Uncommon Carriers
by John McPhee · first published 2006
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Profiles of people across the transportation industry, including ship crews, barge operators, and warehouse workers, told with McPhee's detailed reporting; readers single out the river barge and port chapters.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
McPhee's books are about real people in real places. Over the past eight years, McPhee has spent considerable time in the company of people who work in freight transportation. This is his sketchbook of them and of his journeys with them. He rides from Atlanta to Tacoma alongside Don Ainsworth, owner and operator of a sixty-five-foot, eighteen-wheel chemical tanker carrying hazmats. He attends ship-handling school on a pond in the foothills of the French Alps, where, for a tuition of $15,000 a week, skippers of the largest ocean ships refine their capabilities in twenty-foot scale models. He go
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…point-to-point delivery. Trains are more useful for carrying bulk commodities. John McPhee has written some wonderful articles about modes of transport, and the people who work in them: http://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Carriers-John-McPhee/dp/08654...
on “The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More” ↗Read Uncommon Carriers, by John McPhee, which contains the essay "Out in the Sort" [0]. UPS actually does do some 3rd party fulfillment and warehousing. The essay doesn't go into too much detail, but I get the sense that they're…
on “FedEx Ends Ground-Delivery Deal with Amazon” ↗John McPhee write an excellent article about this: "The Ships of Port Revel" by John McPhee. It was an atlantic article and is included in his book "Uncommon Carriers". https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0865477396
on “The French School Where Panama Canal Pilots Train in Cute Little Ships (2014)” ↗John McPhee wrote a super-awesome journalistic piece based on a visit to Port Revel (called "The Ships of Port Revel"). It's published in his book Uncommon Carriers (which is about profiles of people who work in different parts of the transportation industry). Depending on your country, you may be able to read the whole thing on Google Books via this link from Danielle…
on “First big containerships en route to the Panama Canal” ↗Related I also gotta recommend "Uncommon Carriers" by John McPhee. It's got a chapter that follows a barge operator on the Illinois river that's pretty great.
on “Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks” ↗McPhee is truly a national treasure. If you're interested, that article was one of several published in his book Uncommon Carriers which includes a train and river barge voyage. Looking for a Ship is also great as it follows a merchant marine through various stages of that job. The Curve of Binding Energy is a fascinating study…
on “What it's Really Like to be an Alaskan Truck Driver” ↗Full circle: I discovered this article after another HN commenter suggested the book Uncommon Carriers, a collection of essays including this one.
on “On Trucking” ↗That was also collected in a McPhee book called Uncommon Carriers, about people who work in transportation.
on “A High-End Mover Dishes on Truckstop Hierarchy, Rich People, and Moby Dick” ↗