlight with me, and once I hook up I go underneath the trailer and visually inspect the coupling. After that I set my trailer brake, put the tractor into low low gear, and engage the clutch. If the tractor doesn’t move, I’m locked in, probably. I’m never 100 percent sure until I make a turn. It’s nerve-racking.
After hooking up the next trailer, I lined it up next to mine, about a foot away. I needed to make this line tight. I did this eight more times, and I had a neat row of trailers. It took about two hours. It wasn’t real moving work, like lifting pianos up staircases, but wasn’t sipping coffee at the truckstop either. Nine times cranking up the landing gear, nine times cranking down the gear, thirty-six times into and out of the tractor, eighteen times coupling hoses, eighteen times connecting and disconnecting the gladhands, and nine times pulling fifth-wheel pins. And I hadn’t started the day’s work yet.
Since I had a whole week, I was going to wash out the trailers. I pulled the first one out of the line and opened all the doors. There’s a large set of double doors on the driver side and four sets of doors on the shotgun side. I parked next to the loading dock, and we tossed all the pads and cartons and garbage onto the dock. Julio had a pressure hose, and he started at the front washing out the ceiling, walls, and floor. A moving trailer has slotted sides, and you wouldn’t believe the stuff that gets in there. Food, dust, dead mice, dirt, more food, and more dust. He moved the hose down the fifty-three feet and stopped at the end with his pile of yuck. We dumped it into a dumpster, and I drove the trailer around the block to dry it off. In the Colorado summer it takes about ten minutes for a trailer to dry out. Then the pads will be folded, the equipment stowed, and the cartons flattened for recycling. While the boys did that I performed a complete trailer inspection, starting on the ground with a mechanic’s creeper to check the brake adjustments. Each trailer brake has an arm that engages the brake. The play in the arm shouldn’t be more than an eighth of an inch. If it’s too much or too little, I adjust them with a 7/16 wrench. Brake arms are touchy little buggers, and they have a tendency to lock up in cold weather. I’ve spent many an early morning underneath my trailer in the snow thawing frozen brake arms with a safety flare.
Next, I checked the trailer bubble, which is a small plastic compartment at the front of the trailer, for a current registration, current DOT inspection, and current insurance card. I took my tire wear gauge and checked the tread depth on all eight skins. I took my tire buddy, a wooden dowel with a metal handle (it makes a great weapon), and banged all the tires to check inflation. I can feel if a tire is flat or soft, and if it is, I make a note to inflate or replace it at the next truckstop. Then I checked all the doors for locks and made sure the locks were lubricated and all had the same key.
We could do two of these trailers in one long day, and I had ten to do.