A Truck hauling third-class mail lost some of its load Monday, state police said.

The truck, an independent carrier not with the U.S. Postal Service, was on 127th Street east of Illinois 59. It was trying to make a turn, and the rear axles, or tandems, came off, police said.

Without the tandems, the rear end of the truck fell, and the truck lost part of its load of magazines and third-class bulk mail, police said.

An Ohio driver was cited in connection with a suspended drivers license, logbook violations, and unsafe equipment, state police said Monday.

A BNSF train collided with a Wilmington Township Highway Department Truck that was spreading salt on icy roads during the winter storm Saturday afternoon.

The driver of the Truck suffered cracked ribs, sheriff’s police said. His name was not available.

The accident occurred at about 3:45 p.m. on Cooper Road. The train got to Coal City before stopping and was still there after 9 p.m. for an investigation into the accident. A salt spreader from the truck was still attached to the train when it stopped.

Sheriff’s police said the highway commissioner from Wilmington Township removed the truck from the scene of the accident before they got there to investigate the accident.

Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd and Japan-based Hino Motors Ltd launched a joint venture yesterday and began work on a plant in the suburb of Conghua to produce and sell commercial vehicles.

Guangqi Hino Motors Ltd is a 50-50 joint venture that will have two manufacturing bases - one in Guangzhou’s Conghua and the other in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province.

Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Automobile Co Ltd will be reorganized and a massive production facility set up for “Hino” brand heavy-duty trucks in Conghua. Shenfei Hino Automobile Manufacturing Co Ltd in Shenyang will also be restructured.

Involving an investment of 2.4 billion yuan ($327.42 million) and covering an area of 1.06 million sqm initially, the new Guangzhou base will specialize in the production and sale of heavy-duty and light-duty trucks.

The new Guangzhou base is expected to be ready in the middle of next year and will initially produce 20,000 heavy-duty trucks and 30,000 light-duty trucks.

The Shenyang base will involve an investment of 700 million yuan and will focus on the production and sale of passenger vehicles.

The joint venture plans to double the annual production capacity of the existing Shenyang base to 4,000 passenger vehicles by introducing new models and increasing investment.

“The commercial vehicle project is expected not only to enrich the product varieties of Guangzhou Automobile Group but also to boost China’s heavy-duty truck production,” said Zhang Fangyou, chairman of the board of Guangzhou Automobile Group.

“The well-developed auto industry chain, advanced auto manufacturing capacity in Guangzhou and huge market demand from the country’s developing logistics industry means rosy prospects for the new joint venture,” he said.

As Hino is a subsidiary of Toyota, he said, the joint venture would not dismiss the possibility of introducing other commercial Toyota-brand vehicles.

Shoji Kondo, president of Hino Motors Ltd, agrees.

“China is one of the world’s largest markets for heavy-duty trucks - five to six times as big as Japan’s,” he said. “We are confident of the future success of our cooperation.”

China currently imports about 2,000 Hino heavy-duty trucks. The nation’s annual market for heavy-duty trucks is expected to reach 500,000 by 2010 and for this year 480,000, sources said.

RUSSIAN trucks have queued up for 100 kilometers at the Finnish border ahead of the holiday season, prompting the Nordic nation to ask the European Union for help eliminating the record blockage.

Russia’s booming economy has led to constant traffic headaches in the region as trucks carrying new cars, televisions and machinery transit through Finland and the Baltic nations.

Finland is now as large a trading partner for Russia as the United States because of the surging trans-border traffic, but customs posts on the border are continuously struggling to cope.

While trucks are stuck at the border, retailers in Russia and the transport firms are losing money and local people are afraid to drive on the roads with one lane blocked by Trucks.

Finland’s Transport Minister Anu Vehvilainen had pleaded for the European Commission to influence Russia to reduce the traffic block by increasing electronic customs services, reducing border bureaucracy and developing roads on the Russian side.

Truck queues were about 50 kilometers long yesterday morning at Finland’s busiest border, Vaalimaa, east of Helsinki. On Saturday, however, they stretched to more than 100 kilometers, the Finnish Road Administration said.

“They now probably beat all records so far. A year ago the situation was similarly tough,” senior road administration official, Jukka Tamminen, said yesterday.

Tamminen said he expected the queues to ease and nearly dissolve going into Christmas Eve, but they could still grow overnight.

Japan’s top automaker, Toyota Motor Corp, opened its first plant in Russia on Friday, aiming to produce 50,000 Camry sedans annually.

Toyota has since 2005 invested 3 billion roubles ($121.4 million) in the plant, which is also Russia’s first to produce premium-class cars, and plans to ramp up output at a later stage.

“We are hoping that one day the plant will produce 200,000 to 300,000 units per year. Then we can start considering production of budget-class cars,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said at the opening ceremony.

He added that the company would reach its initial goal of 50,000 units per year within 18 months.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina are expected to attend the ceremony in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg.

Sales of foreign car brands in Russia surged 63 percent in the first 11 months of this year.

General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co all build cars in Russia, and Japan’s Nissan Motor Co, Suzuki Motor Corp, Mitsubishi Motors and France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen are scheduled to follow.

Toyota’s flagship Camry sedan has been the best-selling car in the United States in eight of the past nine years.

Shares of companies that make Heavy trucks rose Wednesday, pulled up by a strong overall market, along with new data showing an increase in truck orders.

According to data from ACT Research LLC, orders of Class 5 through heavy-duty Class 8 trucks rose 12 percent over November 2006 levels.

The November increase came after a 9 percent jump in October, which was preceded by a drop in the three previous months, according to the data included in an analyst note from Wachovia’s Andrew Casey.

Casey said the sustained strength in orders showed that truck market weakness may have bottomed, which is a relative positive for the companies in the sector, he said.

Also on Wednesday, Paccar Inc. announced a special dividend of $1 per share and a regular dividend of 18 cents per share.

The company said it would increase production at its DAF Trucks subsidiary by 5 percent in the first quarter in light of the strong Western and Central European truck market.

Here how Heavy truck stocks finished Wednesday:

Paccar rose $3.94, or 7.8 percent, to close at $54.55.

Cummins Inc. gained $4.52, or 3.9 percent, to finish at $122.

Eaton Corp. added $2.48, or 2.8 percent, to end at $91.74.

Navistar International Corp. rose $2.20, or 4.4 percent, to close at $52.20.

Automakers will turn to a mix of fuel-efficient vehicles and technologies _ from advanced hybrids and clean diesels to lightweight materials _ to respond to tougher fuel efficiency standards approved by Congress, industry leaders said Tuesday.

Amid rising fuel prices, car makers have been expecting the more stringent requirements and emphasized their choices of vehicles that get more miles to the gallon.

But the energy bill, which will require the industry’s fleet of new cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020, will help shape the lineup of new cars appearing in dealers showrooms during the next decade.

President Bush is expected to sign the legislation Wednesday.

Gas-electric hybrids, which account for about 2 percent of the new vehicle market, are expected to become more widely available in larger vehicles, and companies will likely broaden their portfolio of other fuel-saving alternatives such as diesels and vehicles running on ethanol blends.

“We now know what the rules are of the game. Each manufacturer now will be able to play its hand in its unique way,” Chrysler LLC Vice Chairman Jim Press said in a phone interview.

“We’re in the best position to marry technology and not make people make sacrifices or compromises on the product they want,” he said.

Majority Democrats helped push through the energy bill in the context of $90-a-barrel oil, $3-plus gasoline prices and concerns about the nation’s dependance upon fossil fuels and global warming.

The new standards will boost fuel-efficiency standards by about 30 percent under the first upgrades by Congress in three decades. New vehicles currently must meet a 27.5 mpg average for cars and 22.5 mpg for light trucks.

“We will focus our engineering and technical resources to attain these standards, and we remain hard at work applying the innovation and developing the advanced technologies that will power tomorrow’s cars and trucks,” said Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp.’s chairman and chief executive.

Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in an interview with journalists last week that the company was testing plug-in hybrid vehicles and would continue to expand its offering of hybrids.

“We’re a hybrid company,” he said.

Auto companies said the energy bill will help bring more focus on fuel-efficient engine technologies such as cylinder deactivation systems, which help the engine seamlessly operate on a reduced number of cylinders.

Ford Motor Co., for example, announced during the Los Angeles Auto Show in November that it would implement turbocharged gasoline direct-injection engines capable of providing fuel savings of 10 to 20 percent. The Lincoln MKS sedan will be the first Ford vehicle with the technology in about a year.

The industry is more likely to experiment with lightweight materials on the vehicle’s body, such as aluminum, high-strength steel and carbon fiber, said Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich.

But Merkle noted that all of these alternatives will not come cheaply. Clean diesel and hybrid technology typically adds several thousand dollars to the cost of a vehicle, and more lightweight parts will also carry additional expenses.

Which leads to one of the big questions emerging from the energy bill: Will consumers want to pay more to enjoy the benefits of long-term fuel savings?

“You can build them,” Merkle said. “But it doesn’t mean they’re going to want to buy them.”

An old pumper fire Truck that once served this community has been retired and will be put to good use at a Davenport training    facility.

Muscatine Fire Chief Steve Dalbey handed over the keys to the yellow 1974 Ford water hauler in late November to Steve Wearth, Eastern Iowa Community College District fire science coordinator.

The Eastern Iowa Community College District includes Clinton, Scott and Muscatine community colleges.

The Department donated the truck after receiving a federal grant to buy a new fire engine that will be put into service on Jan 1, 2008. The old fire Truck has a standard transmission, carries 350 gallons of water and was dubbed as the “beast” by Muscatine firefighters. The new engine carries 750 gallons of water and 30 gallons of foam.

“Having a pumper in-house allows the training center the capability to pump water without relying on fire departments to tie up their pumpers when training at the site,” Wearth said. The truck will be used at the Midwest Center for Rescue and Safety Training, formerly Wacky Waters Adventure Park near Davenport, just off Interstate 80.

The facility was first used as a training center last summer and is expected to become a full-fledged training facility for career and volunteer fire departments and those who undergo training through the college district.

Wearth said the structures such as the water slide tower and the wave pool provide ideal training grounds for water rescues and rope rescue training and   rappelling.

The pumper plays a vital role, he added, because to meet National Fire Protection Association standards, there must be two sources of water capacity on the grounds. With this pumper on the grounds fulltime, only one other pumper from an outside agency will be tied up when controlled burns  take place.