COVER FEATURE - FEBRUARY 2003
When you drive for a company that is based
in Toronto, Canada, you get used to the snow and cold. This is the case for
the lucky few who get to drive for TFX International. Toronto-based TFX, a specialized
vehicle transport operation, has a fleet of the nicest company trucks and trailers
you’ll ever see. Drivers like Jim Mandley try not to forget how good they really
have it at TFX.
Started back in 1988 as an off-shoot of a trucking company called Traffix, co-owners
Wally Horodnyk, his wife Christine and Jacqui Macnally teamed up to form one
of the first specialized vehicle hauling companies in Canada. Wally and a partner
owned and ran Traffix for 18 years, but parted ways in 1988; the partner took
the company’s established freight division and Wally took the fairly new yet
rapidly expanding vehicle transport division. At the time of the breakup, Jacqui
was already running the vehicle transport portion of the business so it only
made sense for Wally to bring her along and make her a partner.
Over the years, TFX has grown
into a pretty large “small” company. Today, the fleet consists of 13 trucks
and trailers, nine of which are almost exactly like Jim’s unit featured on our
cover this month. Yes, believe it or not, this is a company truck - and there
are eight others just like it! Their entire fleet of highway trucks are 4903
Western Star’s with 500 horsepower Detroit Series 60s, set-back front axles,
76-inch sleepers and a 244-inch wheelbase. The specially-built enclosed trailers,
built by U.S. Trailer and Kentucky, can hold up to seven vehicles and feature
hydraulic tailgates. The TFX fleet also has four city units, which are Freightliner
FL112s pulling 48-foot trailers.
Each truck and trailer in the TFX fleet is matched to a driver and only that
driver is allowed (for the most part) to operate that unit. When a new trailer
is to be ordered, Wally sits down with the driver who will be pulling it and
gets his input regarding locations of side doors and controls. Drivers also
get their name painted on the door of their tractor. As you can imagine, driver
turnover is well below the average at TFX International.
All of their highway trucks
are equipped with generators, allowing drivers to have not only heat on those
long, cold Canadian nights but a few plugs for things like computers and televisions
as well. The trucks also have on-board scales which help the drivers avoid overloading
their trailers (which can happen rather quickly since the truck and trailer,
empty, weighs 50,000 pounds). TFX allows their drivers to do some customizing,
but limits their lights to a total of one hundred. To keep tire wear in check,
each truck has a Crossfire tire pressure monitoring system. Their newer trailers,
built by Kentucky, now come with automatic tire pressure systems that can keep
all of the tires at a specified pressure and alert the driver if there are any
problems.
Of course, the graphics on the TFX rigs are cool too. Inspired by a Brooks &
Dunn touring truck that had flames running down the sides, Jacqui, with the
help of “Tramp” of Tramp Designs, created a unique design and logo for TFX that
turns heads wherever these trucks go. Jacqui wanted the trucks to stand out
and visually say, “We have arrived!” when their trucks pulled up at a car show
or other destination to pickup or deliver a load. When it was time to order
their first truck, Jacqui told them she wanted a bright blue color. When asked
what shade of blue, she pulled out her cigarette lighter, lit the flame, and
then pointed out the brilliant blue color at the base of the fire. “This is
the color I want,” she told them - and they delivered. Now, all of their trucks
are painted this color and feature black “tears” running down the sides, outlined
in purple. The trailers are black and have blue “tears” on the sides, outlined
in purple. Alone, the tractors don’t look like much, but paired with their trailer,
they look awesome.
Being a specialized vehicle transport operation, TFX hauls a lot of (you guessed
it) specialty vehicles. Classic cars, antiques, show cars, factory prototypes,
exotics and the like, TFX hauls them all. They also do a lot of work for the
film industry. Many film production companies hire TFX to move around vehicles
that are being used in movies. TFX drivers load and unload the vehicles at various
film shoot locations, sometimes moving a vehicle to five or six different locations
in a day. It’s a long day, but they don’t mind - they get to hobnob with the
stars for a day (well, not really). TFX also does a lot of work for the car
show industry, moving vehicles from show to show.
One of TFX’s fastest growing customer segments are the folks who are finding
cars on the internet, through sites like e-bay. It seems the internet has made
car collecting a much easier hobby, and TFX has certainly benefited from it.
People can go online and, in a fairly short time, find that “dream machine”
they have always wanted. Problem is, it’s in California and they live in Montreal.
So how do they get it home without spinning a few thousand miles on it and wasting
a week of their life? They call TFX, of course!
Being a Canadian carrier,
TFX is not allowed to pickup and deliver a vehicle within the United States,
but they can deliver vehicles from Canada to the U.S. or pick them up in the
U.S. and bring them back to Canada. All of their drivers are Canadian and they
do not have work visas, therefore they cannot participate in commerce solely
in the United States. But that’s okay, because there are plenty of vehicle transport
companies here in the States already. But there aren’t that many in Canada,
so TFX surely stands out.
Canada has much stricter laws for trucks and limits overall length to just over
75 feet. It is common today, within the specialized vehicle transport industry,
for long-haul tractors pulling 53-foot trailers, to have a 300-inch wheelbase.
That’s an overall length of 78 feet. A truck like that can’t even enter Canada,
and many U.S. trucks have even longer wheelbases. TFX trucks can cross the border,
thus allowing them to secure more business and keep much of the business they
already have from being taken by some of the larger U.S. transport companies.
In fact, they have recently partnered up with a few of these other companies
to handle some of their loads crossing the border into Canada.
Wally, Christine and Jacqui are not only the owners of the company, but they
are also the key players at TFX, each with their own specialty. Wally, who has
been involved in trucking for 24 years, is in charge of fleet maintenance and
keeps the truck’s looking and running good. Christine handles all of the accounting
and safety issues, and Jacqui does the sales and marketing. Together, these
three, along with the help of hard-working drivers like Jim Mandley, have made
TFX a strong and profitable company. Of course, most of the profits get dumped
back into the company in the form of nice tractors and trailers, uniforms, benefits
and paid vacations for the drivers, but Wally likes it that way. He knows that
treating their drivers like family will keep the company stable and growing.
We met up with driver Jim
Mandley (see photo) at the top of the Tejon Pass, on Interstate 5, just north
of Los Angeles, to shoot some pictures of his truck. We were looking for snow,
and who would have guessed we’d actually find it. One day prior, we had seen
temperatures in the 80’s and had hot, desert winds blowing across the Southland,
gusting as high as 50 mph. But as we climbed the Pass early that morning, it
began to rain on us. After meeting Jim, we headed for the road leading up to
Mt. Pinos and found, as we climbed, that it had started to snow. We took our
pictures and had a great time, freezing all the while. Jim just laughed, saying
it wasn’t even beginning to get cold.
Born and raised in Canada and currently living in Phelpston, Ontario, Jim has
been driving for TFX for about three years now. His truck is a 2002 model and
features a 430 Detroit Series 60 and a 13-speed overdrive transmission. Jim
(42) has been trucking for 18 years and loves the freedom. Being single, he
spends a lot of time out on the road, but loves getting home to visit his three
children whenever possible. Not one to switch jobs very often, Jim can’t see
himself leaving TFX any time soon (unless a NASCAR team calls and asks him to
drive their rig).
With slow but steady growth, TFX is poised to remain at the forefront of their
industry and be a good company that still knows how to have fun. “It’s ours
until we give it back to you,” is one of their mottos which expresses their
care in handling vehicles as if they were their own. And with that attitude,
TFX will surely not only be able to continue satisfying their existing customers
but new ones as well. And with that said, frankly, we believe TFX has arrived!