Comment by lazide
11 hours ago
Most delivery trucks (like a box truck) have capacities more like 10 or 20 tons. A heavy freight truck, like used to load ships? Even more.
11 hours ago
Most delivery trucks (like a box truck) have capacities more like 10 or 20 tons. A heavy freight truck, like used to load ships? Even more.
You don’t generally just throw gold in a box truck… it typically moves by armored freight.
The Hope diamond was famously transported by... USPS.
"The postage cost him $2.44, plus $142.85 for $1 million worth of insurance." —https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/hope-diamon...
Maybe in some volumes, but I think most people would be shocked by the overall volume of gold that moves by UPS in small brown boxes.
The gold would be moved by cash-in-transit trucks which have relatively modest payload capacities of 5000-9000lbs today, a bit less in the 60s. 3 tons per truck is probably on the high end.
Was that the case in the 60s as well? I know trucks of that era had much lower capacity than today, even when comparing across class like "half-ton" trucks.
A half-ton truck is a consumer pick-up truck, not a commercial shipping vehicle. Much much smaller.
Yup that's what I had in mind, a 60s city delivery truck, not a semi, so googled that and came up to about 10t.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 set the gross vehicle weight limit for trucks at 73,280lbs. I imagine trucks of the day probably at least came close to that limit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_trucking_indust...