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Volkswagen comes to the Port of Seattle
By Jon Halgren
The surprise of
the week was when it hit the papers that the Port of Seattle was going to be the
west coast point of entry for Volkswagen autos.
Vessels, in fact,
did come with Volkswagen autos. They would hire four or maybe five gangs.
We would uncover the top deck and there would be the most brand new autos
I had seen in one place. We would stand and be amazed at the sight of those
beautiful autos.
“OK, let’s go
to work and delash. All autos come off here in Seattle. They are all OCP.
Keep your hands and feet off, and do not let anything fall onto the
cars.” That was the Greek (the foreman) reminding us that we need to take care
of our work as the auto contract had not yet been finalized.
Later I was able
to ask about “OCP”. I was told it meant overland common point.
The
cars might go to Chicago, Boston, Dallas or New York.
The shipper would use facilities at the Port of Seattle to build up an
inventory to fill a train to a certain destination, which might be 1200 autos.
To
get the autos out of the square there was a special lifting device for each
gang. This would be used to open the
square. We would carefully get hold
of a steel fork that would be placed under the tire.
As the winch driver lowered the gear, four stevedores would each take a
wheel fork and guide it down and slide it under the auto wheel. The wheel fork
actually went in front of and behind the wheels and seemed to clamp on the tire
as the gear was lifted.
When
things were set the winch driver would lift gently, the tires
would
snug up and the car would go to the dock. We
would take out enough cars to allow the automatic spreader to be used without
damage to other cars.
The
auto spreader had four legs covered with rubber. As the winch driver would lower
the spreader, the stevedores would line it up so a car could be driven on. There
were little flipper ramps forward and aft, as strain was taken on the spreader
the ramps would go up, preventing the car from rolling off, and keeping the car
in place until landed on the dock. On the dock the car steering truckers would
get in and drive the cars to a place on the dock. The city of final destination
generally determined the sorting of the autos. There was lots of space at Piers
90, 91 so cars could be spread over a large area.
Considering
the amount of labor used for auto ships we had a good ride. Two or three, CST,
per gang depending on the distance the cars were to go from the ship. The gangs
consisted of HT, WD, 2 SL, 2 WB, 2 LS, and 2 XLS, a FM, SC and Clerks.
The
POS was played and, after a few ships VW announced that they would try the Port
of Everett looking at damage and productivity in Everett.
After
Everett VW tried Vancouver, Washington, and then Portland.
We
would work the car ships, sometimes singing, laughing, telling stories, but
enjoying our day and feeling good when we finished our work and headed home. We
would work the car ships, sometimes singing, laughing, telling stories, but
enjoying our day and feeling good when we finished our work and headed home.
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