What is your job at Estes Express Lines?
Ray Williams, Vice President, Fleet Services: "I'm responsible for the purchasing, maintenance, licensing, permitting and disposal of all our hauling equipment.
"That includes our trucks, trailers, converter dollies, plus the equipment that goes with them, including parts and tires."
How many pieces of equipment do you have?
"We now have about 5,500 power units, most of them day cabs, along with about 20,000 trailers and about 1,500 converter dollies."
You said "now." Did something change recently?
"We acquired G.I. Trucking, a company we used to work with to handle our hauls into the Pacific Northwest. In doing that, we picked up about 1,000 power units and about 4,000 trailers.
"One of our big jobs right now is trying to integrate that equipment with ours."
What are some of the challenges there?
"One of the big ones is tires. We've been around for a very long time, and we've pretty much always used standard profile tires. G.I. was using low profile tires.
"We need to have the entire fleet running on the same kind of tires, so right now, we've got a big decision to make: Do we switch the G.I. vehicles to standard profile or convert the rest of the fleet to low profile?"
But the Estes vehicles outnumber the G.I. vehicles more than 3 to 1, don't they?
"Yes, but we're talking with our tire suppliers about it. Low profile tires are newer technology, more prevalent, and it just may make sense for us to convert the larger part of the fleet to those, rather than converting the G.I. equipment to standard profile."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Between the time of our interview and going to press, Estes made that decision, and has elected to go with low profile tires.
How do you manage maintenance with that many vehicles?
"We had 41 shops before the G.I. acquisition, were in the process of opening two more, and have acquired 11 from G.I. That will bring us to 54 shops across the country.
"We expect those last two to be open by 2006 and the G.I. shops to be integrated into our system by the end of the first quarter of 2006."
Are you covering the entire U.S.?
"Pretty much. Prior to the G.I. Trucking acquisition, we directly served about 33 states, mostly in the east, south and midwest. With the addition of G.I., which we were working with before the acquisition, we're up to about 46.
"And, through our ExpressLINK program, we're working with a couple of other fleets to cover the entire U.S. and Canada. We offer service to the lower 48, Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean and Mexico through our direct territory and our ExpressLINK alliances."
How do you distribute all that freight?
"With our roots as a regional LTL hauler, we have about 175 terminals, and most of our loads go from terminal to terminal and then are delivered locally from there.
"Our terminal in Nashville, one of our larger ones, has 102 doors and 2 yard jockeys."
How many miles do you put on tractors in a year?
"Day cabs rack up about 100 to 125 thousand per year. Some of our team sleepers can go 250 thousand. In addition, we have some dedicated P&D tractors that might go 30 thousand each year.
"We do maintenance on day cabs about every four months, or about every 25 thousand miles. Our sleeper team vehicles can easily need service every month."
How do you get the work done?
"Every tractor is assigned to one of our maintenance facilities, and usually runs back and forth between the same terminals most of the time. And, of course, our computer system keeps track of every kind of maintenance each vehicle needs and when it needs it.
"We try to keep drivers with the same tractor as much as possible. We find they take really good care of the vehicles when they expect to be in the same one every day.
"An average day's run for a day cab is probably about 500 miles. So, a driver might go from Richmond to Atlanta in one run. What we usually do then is as soon as the driver goes off duty, we take care of the maintenance needed, because we'll need to use the tractor again right away."
How soon?
"We generally run long distance at night. When drivers arrive at the terminal, they usually go to sleeping rooms we have at the terminal or to a nearby motel, while other drivers take the trucks and use them for local P&D work during the day.
"That way, we get a lot of utilization from our vehicles.
"So, we've got to squeeze in maintenance when we can. At most terminals, we keep a few 'loaner' trucks we can put drivers into temporarily, in case we need to do something time-consuming."
What kind of maintenance do you do?
"We can do most things to our trucks, but have chosen to focus mostly on maintenance and basic repair. We're authorized to do our own warranty work, and we change tires and handle other similar jobs."
With all those shops, why not do everything?
"We've considered that, and have cut back somewhat from what we used to do. It has a lot to do with space utilization, environmental regulations, safety and efficiency.
"That's why we don't want to get involved in paint and body work or tire work. On the tire side, we now are on a total mounted tire program.
"Snider Tire delivers them to us mounted and picks up the old ones, so we only have to bolt them on or take them off."
How do you handle emergency road service?
"We have our own in-house breakdown department. They'll try to arrange to get a replacement tire on one of our national account programs."
What do you buy on the road?
Kenny Turner, Manager of Warranty & Tires:
"It depends on the axle position. If we need a drive or a trailer tire, we use a lot of retreads on those, and will try to get a Bandag retread if we can. If that's not available, we'll go for a new tire, generally either a trailer or drive tire."
What are some of the new tires you're using?
"We like the Bridgestone R260F for steer axles and the M725 for our drives. Most of our tractors are single axles, so the M725 works well there. We also use a lot of retreads on both drive and trailers."
Are you having good luck with retreads?
"We are. Except for the occasional road purchase, we insist that our retreaded tires be made using our casings. So far, we're averaging about two caps per casing, and keeping casings in service for about six years."
Do you do anything different on the line haul tractors?
"The drive tires are the same, but we put Bridgestone R280 steer tires on the line haul trucks. They're a little more suited to long distance hauling."
Do you balance your steer tires?
"Generally not, unless we have a driver complaint. We find that when the balance marks on the tires are matched up with the balance marks on the steel wheels we use, we hardly ever need to balance our tires. We get very few complaints about vibration."
Your Nashville facility is very attractive.
Williams: "Nashville is very new. It's only about two years old, and is one of our larger operations. It's definitely one of our flagship shops. Eventually, we'd like every one to be as spacious and modern as that one."
How many trucks do you maintain out of the Nashville shop?
"We probably take care of about 300 trucks there. We've got seven service bays. Nathan Ferrell and his crew do an excellent job.
"They came from a shop with just one bay, so this is quite an expansion for them."
What part of your tire program are you happiest with?
Turner: "Our Bridgestone representative, John Ramaika, does a really good job of taking care of us. There are a lot of tire shortages right now, and we really appreciate it when John gets us the tires we need.
"He also takes care of any problems we have right away."
And what part of your tire program would you most like to change?
Williams: "Obviously, I'd like tires that never need air, never go flat and never wear out. But until those are invented, I'd say that it's important to us to get tires and service when we need them.
"I'm not big on having people call on me just for the sake of doing it. What I like is having the confidence that they'll be there when we need them. So far, we're getting that kind of service from Snider Tire and Bridgestone." 
EDITOR'S NOTE: Coincidentally, both Estes Express Lines and Bridgestone will be celebrating 75th anniversaries during 2006.
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