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I was driving one early morning this week from our office in Tulsa to see some customers in Oklahoma City. I was taken back by how many big rigs were parked on the shoulder of the freeway. In some areas, they were parked 2-abreast. Over the past several years, our government has restricted the hours…

Mark Westby Company just celebrated 20 years of being in business. Please check out our Facebook page to see some pictures from our celebration. The day really was about giving thanks to those who helped us get off the ground. Our banker, our accountant, financial planners, graphic designer and our systems engineer…our first cable guy…

In August, we reported the trend of hydrogen gradually replacing diesel as the most broadly used source of fuel in the trucking industry. Again, electric engines had a big head start and were able to raise a lot of money and government endorsement. No doubt, electric trucks will have their place, but battery weight and…

The Federal Government and 15 states led mostly by California are pushing truck manufacturers to increase the production of Class 8 electric trucks. By 2035, California expects 75 percent compliance. There are only 1,000 of them in commercial use today. Electric trucks will not be as easy of a change over as electric cars have…

WOW! It’s hard to believe we are nearly halfway through 2022! I have recently been thinking about the year 2019. During much of 2017 and all of 2018…the manufacturing economy was strong, and truckers were ordering new equipment like crazy. The smaller carriers could buy road-worthy, used trucks for less than $40,000. In 2019, freight…

I don’t often write about railcar or intermodal trends. We don’t offer either service but do study them as they are obviously tied to whatever is happening in trucking. Just last week, US News & World Report published an article that included a story of grain elevators being so full that farmers had no place…

“Imagine all the heavy-duty vehicles that keep our supply lines strong and allow our economy to grow. Imagine that they produced zero emissions. Well, you all imagined it.” VP Kamala HarrisMarch 7, 2022. No argument from me. It is a wonderful thing to imagine. However, in the here and now…diesel prices reached an average of…

While trying to help a customer here in Oklahoma ship a load to Ontario Canada, I became more interested in the ongoings up there. It really is not just about vaccine mandates. It’s bigger than that. First, some geography. During the Convention of 1818 and onto the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the U.S. and British…

We all understand how COVID has interrupted the supply chain. However, there are festering problems that have led us to the road we are on. For starters, due to our reliance on Chinese manufacturing our trade imbalance now stands at $67.76 billion; almost double what it was in September of 2020, and $20 billion more…

The tsunami of pent-up freight rocked the U.S. supply chain which had been relatively stable and predictable for 20 years before COVID. Even at two or three times normal freight costs, shippers waited for days and weeks to get a truck. We all wondered how long it would last and knew we would have a…