10/20/2026
Check out the story behind the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum's very own "Phantom 309!"
Red Sovine released “Phantom 309” in 1967, nearly a decade before CB truckin’ songs became popular. The song tells the story of a hitchhiker trying to get home from the West Coast who is picked up in the rain by a trucker named “Big Joe.” Big Joe takes him to a truck stop, gives him a dime for coffee, and disappears into the night. Inside, the waitress tells the narrator that he was actually helped by a “ghost driver” — Big Joe, who died years earlier after swerving to avoid a school bus full of children.
Tommy Faile wrote the lyrics in 1966, and the song was later covered by dozens of artists, including Jack Bond, Dave Dudley, and John Waits.
The legend may be fictional, but the crash behind it was real. On January 29, 1963, John William “Pete” Trudelle was driving a tanker truck loaded with 4,600 gallons of gasoline from Boston to Keene, New Hampshire. At the dangerous Route 129 and Route 1 intersection in Saugus, Massachusetts, he came over a blind dip and found a car stopped under a bridge waiting for a school bus. Unable to stop, Trudelle hit the bridge abutment, and the tanker erupted in flames. Trudelle and the car’s driver, Robert Mayer, were killed, while the six children and bus driver escaped before the bus caught fire seconds later.
Our founder Bill Moon had “Phantom 309" painted on the hood of our 1955 Mack LTL. The truck has since been restored and the words removed, but it remains our very own Phantom 309.
To learn more about the history of "Phantom 309," visit our website: https://iowa80truckingmuseum.com/press-release/phantom309/
