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Following federal training guidelines could leave a company with employees who are unprepared for the rigors of transporting hazardous materials, according to two experts on the subject.

More than 800,000 shipments of hazardous materials move through the United States daily. Many of these materials are products of chemistry that are transformed into the medicines, agricultural products, fuels, construction materials, clothing, shampoo, make-up, laundry detergent and other goods and services that make people’s lives better, healthier and safer.

What would Thanksgiving be without turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and beer? Beer? you ask.

Jennifer Botchie, assistant editor for Transport Topics’ Web news team since July, has joined the print staff’s ranks as a reporter.

The federal government’s first study of truck sizes and weights in nearly 20 years examines ways of increasing productivity through wider use of heavier or longer vehicles as well as potentially adverse effects of allowing increases in dimensions but draws no conclusions and makes no recommendations.

The six-axle, 97,000-pound tractor-trailer that a group of shippers and truckers would like to run on Interstate highways closely resembles a 16-year-old concept called the Turner truck.

The range of triple-trailer trucks may be limited by political boundaries and selected highways but the productivity payoff makes them hard to ignore, according to those who operate the most articulated of all combination vehicles.

The plunge in heavy truck sales continued in October, with total sales of 14,440 down 37.1% from the 22,945 sold in October 1999. The 10-month sales total of 184,497 was down 14.8% from the 216,461 sold in the first 10 months of 1999.

It now appears that Amtrak, the nation’s rail passenger service, may reach its congressionally imposed requirement of financial self-sufficiency in 2003 — mostly because of a freight service that breaks some generally accepted rules.