Why the van lines?
by Robert Eidsvold, Chairman of the Board
From time to time, people ask what the relationship is between the independently owned, local moving and storage company and the van line name they see on letterhead and on our trucks. In Barrett’s case, of course, the van line is United Van Lines, the nation’s largest.
For a long time most moving companies were owned by a local family who provided transportation within a relatively small area, and might include moving freight from the railhead to businesses and individuals.
Once our country started building a national highway system, truck transportation began to replace railroad transportation, and those small moving companies began to think about expanding. But, they didn’t want to find their truck and driver (who was sometimes the son of the owner like me!) stranded in Denver with nothing to bring back. So, enterprising movers started up what were called “return load systems,” and so the national van lines were born.
In the 1930s, the Interstate Commerce Commission was formed to regulate these new services. Most of them operated regionally through the years of World War II. By the end of the war a few of those, including United Van lines, had emerged as a national carriers. And, that postwar era saw America turned into a nation of nomads. Families packed up and headed for new opportunities all over the United States. People moved in droves to our southern and west coast states for all sorts of reasons, and the moving industry got them there. The local, historically limited scope mover, in cities all over America could now provide efficient long distance service to any place in the United States by qualifying as a member of one of the successful former return load bureaus now turned into the national van line system.
The fact that the original van line structure created in those early years is still the predominant means of family relocation attests to the value the public derives from building a system of local independent ownership within a national, and now a worldwide van line structure. The van line system’s primary purpose is still to operate trucks in a cost effective manner, but in the best van line systems, so much more value is added for the public’s benefit.
United Van Lines pioneered stringent qualifying standards the local agent members must adhere to — financial stability, warehouse facilities, insurance, safety and loss prevention standards, training standards for all employees, alcohol, drug testing and back ground check standards for all service employees. Furthermore, it is the innovative technology created within the van line structure that has vastly improved communication and reliability of service.
The public has been very well served by the efficient and creative van line structure. With escalating costs for equipment, fuel, and labor, no doubt it will be the van line systems that respond with reliable and innovative service offerings needed by their customers.