COMMENTARY — Big move took big planning

 By Allan Janssen

You’ve got to hand it to Cambridge, Ont.-based Challenger Motor Freight. The company took a situation that could have been a public relations nightmare and turned it into an exciting media event that attracted hundreds of curious onlookers.

Challenger bravely accepted the contract to move six giant beer vats from Hamilton Harbour to the Molson Coors brewery in Toronto’s west end, knowing it was bound to inconvenience people along the route. And, let’s face it, people don’t like being inconvenienced.

Challengers solution? Turn the procession of road crews, flood lights, hydro trucks, police cars, tractor trailers, and special-purpose flatbeds into a spectacle resembling a small-town Santa Claus parade.

Media groups were invited to cover “The Big Move” in newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Television crews, from the local news channels to national science programs, showed up to document the proceedings. People travelled from across southern Ontario to see the giant vats – each of which weighs more than 45 tonnes, and measures 45 meters long, eight meters high, and seven meters high – and follow in the convoy’s wake.

Neighbors stood on their stoops and cheered as the trucks passed, despite the grand inconvenience of closed roads, rerouted traffic, midnight commotion, and rolling power disruptions during a week-long trek through Ontario’s industrial heartland.

When’s the last time someone cheered as you passed?

Challenger’s success – notwithstanding delays which extended the trip by several days – was in its transparency. Rather than exclude the public from their plans, organizers treated the event like a carnival coming to town. They tweeted its progress on Twitter and had company spokespeople on-hand to answer questions.

Onlookers responded by taking pictures with cameras and cell phones and uploading videos to YouTube.

The stars of the show, of course, were the drivers, cool and collected behind the wheels of their tractors, handling the rigs with a measure of gentleness and finesse that made the work look easy despite tight corners, unexpected obstacles, and weather challenges.

You couldn’t help but be impressed by the whole thing, which cost Molson Coors an estimated $24 million. It doesn’t hurt that the oversized cargo, in this case, was beer vats, each of which can hold about 1.4 million bottles of ale. To Canadians, any endeavour in the name of beer is a worthy one indeed.

But I would suggest the public should be this interested and this impressed with what truck drivers accomplish every single day, whether they’re transporting tongue depressors or tunnel bores.

Challenger’s “Big Move” demonstrated the logistics involved in keeping our economy running. This lesson was writ large, of course, but it is fundamentally the same as everything else the trucking industry does. Load up, move it carefully, and deliver it safely.

In a perfect world, drivers would always inspire appreciative onlookers, sporadic applause, and genuine respect from the public it serves so well.