COVER FEATURE - APRIL 2003
Truckers are often regarded
to as “The Last American Cowboys.” If this is true, then surely the livestock
hauler would fit this category. Livestock truckers, most often called “bullhaulers,”
generally carry all sorts of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, horses or anything
that can walk up a loading ramp. Featured on the cover this month is one fine
example of a bullhauler – Roscoe Wagner Livestock Transportation of Twin Falls,
Idaho. This fleet of trucks may not be the prettiest around but they are certainly
some of the hardest working rigs you’ll ever find today.
There’s always been a good side and
a bad side to hauling livestock. The good thing about bullhauling is that the
load generally walks on and off under its own power, but the down-side is that
the trucker has to be part mathematician (know approximately how much each animal
weighs, as an overweight ticket can take away any profit in hauling the load),
part veterinarian and somewhat of a lion-tamer. The trucker must also know how
the laws of physics and centrifugal force come into play when hauling freight
that does not stay in one place. If a turn is taken too sharply, the truck and/or
trailer can easily flip over, and damaged or dead livestock will quickly end
any profit. Obviously, driving a “bullwagon” requires more skill than hauling
other types of commodities.
Companies are made up of
people, and like people, companies live and die. Unfortunately, in the trucking
industry, the mortality rate is very high (look at the recent demise of Consolidated
Freightways). Keeping this in mind, it is quite unusual for a small trucking
outfit to boast of having been in business since 1936 – and still be going strong!
While most of the larger livestock haulers went belly-up years ago, Roscoe Wagner
Livestock Transportation is still in operation and still prospering.
Wagner Transportation is the typical Horacio Alger-kind of story about how one
guy, with one truck, started a company and, over the years, slowly grew to be
a major player. Roscoe Wagner himself was a trucker from the “old school” and
was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He did business on a handshake instead of some
20-page contract, and his word was as good as gold. Though he was worth a lot
of money, Roscoe wore bib overalls and never advertised his success. He knew
all of the “power brokers” in Idaho, from the late Clarence Garrett (CEO and
founder of Garrett Freight Lines), to the late Benny Binion (the Las Vegas casino
owner) and all of the politicians of the day in the state (Roscoe even ran for
the State Senate in the 1960s). Roscoe died in 1994. Though he never got married,
he left behind a legacy that still lives on and still bears his name thanks
to his brother Roger, who took over the company and not only continues to move
the herds, but is also a successful Wilson Trailer dealer, selling new and used
livestock trailers and flatbeds.
The colors of the Wagner fleet
have basically remained the same since the company’s founding (light yellow
and brown). As for the current fleet, it consists of 25 Peterbilt and Freightliner
cab-overs, all of them having various size sleepers and Detroit Diesel 8V92
engines. There are also a few Freightliner conventionals that can be found in
this fleet of 25. While most of the fleet consists of semis, there is still
a need for truck and trailers, as getting into a ranch or feedlot, 50 miles
off the Interstate, may not be possible with a tractor/trailer. For many years,
the allowable overall length of a combination was just 55 feet, which meant
that a truck and trailer couldn’t carry many animals. Today’s semi trailers
alone are nearly 55 feet long, allowing much larger payloads to be hauled.
Bullhaulers are definitely a breed apart, and as a result, generally park their
rigs away from the rest of the herd at truck stops. Out on the road, “animal
exhaust residue” can often come flying out of the sides of a livestock trailer
without notice, and can make its mark on anything from a shiny “large car” to
a motorcycle cop’s uniform, to landing in the lap of some beautiful blonde,
driving a Corvette convertible. The Wagner livestock rigs, flying residue and
all, are a common sight in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Wyoming,
California and Montana, and occasionally can be seen taking trips into Colorado
and Arizona. Wagner also has a reefer division that hauls loads of frozen french
fries into California on a weekly basis.
Hauling livestock in the 1930s required nerves of steel. Back then, Donner Pass was nothing more than a crooked trail and Jake Brakes didn’t come into existence until 1961. Truckers had to have detailed directions on how to get to a loading facility – navigating by stars, at night, just didn’t work, and finding a cattle or sheep ranch 50 miles down a dirt road off the Interstate required more than just luck. The “roads” 50 years ago, if any, were nothing more than ruts, and if a trucker was lucky, the rut might have had some gravel thrown in it. Trying to find an isolated ranch or corral in the fog was another story, and if it was snowing or in blizzard conditions, forget it! Loading chutes were made of wood and were quite primitive compared to today’s. Truckers had to throw dirt on the trailer’s floor and on the loading ramp in order to give the animals some sort of traction, as they walked up into the open-top trailers of that era.
Even today, hauling live animals
still requires nerves of steel. Many a bullhaulers have been killed or badly
injured by a critter that didn’t want to wind up on some barbeque grill. Unlike
other loads hauled by big rigs, livestock has to be checked frequently while
in transit. An animal down on all “four” can quickly be trampled or suffocate,
and as stated before, any dead or injured animals upon delivery can kill the
profit for the entire load. In addition to making sure that all the animals
are standing and in good condition, they have to be fed and given water and
rest, as prescribed by law. Many of the various animal right’s groups are very
aware of bullhaulers and, in general, try to keep a close watch on these types
of operations.
With all of this, it is no wonder that finding an experienced livestock hauler
is hard to come by. Most of today’s truckers want to haul no-touch freight and
come home to their wife or girlfriend not smelling like they had just come off
a cattle drive. And can you blame them? While outfits like Garibaldi Bros.,
Garrett & Thomas and Allan Arthur “bit the dust” years ago, Wagner Transportation
is still riding the trail.
Unlike other outfits in trucking,
there is no room for “tenderfoots” at Wagner, and experienced herd-movers can
find a home in this family-oriented company that has been around for an incredible
67 years. Thanks to the hard work of Roscoe Wagner, his brother Roger and their
group of veteran drivers, Wagner Transportation has been able to remain successful
in an industry where only the strong survive.
PHOTOS: #1: Loaded up and ready to roll, these two Freightliners are seen here
at a Simplot Feedlot in Grandview, Idaho; #2: Veteran livestock hauler Jim Rowe
is seen here making sure that all the four-legged critters are still standing;
#3: Roscoe Wagner as a younger man; #4: This photo was taken back in 1956 at
the L.A. Union Stockyards in Vernon, CA. The Wagner rigs would haul livestock
from Idaho, then get the bodies steam-cleaned and return with produce from California.
Amazingly, after almost 50 years (as shown in this photo), the Wagner rigs have
hardly changed at all; #5: Some Peterbilts are seen, parked next to other Freightliners,
at Wagner’s yard in Twin Falls, Idaho; #6: Loaded up, this Freightliner is seen
here at a loading facility in Rogerson, Idaho; #7: Cattle surround this truck
and trailer, not knowing that they will start their journey that will ultimately
end on some dinner plate.
~ From Stan:
Special thanks go out to Roger Wagner, Jim Rowe and the late Roscoe Wagner.
From 10-4: We’d like to thank Stan for spending a few weeks
in Idaho, riding along with the Wagner drivers and learning what it means, firsthand,
to be a “bullhauler.”