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Thanksgiving Holiday

Thanksgiving postcard circa 1900 showing turkey and football player. Image via Wikimedia Commons

The Heavy Duty Trucking staff will be at home with their families on Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving Day holiday but we'll be back covering the day's trucking news on Monday.

However, many of our readers will still be working hard, so we have filled our newsletter with some of the most popular online articles.

Our editors not only put in hard work to publish our print magazine, but also produce great online content, all of which is written and edited to help improve your fleet business as well as provide various thoughts on every aspect of the industry.

Please enjoy some of our best features, photo galleries, and videos from the past few months. They cover a wide range of topics from future trucking technology, green and sustainable practices, and maintenance, to new vehicle reveals, infrastructure reform, and in-depth interviews with important industry people.

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East Manufacturing Names Platform Product Manager

East Manufacturing has named Bill Wallace as platform product manager, adding the duties to his current position as Northeast regional sales manager, the company announced.

In the new role, Wallace will oversee all flatbed and drop deck trailer sales. Wallace will be working throughout North America to develop and grow the East platform business. In addition, he will be responsible for product development and quality assurance.

“After 32 years with East, Bill focuses on growing our platform customer base,” said Charlie Wells, vice president sales and marketing. “Bill's platform expertise will be an asset to our customers for not only our future growth but our customers' growth as well.”

Prior to operating the Northeast region, Wallace was formerly the platform product manager. In the position, he contributed to East's corporate growth through fleet sales and developing the East dealer network. He has 44 years in the trailer industry, beginning his career in 1972 at Ravens where he was responsible for inside sales. Wallace received his B.A. in business from Marshall University.

Related: East Opens High-Tech Trailer Facility

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‘Action Plan’ to Encourage Cleaner Vehicles at LA, Long Beach Ports

Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have forced out many older, dirtier drayage trucks. Latest plan will encourage use of newer, cleaner equipment. Photos: Tom Berg 

There'll be more natural gas, clean diesel, and electric-powered drayage trucks operating from southern California seaports under a plan proposed by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Operation of zero- and near-zero-emissions trucks, locomotives and container-handling equipment would expand beginning in 2019 and culminate with wide use of electric trucks by 2035, according to the next version of San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, or CAAP 2017. It would also require ships to continue to reduce pollutants while berthed or anchored in the harbors.

Under previous CAAPs and a clean-trucks program begun in 2009, the ports have reduced diesel particulates up to 85%, cut oxides of nitrogen (NOx) in half, eliminated 97% of sulfur monoxides, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions an average of 12%, all while container volume has increased by 7%, said a statement from the ports.

“The results reflect the ports' combined clean air progress in collaboration with industry, regulatory, community and environmental partners since 2005,” the statement said. But more progress is needed to further clean the air in the port areas to comply with state and federal decrees and improve citizens' health.

“The point of this document is discussion,” said Renee Moilanen, air quality manager for the Port of Long Beach. “We're now meeting with community groups, industry groups and getting suggestions. And we encourage industry groups to comment on it….”

Comments can be made through mid February. The final document will go to the ports' boards of directors for approval in spring of 2017. Then a process of developing rules will begin.

Meanwhile, the ports continue to sponsor tests and demonstration projects for advance technologies, like an overhead-wire roadway for electric ...Read the rest of this story

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