In the world of specialized hauling out west, there isn’t much cooler than a classic slam-bang! And when talking about this segment of trucking, it would be hard not to include Bruce Campbell (46) and his family in the discussion, because his grandfather owned one of the first transfer trailers ever built and started doing this kind of work way back in 1948. Since then, two more generations of the Campbell family have owned and operated small fleets of transfers, and all of them are pretty iconic characters in the SoCal transfer trucking scene.
For those who don’t know, transfers are a type of dump truck created to accommodate not only tight locations but also the restrictive weight and axle configuration laws in California. The tractor, equipped with a dump box, works like a typical dump, but when it’s time to unload the trailer, the driver backs the truck up to the disconnected trailer with its rear gate open, and then “transfers” the loaded box on the trailer into the empty box on the truck. Once the trailer box is locked in place, that load can now be moved and dumped, just like a normal dump truck. Then, the process is reversed, and the empty trailer box is transferred back onto the trailer chassis, re-hooked to the truck, and then it’s on to get the next load. The “slam-bang” term comes from the loud noises these units make while transferring – especially older setups.
Bob and Bertha Payan, who were Bruce’s grandparents on his mom’s side, began trucking in 1942. In 1948, they formed Payan Trucking Inc. (PTI), and Bob started running a transfer (he had one of the very first transfer trailers ever made by Bob Likens in the early 1950s). In the beginning, grandpa hauled a lot of salt, but as Southern California was booming, the construction industry took center stage, and sand and gravel became their main commodity. They eventually moved to Fullerton, a suburban city in Orange County about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and then built their fleet up to five trucks. They retired and sold the company in the mid-80s, but it still exists, and is still called PTI, although the initials no longer stand for Bruce’s grandparents’ last name. Grandpa Bob just died a few years ago at 98 years old.
Growing up in Fullerton, Bruce’s dad, also named Bruce, got drafted after high school and was sent to Vietnam. After his military service was completed, he and Bruce’s mom Ellen got married, and then moved to the Seattle area, where Bruce’s dad began building a name for himself as a professional golfer. However, after breaking his wrist, he had to give up on that dream, and the two moved back to Southern California. In 1976, Grandpa Bob taught Bruce’s dad how to drive a truck, and Grandma Bertha taught Bruce’s mom how to run the office. The four worked together for about a year, and then, in 1977, Bruce’s parents formed Bruce Campbell Sand & Gravel and went out on their own.
Starting with an old Kenworth transfer, that truck burned down while it was parked one night, so Bruce’s dad bought another Kenworth cab and chassis and then mounted the transfer equipment on it from the first truck, which had survived the fire. His dad used to joke that they now had one truck but two payments, because they were still paying for the first truck that burned! The following year, Bruce (the one featured here) was born in 1978 in Fullerton. Known as “Junior” by some, although he is not technically a Junior, Bruce spent the first ten years of his life in the city of Placentia, playing with trucks, with his dad and grandpa.
From the beginning, Bruce was always around the trucks – there was nothing else he ever wanted to do. He told us a story about how he would sit down with his mother, calendar in hand, and go over all the days he didn’t have to go to school, asking her, “Do we work that day?” If she said no, he would sadly move on to the next date and then ask the question again. But if she said yes, he enthusiastically circled the day with a red marker, excited about being able to go trucking that day. Back then, Bruce was his dad’s shadow, following him everywhere he went. As he got a little older, he began washing and greasing the trucks, then changing tires, and eventually his dad let him operate the transfer when he was out trucking with him. At just eight or nine years old, Bruce was driving transfers inside plants, to get loaded, while his dad stayed in the office and did the paperwork.
Over the years, Bruce’s dad had a lot of cool transfers, in various colors, but they were usually pretty plain and simple, as he was not into chrome (like many from his generation). One truck Bruce particularly remembers was a 1980 Peterbilt 359 glider his dad ordered new, with a 335 Cummins, and a full transfer setup. This was his dad’s third truck, and the first time he hired a driver to run it. He did build a “fancy” truck one time – a 1990 Peterbilt 379 Extended Hood with a 3406 CAT engine, covered in chrome and lights, but he never liked it because it wasn’t “his” style. Bruce used to go to the yard on weekends, when his dad wasn’t there, and add stuff to the trucks, but his dad always knew (and sometimes he even made him take off whatever it was he had added without permission).
At 17 years old, Bruce got his CDL permit to start driving a truck (legally). That summer, before his senior year in high school, he drove with one of his dad’s drivers every day to get the experience he needed. In January, after turning 18, he got his CDL. For the remainder of his senior year, he would go to school in the morning and early afternoon, and then go trucking for the rest of the day when he got out. Graduating on a Friday in 1996, Bruce began his full-time trucking career the following Monday morning in a 1996 Peterbilt 379 transfer – but his parents weren’t too excited about it.
Although his father could no longer golf competitively, he still played a lot, and he passed that passion and skill down to Bruce. And Bruce is very good, too. He played on the Varsity golf team all four years of high school and was even awarded a scholarship to attend a local university (which he obviously turned down to go trucking). One time, his high school team played a match against Tiger Woods and his school team, and they beat them. Both their schools played in the Orange League. Tiger won MVP all four years he was there, and then Bruce won it the next year, after Tiger graduated. To this day, many think Bruce “blew it” by not becoming a golfer, but he does not regret his decision, because he loves trucks and the life he’s built around them.
Driving full-time at his parent’s company, Bruce got no special treatment. But, whenever his dad bought a new truck, Bruce was the one who got to drive it (whether he wanted to or not). Getting married in 1998, the couple had their first son Matthew in 1999, and their second son Scott in 2001. A few years later, in 2004, Bruce bought a truck from his parents – a silver and blue 2003 Kenworth W900 transfer – and then went out on his own, forming Bruce Campbell Trucking. Just a couple years later, Bruce and his wife divorced, forcing Bruce to sell that truck, put his authority on pause, and go back to work as a driver at his parent’s company. In 2008, he moved from Orange County to the High Desert community of Hesperia, CA.
While living in Hesperia, he met Nicole, and the two hit it off quickly. By 2010, they were living together, and Bruce was ready to go back out on his own. So, after buying the truck he had been driving for his parents from them – a blue 2006 Kenworth W900L transfer – he hit the road under his own authority and company once again. Bruce and Nicole were married in 2012, and she brought her son Christopher, from a previous relationship, into the family, as well. He is two years older than Bruce’s older son. Today, Christopher (26) is a Sheriff in San Bernardino, CA, Matthew (24) is a heavy-duty mechanic at U.S. Borax in Boron, CA, and Scott (22) is a diesel mechanic down in San Diego, CA.
Trading that blue Kenworth for a light gray and black 2000 Pete 379 transfer with a C15 CAT, Bruce later upgraded to a white and yellow 2013 Peterbilt 389 transfer, which he drove for about four years. After running as a single-truck operation for a few years, Bruce purchased a second truck in 2015 – a 2000 Peterbilt 379 transfer with a C16 CAT and a “Gumby Green” paint job. The following year, they added a third truck, and from there just grew. Over the years, they have bought fourteen trucks in total to date. Today, they operate a six-truck fleet and have four drivers (some days that’s too many, and other days, it’s not enough). Bruce does all the dispatching from the cab of his truck.
Finding a good yard to park your trucks in has always been a challenge – especially in Southern California. While living in the High Desert, they were parking their trucks in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. It was only 33 miles from their home, but it would often take Bruce over two hours to drive home from the yard, and that was after driving all day already. So, in 2019, they moved to Devore, CA (at the bottom of Cajon Pass on I-15), which was just a few miles from their yard. All was good until the owner of the yard decided to develop it and gave them a 30-day notice to get their trucks out. The nearest yard they could find was in South Corona, so they put their house up for sale, sold it in just days, and moved to Lake Elsinore, CA (not far from their new yard). This is where they are today.
Selling the cab and chassis of one of his trucks, he kept a 2015 Rogue dump box, along with a 2018 Rogue trailer and box, for his next transfer – the one you see here. His latest truck is a 2022 Peterbilt 389, which he ordered in December 2020, and then it came in April 2021. Bruce put it into service in July of that year, after a few months of work was done to get it all together. This is the first brand-new truck he ever spec’d out and ordered for himself, and he wanted it to look like the cool old transfers from his impressionable years back in the 1990s.
Ordered basic with very few accessories through Coast Counties Peterbilt, located in Northern California, Peterbilt calls the color of this truck Dark Green, but Bruce calls it what his dad always called it – British Racing Green. One of Bruce’s “signature” items on most of his trucks (something his father always did) was a painted factory aluminum visor, which he did for this truck. You don’t see many factory visors on custom trucks these days, but it kinda makes Bruce’s trucks stand out. It was also ordered with a 565-hp Cummins X15, an 18-speed, 3.36 rears, and a weed-burner exhaust underneath.
Once the truck arrived, Bruce took it to our old friends at John’s Truck Repair in Cotati, CA (they built our March 2009 cover truck) where the Davidson brothers installed a 379-style “dummy” vertical exhaust with old-school heat shields, painted Vortox air cleaners, seven cab lights, and then painted the back of the headlight buckets and hubs green. After that, the truck was taken to Rogue Truck Body in Kerby, OR where Keith Hill and his talented team created the beautiful transfer set you see here now.
Taking the older boxes and transfer trailer he took off his previous truck to Rogue, they completely sandblasted, rebuilt, and painted the trailer green to match the truck, and then the boxes were stripped and sprayed with Wimbledon White – a nice cream color. The trailer is an older style that features an articulating draw bar, which sits level, and allows the trailer to pull better. While at Rogue, the truck was fitted with a wet kit and Hogebuilt polished full fenders, mounted on what they call “Rogue-built” brackets. They also painted the bottom of the boxes green to match the truck (another thing Bruce does).
After getting the unit home, Bruce added tanker-style lights all around (his friend Rich Newton helped out with all the light housings after Rogue built all the brackets). Bruce and another friend custom built a bracket to hold a square DEF tank, mounted between the frame rails under the dump box, so he could hide the tank and have old-style 379 boxes on each side. He also mounted a Nathan 3-Bell Air Chime train horn under the box, and then fabricated a custom shovel holder, also hidden under the dump box. Garrett Goorsky of GGE Products provided the polished stainless windshield wiper arms and single chrome blades. The final touch was tons of old-school pinstriping done by Eric Sedletzky of Santa Rosa, CA.
The interior was ordered top-of-the-line, but is mostly stock, besides a chrome shifter. Bruce has always liked his cab to be clean and simple, much like his dad’s trucks always were, but makes sure to order his trucks with all the bells and whistles in the cab. There are two levers on the floor next to the black leather driver’s seat – one is painted green and is for the train horn, and the other is chrome, which is used to operate the dump box.
Always wanting to be diverse and have options, Bruce also had Rogue Truck Body build him an air-ride pup trailer that dumps. Made to match the truck exactly regarding color and style, the pup features a box that is the same height as the box on the trailer – the only difference is the truck box is 15.5 feet long, and the pup box is 14 feet. So, depending on the final destination and a few other factors, Bruce can pull either trailer, choosing the best one for that particular job. As popular as these pup trailers are around the country, they are a bit rarer out west.
Switching to Rogue transfer sets in 2004, almost all of Bruce’s trucks, and his dad’s, have been built by Rogue since then. Bruce calls Rogue the Rolls-Royce of transfer sets. Keith Hill, owner of Rogue, and his wife Lana have been good friends with Bruce and his dad for many years. Being a thinker, Bruce has come up with a lot of ideas that Keith has incorporated into his designs. In fact, when ordering a Rogue transfer, there are specific things you can ask to get in “Campbell style” – including a certain rear step package, the wedge-style fender and light brackets, hidden hydraulic lines, and added square channels, mounted on the top front of each box, to hide the tarps.
Most of Bruce’s trucks stay in Southern California and work locally, but Bruce likes to stretch his legs a bit. It is not uncommon for him to haul loads to Northern California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. He once went all the way to Alabama in his transfer! With plans to attend the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY for the very first time this March (2024), Bruce is excited to bring out his transfer and represent 10-4 Magazine and Rogue Truck Body at the show, exposing many to a type of truck they may have never seen before – and, being a good businessman, he plans on bringing a load out and back on this trip, too.
In addition to running the office for Bruce Campbell Trucking and doing everything except dispatching and price quoting, Nicole also has had her own business called Raggedy Old Annies for over 20 years and has quite a following. On her website (www.raggedyoldannies.com) she sells one-of-a-kind handmade reproduction Raggedy Ann dolls she makes herself. Raggedy Ann and Andy date back to 1915, when they were introduced as dolls, and were later featured in a children’s book series, which sold over seven million copies by 1940. Today, these dolls – and reproductions like Nicole’s – are highly sought after collector items.
Having two older sisters, Marcy and Molly, both have worked in the family business with Bruce’s parents. Molly worked in the office for a few years with her mom and then moved on, while Marcy and her husband pretty much run the parent’s company now, as they are retired, and enjoying the good life in Corona, CA. Bruce can’t thank his parents enough for helping him throughout his entire trucking career. He also wanted to thank his wife Nicole, because he just couldn’t do it without her – nor would he want to! Bruce enjoys playing golf a few times a month with his dad, and also with Keith Hill when up at Rogue, who he “infected” with the golf bug, too. Trucking is like golf – people love to hate it or hate to love it – and both are hard to quit!
A typical day for Bruce starts as early as 1:00 or 2:00 AM, and doesn’t end until the work is done, and that includes maintaining his fleet, as well, since he does all his own maintenance. But he loves it! Nothing is more fun to him than cruising down the road, in a clean truck, while listening to great music. He wanted this truck to take him back to the 1990s, when he started trucking, when simple but sweet Peterbilt 379s ruled the road, and you didn’t have to do too much to them to make them cool. He is happy with how this truck turned out, and so are we, because it is one classic slam-bang!
