1958 - House Boosts Coal Truckers' Load Limits

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - March 5, 1958

House Boosts Coal Truckers' Load Limits

Cantrell Believes Measure Will Help Over 2,000 Persons

   RICHMOND, March 4 - Hundreds of truckers who haul coal from mines 
to railroad sidings and processing plants were given higher load 
limits today by the House in an amendment to a bill recodifying 
Virginia's motor vehicles laws.
   The bill, to which several amendments were added by the House, 
including the one which will allow bigger loads on the coal trucks, 
now goes back to the Senate for action on the amendments.
   Del. Orby L. Cantrell of Wise County, patron of the amendment, 
said he believes it will help between 2,000 and 3,000 truckers who 
haul coal from the small mines which have no railroad sidings.
   Cantrell and other coalfield legislators introduced a bill earlier 
in the session raising the load limits on these trucks but in the 
legislative mill it was bypassed and the amendment accomplishing the 
same purpose was attached to the recodification bill by the House 
Road Committee when the bill came from the Senate.
   But in doing so the House committee threw up certain safeguards 
sought by the State Highway dept.
   The truckers, in order to haul bigger loads must obtain permits 
from the highway department and they cannot haul the coal more than 
25 miles from the mine.
   And the higher load limits are permissive only until Oct. 1 of 
next year, so the highway department can determine whether the bigger 
loads are causing excess wear and tear on the roads the trucks use.
   The highway department can give a coal hauler permission to carry 
an extra ton on single axle trucks and two extra tons on tandem axle trucks.
   Coalfield legislators in working for the legislation said that 
actually the trucks use only a few miles of public roads to and from 
the mines - that most of it is on private mountain roads cut out by 
the mine operators.
   Because of this terrain, legislators said, the trucks wear out in 
two years and unless the owners can get heavier loads they cannot 
meet payments.
   Hundreds of small mines are now being opened in the coal producing 
counties, most of them miles from railroad sidings. Trucks are the 
only means of transporting the coal from the mines to the railroads 
because the mines are not big enough to justify building a railroad 
siding to the mine tipple.

-----------------------------------

- Ron Davis, Roger Link