Maritime-Ontario - back then - Part 1

From 1951 to 1977 the White Motor Company sold and serviced Freightliner Trucks under the White Freightliner name plate. Freightliner had been founded by Consolidated Freightways to build its own trucks, but they proved so popular that they needed a national presence, and made a deal with White, but kept ownership of the brand.
White, which produced trucks under the White, Autocar (from 1953) and Western Star banners was doing all right for a time, but eventually began to lose ground and Freightliner went its own way. Eventually Daimler acquired Freightliner and still owns it today.
White was insolvent when its assets were acquired by Volvo in 1983 and eventually merged with GM trucks. Autocar was discontinued (Boo!) and the name brand was sold and Western Star, which had been sold by White to Canadian owners, eventually reversed its way back into Daimler.
That's the short version of the long story, given here only as a preface to the main point. White Freightliners were immensely popular! The popularity continued and even increased in the post White era.

The Dartmouth, NS based Maritime-Ontario Freight Lines Ltd had a large fleet of largely Owner-Operator trucks, which had to display a blue and white paint scheme, but there was wide latitude in where and how that was applied.  There was also no uniformity in what make of truck the O-O's operated.
Not surprisingly therefore there were a number of White Freightliners in the COE days. All were built at the Burnaby, BC factory and usually had a "Canada" tag somewhere on the body.

Just in off springtime roads, this salt caked COE is carrying frozen fish.

M-O # 473

Another coat of salt after another trip.

M-O # 479

More fish, but this time a predominantly blue colour scheme. 

M-O # unknown

Similar colour scheme, but a single stack, and a bit shinier.

M-O # 550

In the early 1970s Freightliner began to build a conventional truck for the first time. Also with a light weight aluminum cab, they became popular over night, and M-O had their share.

 This rig looks quite new in 1978, so may be among the last built with the White Freightliner badge. 

Just back of the front fender and low on the hood of this one and the next two is the "Canada" tag. 

M-O # unknown

Another combo scheme, and one of the early wind deflectors.

In the background is one of the pair of Cyril L. Dauphinee trucks (both International Transtar 4200). That company had the contract to deliver newsprint to the local newspaper.

M-O # 433

There were still lots of White Freightliners on the road in 1980, by which time this rig had a good many miles on it, but still looked sharp. 

M-O # unknown 

The White name was deleted from the name plates, but there were no other changes. M-O # 549 is a Freightliner, while its fleet mate # 550 (see above) was a White Freightliner.

 Maritime-Ontario also had a lot of Macks on the road in the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the awkward sleeper arrangement with the narrow R model cab. M-O # 587.

More on Macks in Part 2.

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Freightliner- Maritime Ontario- Random Shot #51

In case you were wondering from last month's ancient photos of Maritime-Ontairo trucks - they are still on the road - although they are big interrmodal users.

And the good news is some of the trucks are still painted in traditional M-O blue, but with modern twists. This impressive long nose M-O is operated by A. Bernier of St-André, NB and was just about to set out from M-O's Burnside terminal this morning. 

Plain Jane trailer is unusual for Maritime-Ontario.

Macks and Maritime-Ontario

Riding the March M theme a bit more, the superb looking blue and white trucks of Maritime-Ontario Freight Lines Ltd are worth mention all by themselves.
The company, founded in 1962, has grown into a large intermodal operator, now headquartered in Brampton, ON, where it warehouses and dispatches truck-load and less-then-truck-load shipments by conventional highway truck/trailer and by rail. It now has several other lines of business, all explained very nicely on its web site http://www.m-o.com/
It still relies on owner-operators for its truck operations, and over the years many of those O-Os picked Mack as their vehicle of choice. Obliged to paint the truck in blue and white, they were given considerable latitude in the arrangement of those colours, and there were some impressive schemes.
Here is a selection of Macks only:
1. Mack 529 was a short hood R series Superliner with a little Mercury sleeper tucked in behind-right under the reefer unit on the trailer. Seen here in 1979 at the National Harbours Board cold storage warehouse in Halifax, it was loading up some National Sea Products fish for the trek west.

2. The same truck, showing the entire trailer this time, with National Sea Products' name prominently displayed. Seen in 1980.

3. Unit 536 was a long hood R series Superliner, with a similar sleeper. Instead of a chopped front bumper, it has one with rounded edges. Also taken in 1979.

4. Truck 545 was a twin. Both wore bug screens over the big Superliner rad. Taken in 1980.

5. Unit 546 has dispensed with the bug screen, showing off the impressive Superliner grille. It also has the cut-off style bumper and lower flap for its license plate collection.

5. A close up of 546. There was no reciprocity in 1980 and it carried plates for Ontario and Nova Scotia and PCV plates for Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

6. Mack 587 is a conventional R-Model with painted sleeper. Freightliner 549 has added a black stripe to the paint scheme. Taken in 1984.

7. Mack 567 is a long hood R-model, also with a painted sleeper. He has added some fog lights to the bumper. Taken in 1984.

Aside from the first in this series of photos, all were taken at the Mic Mac Motel in Dartmouth, a favourite stopover point for movers and Maritime-Ontario drivers. You will note that in the 1980s Maritime-Ontario was still headquartered in Dartmouth, NS.

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Tradition lives on- for now.

1. Fastrax division - in traditional "big orange" colour scheme.

2. M-O with traditional blue, but plainer than the old days.

A while back I decried the current trend to take trucks in factory white and run 'em like that! Day & Ross has apparently forsaken its famous "big orange" scheme and I have seen numerous others, who I won't embarrass by naming - but you know who you are!

I was therefore celebrating in my usual mild mannered way the sighting of two traditional colour schemes today.

Maritime-Ontario, once the holder of the official Truckfax best looking trucks award (they never actually received it, I know, but I still made the award) has gone into intermodal in a big way, but they still do have a few trucks on the road and they look better than decent. They also still sport the legendary blue paint job. There is a lot less originality in it than there once was but at least it ain't white.

Day & Ross still has orange and black trucks, but I guess not new ones. Today I spotted one of their Fastrax Division Western Stars in a traditional paint job. Unlike M-O, D&R never got very fancy, they just kept the basic black and orange, but they do look sharp.

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Because both of these trucks are Western Stars, I suspect that they are owner/ operator vehicles. Also neither one is new- the M-O admits to being a 2001 - that's pretty good going, and still looking good.

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I promise a few from the shoebox from both of theese companies in the near future, so we can compare the glorious paint jobs of yore!

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