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  • They're mega pit stops,

  • and a home away from home for heavy haulers.

  • Offering everything from automated showers [shower #5 is now ready]

  • to a treasure trove of chrome,

  • to your very own electrified parking space,

  • massive scales,

  • inspections on the fly,

  • and revolutionary fuel

  • that'll get you on the road again.

  • Well, the truckers tell me they do get better gas mileage.

  • Buckle up. It's time to get trucking.

  • Now: Truck Stops, on Modern Marvels.

  • Trucks ...

  • each year in the United States, they travel over 1.5 trillion() miles,

  • hauling more than 11 billion tons of freight.

  • That's more than 9 trillion dollars worth of cargo.

  • Any product that you buy in a store, it got to that location by a truck.

  • What I always go by is

  • Without trucks, America stops.

  • Just as trucks keep America moving,

  • an army of more than 3 million men and women keep the trucks rolling.

  • These weary road warriors spend weeks hooked up in a cab.

  • But they have an oasis on the road,

  • the truck stop.

  • We have some place to park, a place to eat,

  • do laundry, take shower, uh...

  • There are some things 'side sitting here holding a steering wheel.

  • When the normal person goes home from their day of work,

  • they like to sit on their easy chair and relax.

  • Well, that's what truck stops offer the drivers.

  • Drivers can really kick up their feet at the Iowa 80 trucks stop in Walcott, IA.

  • Built as the world's largest truck stop,

  • It plays host to more than 5,000 truckers everyday.

  • Iowa 80 sprawls across 225 acres,

  • 4 times the area covered by the average truck stop.

  • That's two-and-a-half times the size of Disney Land.

  • There are now parking spaces here for 800 rigs.

  • and the main building spends more than 70,000 square feet.

  • The fuel center alone is double the size of most truck stops.

  • It can dispense diesel to 15 big rigs at once around the clock.

  • Now it's time to fuel a truck

  • Do it the same way you do, when you gash(?) your card up.

  • We enter the truck number,

  • the mileage,

  • and the driver ID.

  • This authorizes the prompt, so that they know who's using it.

  • Then you simply turn on the prompt, open up your tank,

  • and put your nozzle in.

  • But we as truckers have one more thing we can do. Let me show you the trick.

  • Most trucks have 2 fuel tanks.

  • So when it comes time to fuel the other side,

  • we come over and use another pump.

  • These dual dispensers can fuel both tanks simultaneously.

  • One dispenser is a master unit.

  • That controls the fueling and records the sale.

  • The fuel flows from the underground tank to a metering system in the master dispenser

  • and then onto both nozzles.

  • A pipe from the master unit carries the fuel underground to the other dispenser,

  • called the satellite unit.

  • Took 167 gallons,

  • about $440 worth.

  • Fuel is expensive, but without fuel these trucks are not going to move.

  • This lasts me probably 1,200 miles. So I probably won't need a fuel

  • for probably another 24 to 36 hours.

  • Before dual sided pumps became an industry standard in the late 1980s,

  • fueling the passenger side tank was anything but a gas.

  • We had to take the hose and throw it underneath the truck.

  • It'd sometimes get full of dirt, so we'd have to clean the dirt out.

  • Now that we have 2 pumps.

  • it goes so much faster and so much cleaner too.

  • After drivers fill up at Iowa 80,

  • they could head over to the Truckomat.

  • It's just a spot for big rigs that need big bathes.

  • [--Truck & trailer wash? --Truck & trailer. --All right]

  • The truck wash uses a combination of manpower and machine power.

  • We hand scrub the rigs because it's the more traditional way of doing it

  • but the size of the trailer has to be scrubbed

  • and if we did by hand it would take 20 minutes probably.

  • So we fabricated this machine to do that for us.

  • The brush comes out with

  • air power and spins on both sides of the trailers.

  • As the machine's going, we don't have to do anything. We're just doing our job

  • and the machine will do its job. And

  • that's it.

  • Washers even clean under the hood.

  • Wielding a high-pressure wand,

  • it sprays more than 1,500 pounds per square inch of water.

  • That's 50 times stronger than the average garden hose.

  • It's 180 degree water; It takes off all the grime,

  • and dissolves the oil and whatnot that collects on the engine.

  • And I'll often find oil leaks and other fluid leaks they might have.

  • After less than15 minutes of scrubbing leaves the rig squeaky clean,

  • the truck driver finds a parking spot to let it air dry.

  • Iowa 80 has come a long way since it opened in 1964.

  • Bill Moon, original manager for Standard Oil,

  • selected the site for his company.

  • It was strategically located along the emerging Interstate 80.

  • I-80 was stretched from San Francisco almost 3,000 miles east across the country

  • to become one of America's first interstate routes,

  • a critical artery spanning all the way to New York City.

  • When Iowa 80 opened however,

  • traffic was light and so was the demand for truck stops.

  • When we started out, we had maybe 2 gas pumps and about 3 diesel pumps,

  • and we had a small store.

  • And parking for maybe 8 or 10 trucks. And that was it.

  • In 1984, Moon purchased the truck stop from the oil company.

  • Under his management, the site flourished. and innovated.

  • You know, in here is one of the best things I've ever found in a truck stop.

  • It's a trucker store.

  • This 30,000-square-foot showroom is the trucking industry's Bloomingdale's.

  • stocked with chrome,

  • stainless steel and more lights than the biggest strip.

  • As we do our yards, as we fix our houses, fix our house up,

  • truck drivers feel that way about their trucks. They're in them all year round,

  • and they want to make 'em look nice

  • The showroom features a wall 20 feet tall and 40 feet wide.

  • displaying 500 illuminated LED lights.

  • Although safety regulations dictate

  • that every tractor trailer be equipped with at least 22 lights,

  • many truckers like to light up their rigs like Christmas trees.

  • And if they're shopping for a different kind of dazzle,

  • 3 decked-out semis flaunt the truckers' delight.

  • Chrome, the protective shiny metal that makes rigs glisten in the sun.

  • We've added a lot of chrome accessories to these show trucks.

  • They have full fenders to a step, 6 inch stacks.

  • And of course, the custom front bumper.

  • Chrome is slang for chromium,

  • a highly reflective blue-white metal resistant to tarnish and corrosion

  • It's added to other metals like aluminum to form a protective and attractive covering

  • through a process called electroplating.

  • First, the aluminum part is wired to the negative pole of a battery,

  • and chromium to the positive pole.

  • Next, both metals are immersed in a solution of chromic and sulphuric acid

  • to permit the flow of electricity

  • Since the aluminum is negatively charged,

  • it attracts the positively charged Chromium.

  • Automakers in the 1950s

  • began using chrome to produce cars with a flashy appeal.

  • Soaring tail fins and grinning wide mouth grills lined the highways,

  • and chrome became a household word.

  • Today chrome has taken a back seat in passenger car design,

  • but modern big rigs carry on its glistening legacy.

  • After dishing out their dough on a sparkling chrome accessory,

  • drivers can retire to the truckers' area.

  • It's home to 23 private shower rooms

  • a driver's den, a 60-seat, Dolby Surround Sound movie theater,

  • and a barbershop.

  • There's even a dentist.

  • If there is such a thing called an emergency room of dental care,

  • this would be it.

  • I'm usually the truck driver's best friend,

  • because I am taking them out of pain.

  • Although perks like a dentist and a barber

  • may entice a driver to pull into this mega pit stop,

  • a home-cooked meal can really draw a crowd.

  • The restaurant's the heartbeat of the truck stop.

  • Drivers like comfort food, and they like large portions,

  • and they want to feel like they're getting a lot for their money.

  • The Iowa 80 kitchen restaurant serves more than a million cups of coffee,

  • two million eggs,

  • and 90 tons of, meat each year.

  • When you can find a truck stop that's got homemade food, boy, you live for that.

  • I'm going to live high on the hog today.

  • This type of road side pit stop dates back to the 1920s.

  • As cars and trucks began dominating America's roads,

  • the original mom and pop truck stops sprouted up.

  • They catered to truck drivers by providing just the basics--

  • food, fuel and a mattress.

  • They'd have bunk rooms,

  • basically a spare room in the back of the station

  • where people would be pretty crammed in.

  • But it was a place to rest for the night.

  • The trucking industry had gotten a jump start during World War I,

  • fueled by America's need for efficient transport.

  • As military traffic clogged the nation's rail lines,

  • trucks started to crowd the roads to make shorter hauls.

  • You had thousands of trained new drivers,

  • as well as thousands of vehicles that were created for the war effort,

  • so the industry really took hold and expanded rapidly.

  • By 1935, about 40% of all communities were dependent upon truck service.

  • More mom and pop truck stops started dotting America's local highways.

  • But by the end of World War II, these small operations

  • were primed to be super-sized.

  • The return of the nation's GIs and the postwar building boom

  • made it clear that

  • the U.S. highway system could never effectively absorb truck traffic

  • stretching from coast to coast.

  • Though more than 200 highways crisscrossed the United States in the 1950s,

  • they were jammed with vehicles

  • and inadequately designed for the era's faster and wider trucks.

  • The Federal Interstate Highway Act of 1956 changed that

  • by launching the creation of a national system of superhighways

  • that promised a quicker means of moving goods.

  • The launching of the interstate system,

  • really, it resulted in some mega stops.

  • Truck stops no longer became something feasible

  • for an independent owner to construct and run.

  • It was when the oil companies really got into

  • the... the game big-time.

  • When Standard Oil opened Iowa 80 Truck stop in 1964,

  • it sat on roughly five acres.

  • Since then, its owners have developed more than 75 acres,

  • reserving plenty of room to expand.

  • But there's more to an ultimate truck stop than size.

  • How about a high-tech hookup

  • that not only makes a trucker's life a breeze,

  • but also could save more than a billion gallons of diesel each year.

  • The average truck stop in the US

  • takes in about $7.8 million revenue each year.

  • The truck stop at night.

  • From a distance, it seems peaceful and serene.

  • But up close, it's a deafening hum of idling engines.(engines growling, humming)

  • Truckers idle their engines for various reasons,

  • including keeping the heat on in the winter,

  • the air conditioning on in the summer,

  • powering their laptops, their DVD players, charging up their cell phones.

  • Idling trucks burn about a gallon of diesel every hour,

  • and America's army of truckers idle away 1.7 billion gallons of diesel every year.

  • Idling also adds wear and tear to the engine

  • and, not surprisingly, dumps pollutants into the atmosphere.

  • One company thinks it has a better idea.

  • IdleAir allows truckers to shut off their engines while still powering up their toys.

  • IdleAir is advanced truck stop electrification.

  • Basically, what we've done is devised a way

  • to deliver all the creature comfort services to a parked truck.

  • At the Petro travel stop in Knoxville, Tennessee, 114 trucks can plug into IdleAir.

  • All drivers need is a ten-dollar window adapter to connect to the system.

  • One of my favorite things about using the IdleAir

  • is that it enables me to turn the engine off at night,

  • so that I don't have to listen to that rumbling and the constant vibration of the truck.

  • You sleep a lot better.

  • I typically spend two to three months at a time out on the road.

  • So the IdleAir, to me, with the Internet access and

  • the phone hookup on it, allows me to keep in touch at home.

  • The system also offers games, movies on demand,

  • and more than 60 TV channels

  • -- so drivers can keep up with their favorite shows.

  • But there's more to the system than drive-in entertainment.

  • There's also a heater- air conditioner.

  • Every IdleAir unit sits above a parking space along a truss, or support structure.

  • A hose connects each unit to a service delivery module

  • that provides individual electrical service.

  • IdleAir's inventor A.C. Wilson

  • came up with his initial concept in 1999

  • while vacationing with his brother-in-law--

  • a long-haul trucker who'd just received a ticket for idling.

  • I went to bed that night, thinking more about it, you know?

  • How can I help these truckers?

  • And at 4:30 in the morning, I woke up and I said,

  • here I am in my motor home, I'm just as comfortable as a bug in a rug,

  • Why can't I do that for the trucker?

  • Wilson went to work and created his first prototype

  • -- a surface-mounted unit with a hose that ran up into the window,

  • providing climate control and power.

  • We quickly saw that in order to package these services together,

  • we would need to do it overhead,

  • so that we could distribute these systems safely.

  • Engineers took Wilson's brainchild one step further,

  • developing an advanced delivery system.

  • This duct set is a concentric duct.

  • Basically, the supply air will be delivered to the driver through this center tube,

  • whereas the return air will pass through here,

  • and then past our advanced filtration technology.

  • At an hourly rate of $1.85,

  • the system saves about a dollar an hour in fuel,

  • plus wear and tear on the engine.

  • And it greatly reduces all those greenhouse gasses floating skyward.

  • Though IdleAir services more than 100 locations in 30 states,

  • that's still only about 2% of all truck stops.

  • Truck stop electrification programs are hard to find for the average truck driver today,

  • so therefore, most truck drivers, or a lot of truck drivers, are going with generators

  • or APUs to provide the power that they need for their sleepers.

  • An APU, or auxiliary power unit, is a small motor

  • fueled by the same diesel that runs the engine in the tractor.

  • If you idle one of these big engines,

  • you're going to use up to a gallon of fuel an hour.

  • With an APU, you're going to be maybe one quart an hour,

  • and you will achieve the same thing.

  • These portable power systems, installed right onto the truck,

  • have enabled some rigs to become downright lavish.

  • My favorite thing in this truck is my fireplace.

  • Um, in the cold winters, it's just so cozy, and I love to read.

  • It keeps you nice and warm. It just feels like you're at home.

  • Truckers have traveled a long, hard road getting to a luxury sleeper like this one.

  • Before trucks had room for beds,

  • drivers had to literally sleep where they worked.

  • A driver really had nothing available to him.

  • Laying a board across both seats in the early days

  • and sleeping on that was fairly common practice.

  • In 1917, Goodyear introduced the first sleeper cab.

  • They were very small at first. Basically, it was just a bed.

  • And as the years go by, uh,

  • the manufacturing of truck companies started making bigger and bigger sleepers,

  • you know, basically just a place for a TV and a bigger bed,

  • uh, some storage.

  • Today, almost all long-haul drivers spend the night at truck stops

  • tucked in their very own sleeper.

  • Some drivers have taken their sleepers to the extreme

  • with custom upscale compartments--

  • like this big bunk manufactured at A-R-I Legacy Sleepers in Shipshewana, Indiana.

  • These customleleepers come fully equipped with a space-saving shower and toilet combo.

  • Talk about multi-tasking.

  • I love the toilet in the truck

  • because then I don't have to go to rest areas.

  • I love the shower.

  • I have about a 40-gallon tank. And, so, I can have one every day.

  • This here has, uh, an on-and-off switch,

  • so you, while you're washing your hair,

  • you can turn the water off, but yet keep the... the temperature of the water.

  • Having your own private restroom isn't the only perk in these digs.

  • We also have what we call the bed dinette.

  • It just folds back down, and you have a 48-inch mattress to sleep on.

  • We have a sink with solid surface countertop, hot and cold running water.

  • We also have an electric two-burner stove in this unit.

  • And over here, we have a refrigerator

  • and freezer with a microwave convection oven.

  • You can actually bake cookies in this.

  • We also have a 26-inch LCD wide screen TV with surround sound.

  • And when you're ready to go back to work,

  • you just step up into the business center.

  • ARI's standard 132-inch long sleeper will run you about $70,000.

  • Maybe that's why less than 1% of truckers

  • currently enjoy the creature comforts they offer.

  • Whether they accommodate luxury sleepers or more modest rigs,

  • truck stops continue to sprout up across America.

  • And it's no easy task to create the super-sized equipment

  • that keeps them truckin' along.

  • If rigs idled at all 272,000 truck stop parking spaces across the nation,

  • their emissions would amount to more than 11 million tons of pollutants each year.

  • Every night, more than 250,000 truckers pull into truck stops for refuge.

  • And every one of them needs a place to tuck in his rig for the night.

  • But there's a problem.

  • Truck stops in many U.S. States don't have enough parking space.

  • So engineers are busy at work developing new sites.

  • They're built from below the ground up,

  • beginning with the most indispensable assets of any truck stop

  • -- the diesel tanks.

  • Here on my left is an eight-foot diameter, 10,000 gallon,

  • fuel storage tank,

  • typical of what you would find at your neighborhood gas station.

  • Compared to that, on my right, is a 30,000-gallon tank

  • that is typical of a truck stop.

  • This tank is 20 feet longer in length;

  • it's two feet larger in diameter-- it's a ten-foot diameter tank

  • -- and it's triple the capacity.

  • At Containment Solutions in Bakersfield, California,

  • tank-manufacturing fabricators

  • construct these 30,000-gallon double-walled truck stop tanks,

  • one piece at a time.

  • What you see going on behind me is the rotation of our steel mandrel,

  • which is the basis of tank forming.

  • We apply resin, glass fibers and treated silica

  • to build a composite laminate

  • that is formed on this mold in multiple passes.

  • Next, fabricators add plastic reinforcing ribs to the mold.

  • Wrapped with the same fiberglass materials,

  • these ribs give the tank all the strength it needs for its long life underground.

  • After the tank sections are cured, workers pull them from the mold...

  • seal them together...

  • and pressure-test them to ensure that they won't leak fuel.

  • Any leak could prove environmentally disastrous,

  • since the tanks of a typical truck stop dispense a whopping

  • one million gallons of diesel over the course of a month.

  • And the pumps tapping into them fuel

  • four times faster than those at a neighborhood gas station.

  • In a kind of mechanical symbiosis,

  • completed tanks make their way to the truck stop on the beds of trucks.

  • Once they're buried, the tanks are far from out of mind.

  • Engineers can keep tabs on them, using a monitoring system

  • linked to this panel installed on the surface.

  • What this device is, is called an automatic tank gauge,

  • and what it has is a series of probes and sensors

  • that are in various portions of the underground storage tank system.

  • Every tank has a probe in it that measuresthe inventory levels in the tank.

  • The probe is basically an aluminum tube that is the entire diameter of the tank,

  • and they have a float that moves up and down on the probe.

  • The system also has sensors installed within the double-wall containment

  • that detect any liquid leaking from the interior tank.

  • The probes and sensors are hardwired to the console

  • that analyzes and records the data.

  • If the system senses a leak,

  • an alarm will direct technicians to the problem.

  • In the past,maybe the operator would go out once a day

  • and stick the tank with a tank stick.

  • Now it's all done electronically.

  • This measures the tank level down to hundredths of an inch.

  • On the pavement above the fuel tanks,

  • truck stop designers face another problem

  • --making sure the swarm of big rigs can get in and out of the area efficiently.

  • Like a parking lot for cars,

  • truck stop parking lots are divided into parking spaces and drive aisles.

  • But the drive aisles are more than double the width.

  • As much as they'd like to,

  • truck stop designers can't make the aisles much wider than that

  • because they have to optimize the available space.

  • The trick to solving the problem is to understand a big rig's off-tracking,

  • or turning ability.

  • When a car makes a turn, it follows only one path,

  • but when a tractor trailer turns,

  • the front wheels of the tractor follow one path

  • and the rear wheels of the trailer

  • take a completely different path toward the inside of the turn.

  • The distance between these two paths, or the off-tracking,

  • varies depending on the angle of the turn,

  • the length of the trailer and the speed of the truck.

  • Knowing this, truck stop designers are able to maximize the parking lot space.

  • If they can't park, they can't use the facility,

  • and what's very important, once that driver comes on,

  • they're gonna stay at our location for half a day.

  • That's because federal law specifs s mandatory rest periods for truckers.

  • After driving 11 hours, truck drivers must pull off the road

  • and rest their weary eyes for ten consecutive hours.

  • Few truck stops come better equipped to meet their needs

  • than Travel Centers of America, or TA.

  • We start with very large properties.

  • A typical, uh, TA is about 25 acres.

  • We take that survey and we put it onto a CAD, a computer- aided design,

  • and we're able to maximize all parts of the location.

  • During the planning of this TA in Lodi, Ohio,

  • designers considered every detail.

  • The number one thing that comes up anytime we ask the drivers

  • is, just give me a nice, clean, well-designed shower and restroom.

  • And these real marble showers are not only high-class,

  • but also hi-tech.

  • Driver number 1-4-4, shower number seven is now ready.

  • In the not-so-old days, drivers would have to line up to grab a spritz.

  • Now, they can order a shower in advance at the same place they fuel up.

  • And with the purchase of 50 gallons of diesel, the shower's on the house.

  • The customer's been on the road for many, many hours.

  • All they want to do is park their truck and be refreshed

  • and to be able to take care of that driver very, very quickly-- that's important.

  • TA has been innovating for 35 years.

  • The company began as Truck stops of America in the early 1970s,

  • as the mystique of the trucker began to grow.

  • Truckers were seen as the last American cowboys.

  • They were these loners out on the road

  • and truck stops were where you could, you know, mingle with them.

  • As more and more motorists started pulling off the interstates

  • to check out the trucker's lifestyle,

  • truck stop owners realized they had been missing out on something big

  • --the business of the average Joes.

  • Truckers may be a truck stop's bread-and-butter clients,

  • but they represent only 20% of highway traffic.

  • To attract the other 80%, truck stops now call themselves "travel centers."

  • Trucks go in a completely different entrance, usually around back,

  • and that's where the diesel is. That's where the trucker's entrance is.

  • And that world is where the truck itself goes to the doctor.

  • As a leading truck service provider,

  • TAs come equipped with computer diagnostics.

  • Their technicians can plug into the truck's onboard system to pinpoint problems.

  • If the driver is complaining that something is wrong with the truck,

  • I could click on fault codes and see if there's any fault codes coming up.

  • There is a, uh, ECU, which is the Engine Control Unit, 128.

  • And it's a PID, that's a Parameter Identifier,

  • and the I.D. is 111 and it's coolant level.

  • The technology has advanced so much

  • that technicians can actually take control of the truck with their PCs.

  • What I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna click on the bulkhead module,

  • and the bulkhead module is the brains of the truck.

  • A click of the mouse can operate the windshield wipers.

  • And you could see the wipers are working on low,

  • and it's also giving me an amp output as to how much amperage it d drawing.

  • If the amperage is too much,

  • I could see it on the screen, indicating there is a problem.

  • With innovative tech like this available at truck stops,

  • drivers can get a quick fix on their rig and keep on rolling.

  • Back on the open road, however,

  • highway checkpoints can bring these metal behemoths to a halt.

  • But new technology is allowing drivers to keep their 18 wheels turning

  • with inspections on the fly.

  • In 1963, the US had about 2,000 truck stops.

  • By 1972, more than 3,800.

  • And Today, there are more than 6,000 US truck stops.

  • This big boy needs to weigh in, and he can do that right at the truck stop.

  • [Hello]

  • [Welcome to weigh-in. Is this your first weigh?]

  • [Yes, it is.]

  • [What's your truck number?] [1058]

  • In just a fraction of a second,

  • the automated scale calculates the weight of the heavy hauler.

  • [I have you weighed. Bring your trailer number in with you.] [Thanks.]

  • The federal maximum weight allowed for a tractor and trailer is 80,000 pounds,

  • and drivers rely on scales at truck stops to keep their weight in check.

  • Overweight trucks not only damage roads, but also pose grave dangers.

  • The heavier the truck, the greater the distance and time it needs to stop. (horn blaring)

  • A 100,000-pound truck takes 25% longer to stop than an 80,000-pound truck.

  • Weigh stations along the highway ensure trucks are within the legal limit.

  • It's very important that we be here

  • to be sure that weight is regulated properly.

  • Any time that one of these tractor and trailers

  • encounter a regular passenger vehicle,

  • of course the passenger vehicle is going to lose,

  • no matter who is at fault.

  • In 1913, Maine passed America's first law regulating truck weight,

  • and by 1933, all states had some kind of truck-weight limit.

  • Modern truck scales consist of concrete and steel plates

  • that rest on a set of load cells.

  • A load cell converts force into a measurable electrical output.

  • A load cell looks exactly like this.

  • Inside the cell, you can see a stainless steel bar down the middle.

  • Attached to it are strain gauges.

  • What actually is measured by is cell

  • is the compression of this stainless steel rod.

  • As the truck drives onto the scale,

  • the load cells compress, causing the strain gauges to deform

  • and generate a change in voltage. (electrical buzzing)

  • This electrical signal is sent from each load cell through a device

  • called a "sectional controller" and into the fuel center,

  • where a computer digitally calculates the weight of the truck.

  • The science of weighing heavy objects dates back to 200 BC,

  • when the Romans invented the steelyard.

  • They used it to weigh precious goods, like gold.

  • The steelyard consisted of a beam with a sliding weight

  • to counterbalance the load.

  • Today, this type of device is still used in the modern scales at most doctors' offices.

  • How about a doctor's scale three stories high?

  • These massive steelyards were developed in the 18th century

  • to weigh wagons and railcars.

  • Commerce pushed the weighing of heavy items in the 1800s

  • just as if you would have a farm and you were hauling some type of produce.

  • You would want to weigh that produce when you would buy it in bulk.

  • But using steelyards was a daunting task

  • because the vehicles had to be lifted up onto the scale.

  • Innovators tried to devise an easier method,

  • and succeeded with a platform scale.

  • In the 1830s, a gentleman named Thaddeus Fairbanks

  • patented the first platform scale.

  • Now something such as a horse-drawn cart could be pulled directly onto the scale.

  • The platform scale incorporated the principals of the steelyard,

  • with two levers supporting a platform.

  • Pivot points at each corner of the scale

  • allowed the force of the load to be transferred to both levers.

  • The central lever pulled down on the steelyard

  • that determined the weight of the load.

  • In the late 1940s, the platform scale incorporated electronics,

  • and today, load cells dominate the weighing industry.

  • But the laborious process of stopping to weigh in

  • is slowing truck traffic,

  • especially since the number of big rigs on the road is skyrocketing,

  • up more than 30% since 1993.

  • This may be the answer to a trucker's prayers.

  • The Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

  • has integrated weigh-in-motion technology and other sensor technologies

  • to speed up the process.

  • The system was first installed in 1995

  • at the nation's second-busiest weigh station in Tennessee's Knox County.

  • This is a weigh-in-motion system.

  • It's basically a metal plate that is laying on a load cell,

  • and it can detect the weight of the truck at pretty high speeds.

  • Similar to the static scale,

  • load cells capture the instantaneous force one axle at a time,

  • as the truck drives over them.

  • But drivers never have to stop to weigh in.

  • They can just roll right over the scale at 30 miles per hour,

  • and only those trucks that are within 2,000 pounds of the legal limit,

  • or exceed it, are pulled in for a more precise calculation.

  • As he's coming up through there, you see he's got a good tag.

  • The driver does have his seatbelt on. The company name's on the side of the truck.

  • His D.O.T. number's there and his fuel permit.

  • Tires all look good. We'll look down, check his weight.

  • Weight looks good, so then I'll release him.

  • Just 85 miles north at the Laurel Country, Kentucky, weigh station,

  • Oak Ridge National Lab and Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement

  • have deployed another advanced system

  • that can both weigh and inspect a truck in motion.

  • It even sniffs for bombs.

  • So, essentially, what we're doing is placing the proper sensors out here;

  • information that we can obtain off of a truck in motion,

  • and provide that in a near-instantaneous manner to the state police.

  • As the truck pulls into the station, it travels over a weigh-in-motion scale. Then it passes

  • an infrared camera that checks the brakes.

  • An infrared camera only sees heat.

  • So heat is displayed as white, and cold is black.

  • Brakes work by producing heat from motion energy,

  • so if there is no heat, there is no brake.

  • This is a laser scanner that collects information

  • about the overall length of the truck,

  • how many axles the truck has and the speed of the truck.

  • This is a radiation detector.

  • The radiation detector measures for gamma and neutron radiation.

  • The radiation portal monitor can detect trace amounts of threat substances

  • based on their radiation signature, all while the truck is in motion.

  • This device can help prevent terrorists from

  • transporting dirty bombs and biological warfare agents across the country.

  • This is an automatic license-plate-recognition system.

  • It actually takes a pretty wide view of the front of the truck,

  • finds the license plate, zooms in on it, takes the text from the front of it

  • and sends it to a database to be checked.

  • In a matter of seconds,

  • the station gathers enough information to give the truck a green light to exit,

  • or a red light to pull up for inspection.

  • A weigh station can not only be a place that

  • we do road preservation and highway safety,

  • it can help us from the standpoint of homeland security,

  • environmental protection and highway congestion.

  • Less congestion means less wasted diesel fuel.

  • And one country music legend's truck stop venture

  • may even get rigs back on the road again

  • without relying on imported oil.

  • The trucker's term for a weigh station is 'chicken coop.'

  • Rest areas are called 'nap traps.'

  • And the truck stop is known as the 'water hole.'

  • Truckers traveling down Interstate 35 between Dallas and Waco, Texas,

  • seek out one of the most unique truck stops in the United States.

  • Two things make Carl's Corner unusual:

  • it's co-owned by country music legend Willie Nelson,

  • and the fuel sold here--BioWillie--is a biofuel;

  • it's 80% diesel and 20% vegetable oil.

  • This clean-burning biodiesel blend reduces harmful exhaust emissions

  • by more than 10%, and that's not the only advantage it offers.

  • Well, the truckers tell me they do get better gas mileage,

  • and that means more money in their pocket,

  • so naturally this perks up their ears a little bit.

  • Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification,

  • in which glycerin is separated from oil through the use of a catalyst and an alcohol.

  • We're gonna make some biodiesel here.

  • So I've got a beaker of vegetable oil.

  • We're gonna put it on a stir plate,

  • and I'm gonna add in my, alcohol and catalyst mixture here.

  • We'll see what happens.

  • You can see the oil got murky as it started to--

  • the glycerin is starting to break from the biodiesel,

  • and now it's turned a nice clear color,

  • which means that most of the glycerin

  • has separated from the methyl ester chains,

  • and that's basically biodiesel right there.

  • During the chemical reaction, the methanol molecules

  • attach to the fatty acid chain of vegetable oil.

  • The three bonds of the glycerol molecule break off, due to this interaction,

  • resulting in three long methyl ester chains,

  • or "biodiesel."

  • Carl's Corner sets itself apart not only by selling biodiesel,

  • but also by producing it right at the truck stop.

  • A newly constructed facility refines 8,000 gallons every day.

  • Every unit of fossil fuel required to make biodiesel

  • results in 3.2 units of energy gain. On the downside,

  • biodiesel can gel in cold weather.

  • So how did a brand of biodiesel

  • named after a country music star get its start here?

  • Let's go back to 1979. That's when a friend of Willie's,

  • entrepreneur Carl Cornelius,

  • opened Carl's Corner to fill the needs of passing truckers.

  • I started one room at a time, you know,

  • and if they asked for a swimming pool, I put it in.

  • They ask for a hot tub, I put it in.

  • They asked for adult bar, I put it in.

  • For 25 years, the fuel at Carl's Corner, like at most truck stops,

  • was conventional diesel.

  • Then Willie started learning about biodiesel.

  • My wife Annie came to me one day and said, "I want to buy this car, a Volkswagen Jetta.

  • And it's a diesel, but it runs on vegetable oil." So she did, and it runs on vegetable oil.

  • So I thought that was pretty good.

  • Willie learned that any diesel engine can run on biodiesel.

  • In fact, when inventor Rudolph Diesel presented the first diesel engine in 1900,

  • it was designed to run not on petroleum, but peanut oil.

  • But since petroleum was more commercially available

  • in the early decades of the 20th century,

  • the idea of biodiesel faded away.

  • In recent years, however, many have recognized biodiesel's benefits.

  • And in 2004, Nelson set out to create his own brand.

  • And what better place to sell it than the truck stop owned by his buddy Carl.

  • He was thinking about closing the truck stop down,

  • so I called him and, "Hey, wait a minute. Let's sell some biodiesel down there."

  • And I said, "Well, you believe in it?" And he said, "Well, yeah, I believe in it."

  • And I said, "Well, let's do the whole damn thing-- I don't have any reason to sell diesel,

  • let's just sell biodiesel," and that's what we did.

  • Carl partnered with both Willie and Earth Biofuels

  • and made plans to update the truck stop.

  • During 2006 and 2007,

  • Carl's Corner got a major makeover,

  • adding a new saloon and renovating a 850-seat theater,

  • so Willie can stop by and perform at any time.

  • Thank you very much!

  • Willie's Place at Carl's Corner

  • is what we as a company had envisioned

  • would become the symbol of the biofuels business

  • and the integrated model we wanted to build.

  • We're trying to show that farmers can bring it to market,

  • and the biodiesel plant is there,

  • the truck stop is here, the interstate is here,

  • and it's all locally owned and everything will stay in the community

  • and not be sent off to somebody overseas or something.

  • More and more truck stop owners are following Willie and Carl's example;

  • offering biodiesel as an alternative fuel.

  • Counted among the many innovations

  • that have redefined these ever-evolving roadside oases

  • they'll continue to give drivers what they need,

  • so they can do what they do best-- keep on trucking.

They're mega pit stops,

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