Here’s “Big Orange,” at the time of this photo a fleet unto itself for the owner-operator.
Since then, as you’ll hear from Hallahan in the video up top, the owner-operator has sold the 2006 model to another owner-operator who’s now, with two other owner-ops similarly situated, leasing the power unit to Hallahan Transport for a five-truck fleet, hauling dry van freight with mostly regular brokers and their shipper customers who, often enough, are requesting the fleet’s services.
Hallahan in April, in tandem with the sale of the “Big Orange” 2006, invested in the new HT flagship featured in the video, a 2019 Kenworth W900L I caught some views of it during Hallahan’s participation in “That’s a big 10-4 on D.C.” early this month. Catch several via the video, and a few from D.C. and Virginia below.
The unit cut an imposing figure out on the National Mall, where Hallahan spent both October 4 and 5, and part of the morning the 6th, interacting with the public on issues and generally welcoming passersby and showgoers to his world. In contrast to the ELD mandate-focused protests last year, before he’d begun to utilize the KeepTruckin ELD and simplified dispatch software system, Hallahan expressed some ambivalence this year about ELDs themselves, given the system’s dispatch utility. His presence at 10-4, he noted, was in hopes of supporting an effort of individual truckers working together for a common good. On ELDs specifically, he continues to believe “they shouldn’t be required” equipment.Hallahan worked with the Big Rig Chrome Shop in Oshkosh, Wis., for custom adds he purchased for the 2019 KW after acquiring it via Des Moines, Iowa, MHC Kenworth. River States Customz in La Crosse, which has done body work for Hallahan in the past, did much of the heavy lifting putting together the final product, including paint and installation of a variety of custom parts.In the interior, Hallahan chromed as much as he could and otherwise sought to bring the exterior striping design and a Chi-Town Large Cars flavor — the name of a group/club of sorts of owner-ops and drivers with whom he’s active — through the sheets and pillows in the sleeper, evident in the following photo: