Langer Transport has about 240 tractors and some 550 tankers serving petrochemical users in the U.S. and Canada.

What kind of hauling does Langer Transport do?

Tony Febbo, Maintenance Supervisor: "We haul tankers full of petrochemicals throughout the lower 48 states and Canada. Besides the main terminal in Jersey City, we have terminals in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in Illinois at Summit and Joliet near Chicago, plus we have satellite operations in Schenectady, New York and in New Haven, Connecticut."

1940

What kind of petrochemicals?

"No gasoline or diesel, but most everything else. We go from the refineries to manufacturers who use petrochemicals as raw materials. Many of them are flammable and hazardous, and they include oils, acids, latex, solvents, waxes — whatever the manufacturers need."

Are there special requirements for hauling them?

"We have both insulated and non-insulated tanks. With the insulated tanks, we can keep the cargo warm. That's important for the waxes, which could solidify, and for the latex, which could freeze."

How do you heat the cargo?

Steve Hetem, Director of Quality Assurance: "The insulated tanks have a heat panel at the bottom which we pre-heat with live steam at the terminal. Once we disconnect from the steam, the insulation keeps the contents of the tank warm."

How long will it heat the liquid?

"It depends on ambient temperatures, of course, but we find that we typically lose only about 10 degrees overnight, so we can keep things warm quite a while."

Are there other special techniques you have to use?

"There are solvents which have a tremendous tendency to absorb water. In order to prevent that, we can fill the open space at the top of the tank with dry nitrogen at about 25 psi. That keeps moist air out to keep the cargo dry. A little pressure on the tank also helps empty it faster at its destination."

How much do your tanks hold?

"The insulated ones carry about 7,200 gallons and the non-insulated ones, what we call 'skin' tanks, hold about 7,500 gallons.

"The liquids we haul vary from around 6 pounds to the gallon up to 10 pounds to the gallon or more. Either way, we're usually right around 80,000 pounds with a full load."

Does tank hauling put special demands on your tires?

Tony Febbo: "When the tanks are empty, they can bounce around a lot, especially with the potholes we encounter. We see a fair amount of flat-spotting, which can cause tire wear problems.

"Roads around here are hard on tires, even though we spend most of our time on the highways. That's a problem we've been fighting as long as I've been here."

What are you doing to increase the life of your tires?

"The most important thing is air. We make sure we've always got the right amount of air in our tires. We don't rely on drivers to keep the air pressure right, but have our tire dealers come in on a regular basis to check every tire in the yard.

"We also make sure the air is checked at every inspection. We have to check the valves on the tanks every trip, and we check the tires at the same time. At an absolute minimum, our tires get checked once a quarter, and probably a lot more often than that, since we check them at each inspection and PM too."

Tony and Steve use Hubodometers on both drive and trailer axles to help track tire performance.

How are you keeping track of this data?

"I've been here 47 years, and in the 60s, we started branding every single tire. In about 1967, I started keeping a card file system for every piece of equipment and every tire. We use Hubodometers on our drive and trailer axles, and we track every tire, from cradle to grave, using the brand numbers. We have all those records, all the way back to when we started the program.

"About 7 years ago, Steve converted us from cards to computer and added a lot more information, but the idea is the same, and it helps us figure out what's working in our tire program and what isn't."

What kind of things have you found?

"We've been on Bridgestone tires for about the past 15 years, and they've done really well for us. We get about 325,000 to 375,000 miles from our M726 EL drives and about 200,000 to 220,000 from the R250F tires we're running on our trailers.

"Our Bridgestone representative, Joe Cauda, has been studying our steer tire performance, and he's reporting about 10,000 miles per 32nd on our R280 steer tires. We'd like that to be better, so Joe's working on that for us."

Is this kind of tracking helping with your tire program?

Steve Hetem: "The computer lets us keep track of all kinds of things, more than what we were able to do with the cards. And, of course, we have more than six times as many pieces of equipment now as we had in 1967.

"We've found, for example, that once a unit gets about 600,000 miles on it, the tires start to wear faster. That's not really a big surprise, but it's interesting that we can see it on the computer.

"We also discovered that on our tanks, those 'set-'em-and-forget-'em' bearings need re-torquing from time to time, even though they're still under warranty. When those get out of adjustment, that also increases tire wear. Again, the data we collected told us that."

What have you learned about the flat-spotting?

"In one case, we found that after we dropped the trailer, the drivers running the yard jockeys sometimes weren't hooking up the air lines to the trailer, or weren't letting the lines fully charge up after they did.

"The tires were being dragged because the spring brakes weren't fully released, causing some of those flat spots. We've even seen situations where because the contents are sloshing around in a tanker, it can cause the tires to turn, in spite of the spring brakes. That can put stress on the whole tank."

What kind of data are you collecting besides tire data?

"We've developed several forms, including one for quarterly tractor inspections that includes everything from lights to safety gear to product pumps. We also have PM work sheets and tank inspection forms. We check our tanks more often than the law requires. I believe that's part of the reason we expect a 20 to 25 year lifespan from our tanks.

"Each form has an expiration date. That way I always know we're getting current information. And all our vendors, wherever they are, use the same forms to report back to us. That way, everything can go right into the computer."

Tony and Steve show us their card-based records, along with the computer system, with its expanded record keeping capabilities.

Are you retreading your casings?

Tony Febbo: "We retread with the Bandag 4100 trailer cap. We cap just once and allow only one repair per quadrant. And, since we're branding all our casings, we track the performance of our retreads too.

"If we replace a tire on the road, we usually buy a Bridgestone R250F. We carry spares and use those if we can, and we always have the driver bring back any tire that was damaged, so we can examine it here at our shop and record what happened in the computer."

What size tires are you using?

Steve Hetem: "We have standardized on the 11R22.5 for all positions. We feel it does well at resisting belt breaking and stands up to sidewall damage."

How do you account for that?

"The taller sidewall seems to be a bit more flexible than a low-profile tire would be. With all the potholes and curbs we encounter, the 11R22.5 seems to roll with the punches and do better for us."

Bridgestone representative Joe Cauda helps Steve and Tony get the tire performance they're looking for.

Do you have a "tire policy"?

Tony Febbo: "Joe Cauda put together one of those for us, and that's what we go by. It really sums up everything we do regarding our tires.

"All our policies about maintenance, repairs and retreading are spelled out in that book."

Will you be making changes in your system?

"Right now, we're pretty happy with the way things are working. Some things are simple: We know if the air pressure isn't right, we're going to have tire problems. So, we make sure that's right.

"And, we're going to continue to keep records of how all our tires and pieces of equipment are performing. Now we're using the computer instead of the cards, but the principle is the same.

"I've been here 47 years and Steve's been my partner here for about 16 years. Before that, Steve provided service for us and worked with his family's tank fleet. So, he brings about 30 years of experience to the job.

"We've learned that if we take care of all our equipment, including our tires, our equipment takes good care of us."