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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