"The truck is their horse and they are I the cowboys," says smooth-talking Richard Moyers, a vice president for Transport City. And it is true that they come on in Stetson hats, tooled leather belts and pointy-toed boots trimmed in iguana or wildebeest. But the men who roll into Transport City do not have the lean, weathered look of wranglers. Those pearl-buttoned denim shirts barely cover bellies bulging out from too many orders of mashed potatoes and chocolate cream pie. These cowboys are at home not on the range but in the claustrophobic cabs of 18-wheel trucks that thunder back and forth over the nation's 42,000 miles of interstate.
Twenty-four hours a day, the drivers jockey hundreds of big rigs—reefers, dry boxes and flatbeds—in and out of the world's largest and most complete truck stop. Transport City is a 51-acre, $7 million complex that is still growing in the outskirts of Atlanta, just off Interstate 285. It smells of diesel fuel and looks like a giant J.C. Penney complex, but it is the nearest thing to trucker's heaven yet invented. In it, tired truckers by the hundreds can fill up their 150-gal. tanks, take saunas, wash their clothes, grab a few hours of shuteye, get a quick clutch overhaul and eat their fill. The place has 24 computerized fueling stations that can pump 3 million gal. of gas a month.
About the only thing a driver can't get at Transport City is a bottle of beer or a shot of bourbon. No alcohol is available because, says Ralph Hutchinson, one of Transport City's developers, "drinking and driving don't mix." In the 99-unit motel, drivers can rent functional, two-bed rooms for $13.50 a night. They rarely stay that long. The occupancy rate usually runs from 100% to 130%, as truckers slam in, grab a shave, a nap, fill up and head out again.
On the other end of the sprawling building, in the 24-hr.-a-day maintenance department, 35 mechanics and helpers stand ready to do everything from change a 100-lb. tire in 20 min. to make an oil and filter change in 40. There are four en closed repair bays, and sometimes the big rigs are lined up three and four deep waiting for service. At another bay, an automatic truck wash with 16-ft. brushes scours the outsides of 55-ft.-long tractor trailers in eight minutes at a cost of $25.
The hub of the complex is the sales office and call board, department store, barbershop, lounge and restaurant. The food is steam-table cuisine, but it is cheap and plentiful. A hungry man can heap his tray with chicken-fried steak, creamed potatoes, green beans, corn bread, salad and homemade pie for less than $4.50. One trucker is celebrated for ordering seven scoops of mashed potatoes at 350 a scoop.
In the general store, under the gaze of a ceramic bust of Elvis Presley, drivers can buy everything from iridescent oil paintings (often depicting trucks) to pantyhose. What they buy most is hats ($30) and boots (up to $150). The newsstand is jammed with copies of Overdrive, the CB Times and Country Music News. And in a concession to the growing number of female drivers, Vogue and Mademoiselle.