COLUMN: Carillon Flashback September 19, 2013 – Promises still getting delivered after 90 years on the road

It has often been said that if you bought it in Steinbach, it came by truck. But if it was brought by a Penner Transfer truck during any winter of the 1920’s, when summer roads became impassable, freight came by horse.

Celebrating the 90th year of the family firm, established by the second generation of one of the original Steinbach pioneer families, Milton Penner recalls his father, Peter K. Penner, stopping his truck at Ste Anne and transferring the load to horse and sleigh to complete the trip to Steinbach.

Milton Penner’s father launched what has become one of Canada’s largest trucking firms, with a single Ford Model T truck when he was just 20 years old, and decided to leave the family farm and strike out on his own in 1923.

An uncle helped the young man start Penner Transfer, which hauled freight from Winnipeg and to and from the Giroux train station to Steinbach. By the late 1920’s, the company had branched out to become a milk hauler as well, and in winter, when freight business slowed, Penner Transfer hauled pulp in northern Ontario.

When Milton came on board in 1951, the company had grown to three or four trucks, with two of them hauling milk or cattle. The cattle hauling didn’t last very long, as Milton followed his father’s advice, “Never ask an employee to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.”

Today’s company president Allan Penner, Milton’s son, also benefited from that bit of grandfatherly advice, gaining knowledge of all aspects of the business on his way up the company ladder.

Allan recalls joining the company on a full-time basis in 1973, after some part-time “training” during high school. He began as a dock worker, helping to load and unload trailers.

There has been any number of milestones for the company over the past 90 years, but a few stand out above all others for both Milton and Allan.

Milton took time to reminisce with long-time, and some retired employees, as he donned an apron to serve chicken and burgers cooked up by the Steinbach Lion’s club at the company’s headquarters during 2013 National Trucking week.

For example, there was that day in January of 1952 when Penner’s Transfer began hauling Ford parts from Windsor. The company immediately added two tractor-trailer units for the run from Windsor to Winnipeg. By 1955, Penner trucks were hauling Ford parts to Calgary and a decade later, Toronto was added to the loop.

In 1968, when the Trans-Canada Highway opened up through Roger’s Pass, Penner Transfer began hauling freight to Vancouver from Toronto.

And while the business grew, so did the equipment. In 1951, when Milton started driving there were 28-foot trailers and the Ford tractors had to be equipped with add-on after-market sleepers.

By 1973, when Allan came on board, the trailers had grown to 45 feet, and Canadian and American bound units had to be segregated in the yard. Canada allowed haulers a wider and longer trailer, while the United States insisted anything longer than 42 feet would not be allowed on their highways.

Today, there are 53-foot trailers, and in some long combination, two of these trailers can stretch the highway unit to 125 feet in length.

The familiar green trucks disappeared in 1984, to be replaced by an even larger fleet of Red, White and Blues. Penner Transfer, which operated out of Steinbach since 1923, would now be called Penner International Inc., reflecting the company’s major thrust into the United States market with the purchase of Stordahl Truck Lines of Minneapolis-St Paul.

Today, the company that has been hauling Ford parts for 62 years also hauls anything that fits into a van. And just like it was 90 years ago, if you bought it in Steinbach, it came by truck, and somewhere along the way that could well be a Penner International truck.