Over the next several weeks here at the QuickTSI Blog, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the history of overland transportation in this country. Our specific area of focus will be on commerce and the cross-country or regional transportation of goods and services.
Here is a primer of the topics we will be bringing to you in our three-part series:
- Part One: The Early Days of Trucking
- Part Two: The Modern Day Trucking Industry
- Part Three: The Trucking Industry of the Future
So why is the topic of overland transport important enough to merit its own series? We respond to that question with one of our own: Is not the very structure of capitalism in this country built upon the concept of people trading goods and services?
One could even say the idea of inter-party commerce is part of human nature; that it goes all the way back to a time when our cavemen ancestors traded crude stone tools for food and shelter. Men and women have always been traders, and what we trade can’t always be carried on our backs.
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For thousands of years we had relied upon primitive methods of transportation, mostly based around horses, camels, elephants and other beasts that could bear a burden. As civilization advanced, however, the need for more powerful modes of transportation became not just a luxury, but an imperative.
Then a century ago everything changed. Let’s take a look at how that change came about and what the history of over-the-road transportation in this country looked like in the early days.
Before There Was Trucking
In the nineteenth century, before motor trucks, but after pack animals, the bulk of overland commerce was handled by rail. The mighty railroad industry had been the focus of technological innovation for a long time.
While trains are quick and efficient, they’re limited in scope. Trains are, for instance, unable to bring a pallet of goods straight to the loading dock. Trains are also hampered by where there are rail lines. No rail lines? No trains.
After trains came steam-powered vehicles, but these contraptions were large, unwieldy and impractical. It was these limitations of the time that forced the engineers of yore to develop technologies we now take for granted, such as suspension, steering, and braking. Being precise in one’s metallurgical skills also became key in blending metals to create strong and lightweight materials.
While these innovations were crucial to helping usher in the age of the automobile, large trucks used for transporting goods were still quite slow to establish their niche in the transportation market. This was mainly due to the lack of gear drives and advanced transmissions, which hadn’t yet been invented.
Despite a slow pace of technological innovation for the time, the first big trucking boom came during the prosperous, pre-depression, post-war 1920’s. This was a time when roads were improving and modern air filled tires replaced the heavy and inefficient solid rubber variety.
Manufacturers were also starting to introduce cabs as well, increasing a driver’s operating distance. Let’s remember that during that time a haul between New York and Philadelphia was considered quite a long trip.
Then just as things were picking up, the Great Depression hit the United States with all the force of a cannonball. While a number of trucking companies were forced out of business, those that survived experienced the next boom with the repeal of Prohibition and a reviving economy.
Trucking: An Industry Disruptor
It was in 1935 that Congress, seeing the signs of a rapidly expanding trucking industry, passed the Motor Carrier Act. The passing of this bill authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the trucking industry and ended the legislative war that had been raging between rail and trucking interests for years.
The end of this war also signaled the impending demise of rail transport as the go-to method of moving goods from one part of the country to another. Between the depression and heavy competition from an industry that had more flexibility of movement, railway commerce was in decline. It wouldn’t be long before rail tariffs were seriously undercut by emerging trucking companies competing in the open market.
Ironically, even back then trucking interests were openly worried about what affect government regulations, specifically in the Motor Carrier Act, would have on their nascent industry. It’s interesting that here we are almost three-quarters of a century later asking the same questions.
With rail transport diminishing and transport by air not yet plausible from a business perspective, what was the next step for trucking? How did we get from where we were yesterday to where we are today? Stay tuned for the next installment of our three part series, The History of Overland Commerce, to find out!