Things with the truck have been kinda sketchy for a while, but today they went over the edge. I was finding it very difficult to get the truck into gear and - as the evening went on - it became increasingly difficult just to keep it in gear. This would have been bad enough on its own, but I also lost the high side of the engine brake, which made descending the various long grades in Virginia far more nerve-wracking than they needed to be. Attempting to go down a seven-mile long 6% downgrade is particularly frightening when you smell brakes burning, even if it later turns out to be someone else's.
By the time I arrived at the operating center, it was nearly impossible to drive. The truck fell out of gear twice just on the half-mile or so stretch of street between the Interstate and the OC's gate, then once more as I tried idling it to the shop. They wrote it up for maintenance, gave me a rough time estimate, and told me where to park it. Good thing, too; I barely could get it into gear at all because the clutch was nearly seizing up and it was practically impossible to shift out of gear without turning the truck off. There's no way at all this thing could have made it to my delivery tomorrow.
A bit of phone tag with operations later, and I was originally told that this was going to be a relay... then ops called back ten minutes later to tell me that there's so little capacity around here that I'll have to take a loaner and deliver it. I was assured that I'd be routed directly back to the operating center, but I'll believe that one only after I have a work assignment that tells me to stop here. Regardless, I'll have to call first shift in the morning to finalize the details on this run, attempt to get the delivery moved up a few hours, and pester them until they give me a run that brings me back to Charlotte tomorrow evening.
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