Truck Driving Jobs In Chicago, IL:
Stories Of The Road

Trucking jobs in Chicago, IL can be brutal, unless you absolutely love the traffic. A career in truck driving wouldn't be complete without a lot of time sitting in traffic in the windy city. Actually, I never felt getting around Chicago was all that bad. I grew up in Buffalo,NY and that city is more difficult to get around than Chicago. If I had to take a local trucking job, I would choose Chicago over Buffalo. Although I will admit there is a lot of people that would disagree with that in a big way.

Anyhow, Chicago is one of the largest trucking hubs in America. I have probably spent more time there than in any other city in the country. Fortunately, I kind of liked driving there. I felt comfortable for some reason. I haven't a clue why. It just seemed like a cool place to be.



So anyhow, one night I had to go right to the center of downtown to pick up a trailer off of one of the railroad yards. It was a Friday evening, around 6:00 or so. The traffic wasn't too horrible, surprisingly, because I came in on the tollway. That's the only way to go, believe me. So I get into downtown, sit in a bit of traffic, get off the interstate, and figured I had it made. Pick up the trailer, start cruisin out of the city, and get my delivery made the next day in Columbus, OH. And as always, that's when it happened.

There were two overpasses, one on either side of the entrance to the railyard. They were only about 200 feet apart. I went under the first one and began to make the left into the railyard. There was an incline going into the yard and the truck tried to downshift into 2nd gear - the truck was an automatic. Just then the engine revved and the truck came to a stop. I hit the gas - but nothing. I was halfway into the yard, blocking the entire roadway, and the entrance into the yard. Traffic came to a stop in all directions.

OH MY GOD.

I had been driving for a lot of years at that point so there was no panic, nor was there any surprise. Shit happens when you least expect it. Well, I my company called a tow truck but that was gonna take a half an hour or so. Turns out there were two city buses full of people that were blocked in, along with about 150 cars and trucks.

Unbelievable.



So the transportation supervisor had to come down to see what was going on because of the buses. The railway supervisor had to come down because I was blocking the entrance. The police had to come down because of all of the traffic being blocked. So after talking with all of the authorities on the matter, I did what any other driver would have done when blocking hundreds upon hundreds of people from getting where they were going - I locked the doors and blended into the crowd like I was one of them wondering what was going on!

"What happened?" one person asked. "I guess something went out in the driveline I heard" was my reply - clearly implying I had no real way of knowing - it wasn't my truck, was it? Who, me? Wasn't me.

Well, it all ended well anyhow. They towed the truck out of the way, and the tow truck driver figured out that an airline had let loose to the transmission and was able to fix it on the spot. Lucky me.

The moral of the story? One - don't hit anything. No matter what happens, dont run into anything. Eventually any situation will go away like it never happened. Two - lie. Don't ever tell anyone besides the authorities that you are the one clogging up downtown at rush hour and everything will be fine!