At 6:13 a.m. Friday, Dec. 13, 13 bright yellow vehicles lined up on a Chicago street. Heading the procession was a sedan "scout car," followed by five huge trailers, each pulled by a different kind of actor truck. A second sedan, pulling a mall trailer, brought up the rear. At the heel of the first truck was a stocky young-looking man in a state of high excitement. Truckman John Louis Keeshin 'as excited because as president of Keelin Transcontinental Freight Lines, which in the past few months has spread its operations all over the East (TIME, Sept. 2), he was leading out his first caravan in a test run from Chicago to Los Angeles in five days, Los Angeles to Manhattan in eight.
President Keeshin went only as far as Geneva, Ill. There he hopped out, waved a gleeful farewell, scooted back to Chicago. Few fears had he of breakdown or accident. Rather did he dread dirty political work from certain railroads and trucking companies in the Southwest which were gravely offended by his threat of expansion into their territory.
To forestall such difficulties, he had carefully lined up the various permissions needed for the trip. In New Mexico he lad to pay $256 for license plates for three months. In Arizona he was stuck $582.99 for a year's plates. But California welcomed him with open arms, required only a month's registration fee. Finally, after $3,000 had been thus spent, all was ready. Garnished with $1,000 in travelers' checks, the 13 drivers set out with a 90,000-lb. payload guaranteed for delivery in Los Angeles in five days.
The first day, having hit a top of 35 m.p.h., the caravan trundled as far as Kansas City. Day later came La Junta, Colo. Then the trucks angled South, climbed over the steep Raton Pass into New Mexico, headed out over the barren Southwest. Rolling drearily along at an average of 22 m.p.h., the drivers worked in six-hour shifts, slept six hours in the small trailer. Only stops were for food, gas & oil, examination of permits at each state line. Ten hours were lost in such formalities. So smoothly did everything go that the caravan rolled into Los Angeles in four and a half days, beat the best railroad freight schedule by 46 hours. On hand to greet it was Truckman Keeshin. Flying out at the last minute, he was enormously pleased to spy his gaudy trucks, 8,000 ft. below, cruising through Southern California.
Three days later, crammed with a return load of oranges, automobile parts and general merchandise, the caravan headed back East by approximately the same route, this time aiming for Manhattan. Again all went without a hitch, except for an arrest in New Mexico for overloading, a 30-min. delay near Cleveland for a flat tire The caravan shouldered on through blizzards, finally waddled into Manhattan last week in seven days, beating its own schedule by 24 hours, the best railroad freight schedule by 72 hours.