Broke Down

James was en route back to Saskatoon from Grand Forks, North Dakota today. He had left the south country bright and early in the morning. It appeared that a storm cell was travelling with him from the south though as he had high winds and snow all day.

Other than the winds and snow everything was fine until James just got into Saskatchewan. Just outside the town of Moosomin the truck just quit. There appeared to be lots of juice in the batteries, but the truck just would not restart. He called a tow truck and they tried to boost the truck for almost 90 minutes with no success.

After calling the boss it was decided that another truck out of Regina would be sent out with a new alternator (as that is what the boss thinks is the problem). At the very least the Regina truck will be able to hook onto the trailer that James was hauling and continue on with it. Of course they will try the new alternator to see if that does help. James doesn't really hold out much hope for this though as it sure doesn't sound like an alternator problem. The truck just had it's safety check a couple weeks ago, so it should have been in fairly decent shape. Mind you old mother nature can be so darn hard on vehicles especially with the temperatures and wind James had been facing today. Possibly something is just frozen up and needs thawing out. Finding that 'something' can be a problem though.

With the temperatures the way they are at present and with James being unable to start the truck for heat, James had no options other than to hitch a ride into Moosomin and get a hotel room for the night. If they can't get his truck restarted, they'll have to get a tow truck to pull it into town and to a garage. The only problem with this is like most typical small towns, garages don't normally open for mechanical work on the weekends.

That means James will likely be spending his time in Moosomin until Monday sometime. That doesn't please him one little bit as he was hoping to be back in Hanley tonight. However, that is one of the breaks of being a long haul truck diver. You never know when you are going to break down, get stuck waiting for a load or when you are going to be back home for certain. Trying to keep appointments is not the easiest thing to do at the best of times. The truck could have broken down out in the middle of nowhere, so it could have been a whole lot worse scenario than it is.

Some days you just have to 'go with the flow' and do what you can do.