"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
Originally posted by Muddy Creek Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 9:43 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Okay, let's take your Washington apples example. Let's say the truckload originates in Wenatchee. Since there is no TOFC service out of Wenatchee (but there is COFC), the truckload would have to be a containerload. Already there's a problem, because domestic trailers are preferred to domestic containers by typical truckload shippers. Or the trucker can drive to the Puget Sound to access the TOFC terminal, or drive over to Spokane. Then you hope there is not too much of a terminal delay, since apples are a time sensitive commodity. If the load originates in the Yakima Valley, the trucker can only choose the Puget Sound or Spokane options. I'm not sure BNSF even handles trailers in Spokane anymore. Ditto for UP at Hinkle. Knowing BNSF like I do, I expect they would prefer the apples be shipped by refrigerated car rather than trailer or container. The bottom line is that both BNSF and UP have made it such a hassle to do business with, most shippers simply brush off the TOFC and COFC shipping option unless the load will move by dedicated refrigerated car. The real truck driver shortage is in the agricultural areas, not the urban areas. And most ag shipments out of the PNW and Northern Tier are heading west or southwest, not east. That's a shorthaul to the railroads, and they'd rather not be bothered with shorthaul economies of scale. The time factor favors the truckers on these regional corridors, so driver shortage or not, most such shipments will continue to use the highways rather than the rails. Actually no. Half the domestic consumption of Washington apples is in population centers east of, or on, the Mississippi River. It's long haul, high volume business and apples aren't all that time sensative. They're marketed year 'round in fairly steady volumes though a process called "controled atmosphere storage". They come off the trees and go into storage. The volumes are just freaking huge. Accordig to the USDA during the week ended April 23, 2005 there were 36,040 tons of apples shipped by truck from Washington for domesticc consumption. Half of that went at least as far east as the Mississippi. At 21 tons per load, that's 1,716 truckloads in a week. Heck, they could run double stack apple unit trains at those volumes. I think it all boils down to the fact that railroads are just not marketing companies. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 10:18 AM Greyhounds, I am largely in agreement with your contentions. However, I think the problem is business' need for certainty and the uncertainty of rail service (not to be confused with how long it takes to get freight from point A to point B). My father owns a small steel—which is not a time-sensitive commodity—company. Often rail prices will beat truck prices and often rail service will be feasible. However, for reasons that appear to be capricious to my father, rail rates will spike with specific loads, or rail will—in all practicality—deny service altogether. Add the fact that on nine loads from Muskogee to Peoria, it will take four days to deliver the freight and the tenth load will inexplicably take a month and the problems of rail service become apparent. My father's business is customer oriented. If his transportation company can't reliably deliver to a customer just twice a year, things go south. My father is all too aware of the trucker shortage and that, in a simplistic sense, shipping by rail would be cheaper for him than by truck. But the headaches and expenses encountered by truck pale in comparison to those caused by rail's capricious periodic and poor service. I think this is why the apples will continue to go by truck. Curious as to your thoughts. Gabe Reply greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 10:47 AM Carload railroading sucks! I once wrote a simple computer simulation of a carload system and it showed the system would (suprise) produce erradic delivery times, cars would pass each other in transit and arrive out of order. They would also bunch up. Just like the real world. There are too many "events" in loose car railroading - and each event has an opportunity for failure. And there's little anyone can do to fix reliability on the carload side. Intermodal and unit trains work becuse they reduce the number of "events". Basically solid trains just run from origin to destination with intermediate handling (such as the cross town in Chicago) being done by truck. Railroads can, and do, produce good reliable truck competivie service with their intermodal operations (UPS proves that). And the apples will some day find their way into double stack service. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 10:52 AM I would like to take a bite out of this apple please. I have run Apples out of Yakima and Wenatchee. If memory serves there are many shippers of Apples. There is a company out of Little Rock that ran teams to and from the Northwest. We rely on that part of Washington State to get a back haul to at LEAST the Mississippi River. I like walmart delivery because we had a account where you simply need to "Drop off" the trailer load of apples and pick up an empty trailer and be on your way in 15 minutes. NOW THAT's GOLDEN. (Dont ask about actually unloading at walmart, that is something drivers have to deal with) Walmarts get alot of these Apples. However, My part in the Little Rock was to relieve the team of thier long haul Apples at Little Rock and finsih the delivery into say... Safeway Foods at Atlanta Ga. The Team is then free to take a McKesson load west instead of having to go to atlanta to sit and deliver the apples. By the time I finish driving the 12 hours or so to Atlanta, sleep and rise early to arrange the unloading it is near 24 hours before that load is completed. At that time, that team is already past Armarillo Texas and 2 days from LA. That is productivity. Now I have a potential to find a load west from anywhere within a day of Atlanta and drop it off for the returning team coming back to Little Rock. This way I can support several team trucks and if you can stand the hours, sleep and dealing with the sometimes crazy issues there is money all around. My problem with the Apples is that they must have the same temperature or very close to it and no issues with the refridgeration. Feed that trailer with fuel. Especially in the summer. The second issue with apples is when I arrive at Safeway Foods in Atlanta at 10 PM, the security lets me inside the property to sleep because Apples are "TOP PRIORITY" and it is a bad area. Food recievers generally recieve inbound shipments between 5-11 AM and start to ship to food stores any time late in the afternoon. The public should in best scenario have the hands on the apples next day off my truck. Or... about 4 days from leaving the Apple Shipper. Besides Meat Loads, Apples and Fruits are next in. Then you need to get the dry goods like Potato Chips, Popcorn, Cheese etc etc.. Woe to those who are hauling paper plates. They unload last. (Not always... just luck of the draw.) So when the reciever shows up for work at 6 am in the morning (Or "Mawning" as we say in the south) the first question they ask is: "IZ DAT APPLE MAN HEAH YET?? WHERE HE BE AT?! GO FIND HIM Y'ALL" You definately dont want to be late, asleep or indisposed or eating when those words come thru the door. I am the one that stands next to the pay phone in line and if I do it right let the yard boys run about outside while I present the papers to the happy reciever. **Edited to note that I would be checking messages on my cell phone while leaning on the rusting and vandalized payphone. If you are wondering why Apples are 1.00 a pound, it is because of the Columbia and other rivers irrigation problems. Apple Growers fight Aluminum interests and Salmon as well as other pressures to keep thier trees watered. Last time I came thru there tens of acres of old trees were destroyed and new ones planted. I think by now they should be bursting with apples. I think it has potential for Rail transport out of there, but the railroad that undertakes this task should be totally focused on these three things: 1- Reliable refridgeration... Transicold or Carrier. Anything else is wussy and weak. 2- Personel You need people to tend, fuel and monitor those loads all the way to the customer 3- You are not finished with the Apple run until you can get reloaded and back to Washington State. Reply Edit gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 10:52 AM Couldn't resist the Chicago trans-load jab could you? I would laugh; but I am still choking on the smog emanating from the highway. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 11:00 AM Dont get me started on chicago. Yeesh... I think some of the rats in the South Side market by Roosevelt Exit off the loop eye us drivers as a potential snack. (Imagine the biggest rat story you ever heard... now I tell you *arms wide.. they are THIS big.) Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:11 PM High Iron I know where you are coming from on the apples. Know about getting on a good run I had one of those I would pick up Mickeyds hamburgers in West Chicago and take them to Tennesee abut 2 hrs esat of Memphis. Then I would unload go to memphis PU a load of colorado kool aid and go to West Chicago to unload said kool and go PU another load of hamburgers. 9hrs on the main legs of the run got it down so I could be in TN by 8 oclock at night then sleep till morning at the reciver then unload go to memphis and sleep at the next reciver avarage miles per week 3900 week end week out at 30 CPM made alot of coin on that run. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:38 PM How do the cherries from E/wash move? [:D][:p] Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:49 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed How do the cherries from E/wash move? [:D][:p] Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ You forgot your other smiley face. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:04 PM Cherries? I hauld em out of a state warehouse somewhere in the Northwest for Nevada. Those are expensive and even more watched than apples. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:12 PM edbenton, I had a shining oppertunity once I guess I was too young for it anyways. A owner operator had a 379 pete with a dane spread 48' (8 foot spread) reefer and he was hiring for a driver specifically for Cookies out of Gettysburg PA-Harrisburg PA region to New Orleans and Seafood back to Baltimore. Salary roughly 1100 a week. I said salary not mileage pay. Home every saturday night until Monday AM. Dedicated. Talk about paradise! I showed up as neat and clean as possible with a stack of good papers for the interview. He was very nice, he had 6 other trucks on the same run. Then I tried to "Close the sale" by asking him if he knew if I was to be dispatched out... I had him leaning towards getting the rig out on the road as we both had that afternoon for it. He leaned back and smiled, then reached over to the filing cabinet. Pulled 4 drawers open and papers fluttered out of all of them. Told me that is two days worth of applications since he ran the ad. Someone is going to get it and it aint gonna be me. (experience etc) when I left there were 12 people waiting in the other room to talk to him. Man what a crew. I learned something that day. I still smile at the recollection because that particular set up is really good if you can get 6 trucks on it and keep em going long term with just those two (Actually 4) customers. I have been pondering refriegerated train service to that part of Washington State and it has to be worth something to somebody. But the railroads need to be very fast with these loads and they gotta be "smooth" not tripping over the rails and stumbling over the paperwork or slipping on the fuel puddles or getting run over by eager local drivers waiting for the quitting time whistle. Reply Edit passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:54 PM Can't mention the name of the company but was in dedicated service for six years from southern California to Toronto a round trip every two weeks. As an owner/operator it doesn't get a better than that I got the same rate of pay loaded or empty and most westbound trips were empty. The people at Windsor Customs got to know me so well they asked which one of two trailers I was pulling and handed me the correct number of seals eastbound. In fact they tipped me off to loads of whiskey going west from Windsor that i hauled one load a month to a west coast distributor and this was mad money for the driver pretty nice to get paid twice for the same trip. They were so happy with the ride on the air-ride suspension they used to leave a couple of cases of whiskey on the truck each trip for the drivers bonus. Used to sell the whiskey at the Ontario 76 truck stop as I could not go back to Canada with it. About eight years after getting out of the whiskey hauling business wife and I were at the 76 having dinner one evening and a guy walked up to our table and asked if I still had any of the whiskey for sale. I guess technically that was bootlegging but it sure used to make a few people very happy everytime I pulled into the Ontario 76 with the cheap whiskey. Reply edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:01 PM The 2 hardest types of fruit to haul are cherries and apricots look at them wrong and they bruise. Best load I ever pulled I was running team with my father for a good sized company out of IA we were sent to PU a load of Apples in Yakima and take them to Medford OR not a bad run but the only way we could get there was on I-5 the state rds were closed due to snow. pulled out at 81000 bs got on 5 and had a blast pulling all of the grades. Boss belived in HP luckily and still I had the Pyrometer showing 12-1300 and tranny was redlined at 350 degrees got to medford and lost a day reloading for Pittsburgh relayed the load in Gary IN to get a driver home for the hoildays. Funniset thing is that was the first time for the month of Dec we got east of Cheyanne exept when we left the house. still managed to get 25000 that month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:03 PM I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread, and have learned a thing or two about the industry that I have been apart of for 35 years. I also have been reading Transport Topics now for several months. I see that the driver turnover rate for TL (truck load) carriers has hit 136% and that rate for small TL carriers during the same period was 102%. That this “Churn,” term used to describe driver turnover, costs the companies between $4,000 and $7,000 per driver. One expert that was quoted in this article said churn would continue to be a problem until pay for long haul drivers was ratcheted up to $60,000. As a non-expert I’d add the benefit packages might need sweetening too. Also, from the articles read to date, I’ve gleaned that the LTL segment of the trucking industry doesn’t have churn problems. It was also interesting to see some of the problems with churn listed in the articles read to date and Highiron’s remarks squared. Also, it seems many of the problems discussed have been around for more years than I’ve been in trucking, remembering articles from OverDrive magazine about similar issues. If pay and benefits are fair and working conditions are decent, why would a company need driver recruiters? I certainly see some opportunities for railroads if they are willing and able to market solutions. I think greyhounds touched on what is being done and what may be done. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:40 PM I have enjoyed the Ontairo 76 TA stories regarding the Whiskey. I also have enjoyed the hospitality of Ontario (Ambassador-Buffalo) The whisky bit got me laughing today because I hope no one comes up to me asking about cheap steak. (I keep the steaks to myself once everything is settled with claims even today I am not so sure if it was all above board although the entire company on both sides told me gwan.. take it home!) I have to express surprise that the onboard computers would even allow Pyros to run that high. 1100 or so is the highest Ive seen and that was on Vermont's 18%er near the Canada Border. Certainly the newer alloys must be higher in heat tolerance these days. Churn (Aka driver turn over) is a problem. Railroads dont have much churn however they treat power like a commodity. Airlines simply park the plane at the gate and find pilots to man it. Pilots make like 150,000+ and perhaps fly 30 hours a month. But when they do fly they are absolutely under great stress every second from gate to gate. Yes I agree with the 4,000 to 7,000 cost of replacing a driver. What bothers me is some companies refuse to replace a set of Bobtail tires at 3,000 dollars + Shop work twice a year to keep everything on the road. Pups that run LTL usually run out of say... little rock, meet a driver somewhere 250 miles away, swap trailers (Doubles) and return. Home every night. I think some of these are union with the pay and benefits that makes it all worth while. But god help them pups in bad weather as they cannot hold the road as well as the heavies. Or bad roads. Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:59 PM Newer turbos can handle 1300-1500 on the turbo temp but dont keep them there all day long. Boss got the download and asked us what was going on for that run constant up and down with a headwind and fully loaded did not help. Plus the fact we found out in the shop we were losing the #4 hole due to a bad injector at the time. I have to say one thing about Cat they build them to pull. I sure miss those days kind of ironic both my father and I are now on disability him for eyes and lung issues and me for seizures. But while we were a team we were known as Fed-ex when it absoulity possitibly had to get the **** there we got it. The following month we set a record that still stands 36000 miles took mutilple logs and a stuffed gorillia known as Harold the 3rd to do it but we did not get caught until the end of the month when I made the mistake of giving the boss the wrong logbook he was wondering what we were doing at the shop getting our oil change for the second time in less than a month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:24 PM edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry. Reply Edit greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:32 PM " had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day)" Good Lord! What were the Stephen City Scales? Were they a truck stop scale or what? I can't imagine the cops....or can I, they like turkey too. You know, I've also enjoyed this thread. It says a lot about the compitition the railroads face. The trucking companies (and employees) can be, and are, much more innovative and flexible than the railroads. One trucking manager can size up a situation and set up a beautiful move that pours money onto his bottom line and into his drivers' pockets. Of course there's a downside. It's aparently illegal to abuse a draft horse but not a truck driver. Anyone who worked a horse the way some of you drivers were worked would be in trouble with the law. The railroads have got to figure a way to cut through their corporate beauracracies and get to a better level of this innovation and flexiblity, and they need to do it without mistreating their employees. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:46 PM Remember running eastbound on I-40 one trip when DOT inspoectrors were at Blue Springs scale just east of Kansas City. Since my route very rarely took me through KC they red lighted me to pull to the side and bring in my log book. I had stopped about fifteen minutes before scale to make my log book presentable when other westbound drivers passed the word what was going on eastbound. The DOT man obviously saw the bags under my eyes as he read my log book that said I had just completed eight hours rest. Finally after loooking back several pages and seeing that I at least kept a neat log book he handed the book back and stated if god loved a liar he'd squeeze me to death. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as i exited the scale house. Another time I completed a day long loading in Marina Del Rey and the company boss asked me how long would it take me to get it to Albuquerque. I said that if the weather held out I would have it their by noon the next day. He said he would really appreciate that. Well I ran all night and had it their by eight the next morning only to be told by the receiver that hye had me schedulked for unloading the next AM as it was not legal for me to have run from LA to Albuquerque as fast as I had. I made a phone call to Marina Del Rey and was told to return to the unloading dock. As I backed up to the dock and went inside where I had been fifteen minutes before I witnessed the former receiver packing the contents of his desk and a five man crew waiting to unload my truck. Went to the same dock many times thereafter and always received excellent service. Some shippers a driver would go out of his way for others were given what they deserved. Once called the DOT myself in Denver for a shipper that wanted me to run straight through to LA. Needless to say I never loaded there again but kept that load. The major reason there is a shortage of drivers is the same companies are the ones always looking for drivers. If they ever learn to treat there drivers with respect and a decent pay and benefit package they will keep them and not be constantly searching and recruiting for new drivers. That CB radio in each drivers cab lets drivers know what companies are good and those that leave a lot to be desired. And time and time again when I was driving the complaints were always the same companies. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:10 PM Greyhounds, Not to nitpick, but what I said was "ag" products dominate going to the West Coast, not "apples". Wheat, hay, ect are mostly bound for the Pacific Rim, while fresh fruit is bound for domestic markets. The PNW fruit growers keep trying to expand their Asian markets, but for some reason they always seem to run up against some roadblock put up by the Asian authorities. The Pacific Rim is just a hard market to crash for quality specific food stuffs. With regards to your topic question, it may be that the railroads simply don't want to deal with sensitive commodities. As I've said before, because of the railroads' current economic classification (it begins with an "m" and ends in a "y" and is also the name of a popular Parker Brothers board game), they are more risk averse. Truckers are in the opposite category (e.g. highly intercompetitive), thus they are more willing to take these risks despite all the hassles. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:16 PM Greyhounds, The stephens city was in Virginia along I-81. I think it is near Toms creek around the I-66 changeover. Part of my weight issue was my fault. I was told in no uncertain terms "FILL DAT UPITH!" so I did. I only hoped that box made it to destination overseas intact. I did have a standing permit for 99,600 pounds gross due to the intermodal weights. The derisive (Scornful) laugher from the officers gathered around my meager paperwork and that permit I still remember to this day. I am just glad they did not add in the axle fine, just the gross. I think the Axle fine would have placed 3 months profits out of the window. The scale house is a platform about 75 feet or so (I realy dont know how long- I do know the new 53's and long wheelbase trucks had to axle out at times) It is sensitive to about 20 pounds. So if you walked across it they knew your weight. I ground my way off the highway onto the ramp knowing I was doomed. The tower filled with Officers watching thru the glass expectantly as I groaned onto the scale. The platform should float a little bit under legal loads. This one did not. A dull flat "THUMP" as each axle climbed down 4 inches or so into the platform. When I eased it to a halt the scales groaned with the stress. The C.B. was absolutely silent as well as the "Intercom" next to my cab. Silence.... finally I heard a female officer "Yer way too heavy! Get it around back and prepare for tickets." 3 hours later I walked out with several thousands of dollars in fines against the company and a admonishment to work AROUND the maryland I 70 scales near Baltimore. To make a long story short I painfully dragged that load thru back roads around the I-70 scales stacking up traffic at 10 honking road range miles an hour (There were several poleece in that reear view mirrior) made it to baltimore and handed the papers and the keys in. I found better work later on but never again did I load dangerously heavy. I can say that Mack is tough. If it was a ordinary road truck that we have today it would have broken in half at the frame rails just ahead of the 5th wheel long before it got that far. I also concur with the nature of the complaints. The complaints are a varied nature. I cannot remember them all but I think the top three are in this order: 1- I slept last week 2- Where is my pay? (Comcheks drained the pay last week) 3- My spouse (Kids, dog, dispatcher, reciever etc etc) is (Insert action) And my favorite top three questions: 1- You want that load WHERE? 2- You want it there at WHAT TIME? 3- Do you understand I cannot average mileage that high? (Average mileage I plan trips at 35 mph from the moment I get dispatched against the delivery schedule. If I come up short time wise, I tell boss you aint putting that load on me unless you can get a better schedule.) Boss says either one of these two things: 1- Get moving and fast yer late! 2- Ok ok ok Let's get it moving and I will call em. (Does he or anyone?) If you have a accident with the rig, the number one question: "WHADDA YOU DO TO THE RIG? WHERE IS MY LOAD?" (Who cares about the driver?) I can add lots more but I think I better stop now. Reply Edit 12345 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Okay, let's take your Washington apples example. Let's say the truckload originates in Wenatchee. Since there is no TOFC service out of Wenatchee (but there is COFC), the truckload would have to be a containerload. Already there's a problem, because domestic trailers are preferred to domestic containers by typical truckload shippers. Or the trucker can drive to the Puget Sound to access the TOFC terminal, or drive over to Spokane. Then you hope there is not too much of a terminal delay, since apples are a time sensitive commodity. If the load originates in the Yakima Valley, the trucker can only choose the Puget Sound or Spokane options. I'm not sure BNSF even handles trailers in Spokane anymore. Ditto for UP at Hinkle. Knowing BNSF like I do, I expect they would prefer the apples be shipped by refrigerated car rather than trailer or container. The bottom line is that both BNSF and UP have made it such a hassle to do business with, most shippers simply brush off the TOFC and COFC shipping option unless the load will move by dedicated refrigerated car. The real truck driver shortage is in the agricultural areas, not the urban areas. And most ag shipments out of the PNW and Northern Tier are heading west or southwest, not east. That's a shorthaul to the railroads, and they'd rather not be bothered with shorthaul economies of scale. The time factor favors the truckers on these regional corridors, so driver shortage or not, most such shipments will continue to use the highways rather than the rails.
Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:49 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed How do the cherries from E/wash move? [:D][:p] Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ You forgot your other smiley face. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:04 PM Cherries? I hauld em out of a state warehouse somewhere in the Northwest for Nevada. Those are expensive and even more watched than apples. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:12 PM edbenton, I had a shining oppertunity once I guess I was too young for it anyways. A owner operator had a 379 pete with a dane spread 48' (8 foot spread) reefer and he was hiring for a driver specifically for Cookies out of Gettysburg PA-Harrisburg PA region to New Orleans and Seafood back to Baltimore. Salary roughly 1100 a week. I said salary not mileage pay. Home every saturday night until Monday AM. Dedicated. Talk about paradise! I showed up as neat and clean as possible with a stack of good papers for the interview. He was very nice, he had 6 other trucks on the same run. Then I tried to "Close the sale" by asking him if he knew if I was to be dispatched out... I had him leaning towards getting the rig out on the road as we both had that afternoon for it. He leaned back and smiled, then reached over to the filing cabinet. Pulled 4 drawers open and papers fluttered out of all of them. Told me that is two days worth of applications since he ran the ad. Someone is going to get it and it aint gonna be me. (experience etc) when I left there were 12 people waiting in the other room to talk to him. Man what a crew. I learned something that day. I still smile at the recollection because that particular set up is really good if you can get 6 trucks on it and keep em going long term with just those two (Actually 4) customers. I have been pondering refriegerated train service to that part of Washington State and it has to be worth something to somebody. But the railroads need to be very fast with these loads and they gotta be "smooth" not tripping over the rails and stumbling over the paperwork or slipping on the fuel puddles or getting run over by eager local drivers waiting for the quitting time whistle. Reply Edit passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:54 PM Can't mention the name of the company but was in dedicated service for six years from southern California to Toronto a round trip every two weeks. As an owner/operator it doesn't get a better than that I got the same rate of pay loaded or empty and most westbound trips were empty. The people at Windsor Customs got to know me so well they asked which one of two trailers I was pulling and handed me the correct number of seals eastbound. In fact they tipped me off to loads of whiskey going west from Windsor that i hauled one load a month to a west coast distributor and this was mad money for the driver pretty nice to get paid twice for the same trip. They were so happy with the ride on the air-ride suspension they used to leave a couple of cases of whiskey on the truck each trip for the drivers bonus. Used to sell the whiskey at the Ontario 76 truck stop as I could not go back to Canada with it. About eight years after getting out of the whiskey hauling business wife and I were at the 76 having dinner one evening and a guy walked up to our table and asked if I still had any of the whiskey for sale. I guess technically that was bootlegging but it sure used to make a few people very happy everytime I pulled into the Ontario 76 with the cheap whiskey. Reply edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:01 PM The 2 hardest types of fruit to haul are cherries and apricots look at them wrong and they bruise. Best load I ever pulled I was running team with my father for a good sized company out of IA we were sent to PU a load of Apples in Yakima and take them to Medford OR not a bad run but the only way we could get there was on I-5 the state rds were closed due to snow. pulled out at 81000 bs got on 5 and had a blast pulling all of the grades. Boss belived in HP luckily and still I had the Pyrometer showing 12-1300 and tranny was redlined at 350 degrees got to medford and lost a day reloading for Pittsburgh relayed the load in Gary IN to get a driver home for the hoildays. Funniset thing is that was the first time for the month of Dec we got east of Cheyanne exept when we left the house. still managed to get 25000 that month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:03 PM I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread, and have learned a thing or two about the industry that I have been apart of for 35 years. I also have been reading Transport Topics now for several months. I see that the driver turnover rate for TL (truck load) carriers has hit 136% and that rate for small TL carriers during the same period was 102%. That this “Churn,” term used to describe driver turnover, costs the companies between $4,000 and $7,000 per driver. One expert that was quoted in this article said churn would continue to be a problem until pay for long haul drivers was ratcheted up to $60,000. As a non-expert I’d add the benefit packages might need sweetening too. Also, from the articles read to date, I’ve gleaned that the LTL segment of the trucking industry doesn’t have churn problems. It was also interesting to see some of the problems with churn listed in the articles read to date and Highiron’s remarks squared. Also, it seems many of the problems discussed have been around for more years than I’ve been in trucking, remembering articles from OverDrive magazine about similar issues. If pay and benefits are fair and working conditions are decent, why would a company need driver recruiters? I certainly see some opportunities for railroads if they are willing and able to market solutions. I think greyhounds touched on what is being done and what may be done. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:40 PM I have enjoyed the Ontairo 76 TA stories regarding the Whiskey. I also have enjoyed the hospitality of Ontario (Ambassador-Buffalo) The whisky bit got me laughing today because I hope no one comes up to me asking about cheap steak. (I keep the steaks to myself once everything is settled with claims even today I am not so sure if it was all above board although the entire company on both sides told me gwan.. take it home!) I have to express surprise that the onboard computers would even allow Pyros to run that high. 1100 or so is the highest Ive seen and that was on Vermont's 18%er near the Canada Border. Certainly the newer alloys must be higher in heat tolerance these days. Churn (Aka driver turn over) is a problem. Railroads dont have much churn however they treat power like a commodity. Airlines simply park the plane at the gate and find pilots to man it. Pilots make like 150,000+ and perhaps fly 30 hours a month. But when they do fly they are absolutely under great stress every second from gate to gate. Yes I agree with the 4,000 to 7,000 cost of replacing a driver. What bothers me is some companies refuse to replace a set of Bobtail tires at 3,000 dollars + Shop work twice a year to keep everything on the road. Pups that run LTL usually run out of say... little rock, meet a driver somewhere 250 miles away, swap trailers (Doubles) and return. Home every night. I think some of these are union with the pay and benefits that makes it all worth while. But god help them pups in bad weather as they cannot hold the road as well as the heavies. Or bad roads. Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:59 PM Newer turbos can handle 1300-1500 on the turbo temp but dont keep them there all day long. Boss got the download and asked us what was going on for that run constant up and down with a headwind and fully loaded did not help. Plus the fact we found out in the shop we were losing the #4 hole due to a bad injector at the time. I have to say one thing about Cat they build them to pull. I sure miss those days kind of ironic both my father and I are now on disability him for eyes and lung issues and me for seizures. But while we were a team we were known as Fed-ex when it absoulity possitibly had to get the **** there we got it. The following month we set a record that still stands 36000 miles took mutilple logs and a stuffed gorillia known as Harold the 3rd to do it but we did not get caught until the end of the month when I made the mistake of giving the boss the wrong logbook he was wondering what we were doing at the shop getting our oil change for the second time in less than a month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:24 PM edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry. Reply Edit greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:32 PM " had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day)" Good Lord! What were the Stephen City Scales? Were they a truck stop scale or what? I can't imagine the cops....or can I, they like turkey too. You know, I've also enjoyed this thread. It says a lot about the compitition the railroads face. The trucking companies (and employees) can be, and are, much more innovative and flexible than the railroads. One trucking manager can size up a situation and set up a beautiful move that pours money onto his bottom line and into his drivers' pockets. Of course there's a downside. It's aparently illegal to abuse a draft horse but not a truck driver. Anyone who worked a horse the way some of you drivers were worked would be in trouble with the law. The railroads have got to figure a way to cut through their corporate beauracracies and get to a better level of this innovation and flexiblity, and they need to do it without mistreating their employees. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:46 PM Remember running eastbound on I-40 one trip when DOT inspoectrors were at Blue Springs scale just east of Kansas City. Since my route very rarely took me through KC they red lighted me to pull to the side and bring in my log book. I had stopped about fifteen minutes before scale to make my log book presentable when other westbound drivers passed the word what was going on eastbound. The DOT man obviously saw the bags under my eyes as he read my log book that said I had just completed eight hours rest. Finally after loooking back several pages and seeing that I at least kept a neat log book he handed the book back and stated if god loved a liar he'd squeeze me to death. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as i exited the scale house. Another time I completed a day long loading in Marina Del Rey and the company boss asked me how long would it take me to get it to Albuquerque. I said that if the weather held out I would have it their by noon the next day. He said he would really appreciate that. Well I ran all night and had it their by eight the next morning only to be told by the receiver that hye had me schedulked for unloading the next AM as it was not legal for me to have run from LA to Albuquerque as fast as I had. I made a phone call to Marina Del Rey and was told to return to the unloading dock. As I backed up to the dock and went inside where I had been fifteen minutes before I witnessed the former receiver packing the contents of his desk and a five man crew waiting to unload my truck. Went to the same dock many times thereafter and always received excellent service. Some shippers a driver would go out of his way for others were given what they deserved. Once called the DOT myself in Denver for a shipper that wanted me to run straight through to LA. Needless to say I never loaded there again but kept that load. The major reason there is a shortage of drivers is the same companies are the ones always looking for drivers. If they ever learn to treat there drivers with respect and a decent pay and benefit package they will keep them and not be constantly searching and recruiting for new drivers. That CB radio in each drivers cab lets drivers know what companies are good and those that leave a lot to be desired. And time and time again when I was driving the complaints were always the same companies. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:10 PM Greyhounds, Not to nitpick, but what I said was "ag" products dominate going to the West Coast, not "apples". Wheat, hay, ect are mostly bound for the Pacific Rim, while fresh fruit is bound for domestic markets. The PNW fruit growers keep trying to expand their Asian markets, but for some reason they always seem to run up against some roadblock put up by the Asian authorities. The Pacific Rim is just a hard market to crash for quality specific food stuffs. With regards to your topic question, it may be that the railroads simply don't want to deal with sensitive commodities. As I've said before, because of the railroads' current economic classification (it begins with an "m" and ends in a "y" and is also the name of a popular Parker Brothers board game), they are more risk averse. Truckers are in the opposite category (e.g. highly intercompetitive), thus they are more willing to take these risks despite all the hassles. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:16 PM Greyhounds, The stephens city was in Virginia along I-81. I think it is near Toms creek around the I-66 changeover. Part of my weight issue was my fault. I was told in no uncertain terms "FILL DAT UPITH!" so I did. I only hoped that box made it to destination overseas intact. I did have a standing permit for 99,600 pounds gross due to the intermodal weights. The derisive (Scornful) laugher from the officers gathered around my meager paperwork and that permit I still remember to this day. I am just glad they did not add in the axle fine, just the gross. I think the Axle fine would have placed 3 months profits out of the window. The scale house is a platform about 75 feet or so (I realy dont know how long- I do know the new 53's and long wheelbase trucks had to axle out at times) It is sensitive to about 20 pounds. So if you walked across it they knew your weight. I ground my way off the highway onto the ramp knowing I was doomed. The tower filled with Officers watching thru the glass expectantly as I groaned onto the scale. The platform should float a little bit under legal loads. This one did not. A dull flat "THUMP" as each axle climbed down 4 inches or so into the platform. When I eased it to a halt the scales groaned with the stress. The C.B. was absolutely silent as well as the "Intercom" next to my cab. Silence.... finally I heard a female officer "Yer way too heavy! Get it around back and prepare for tickets." 3 hours later I walked out with several thousands of dollars in fines against the company and a admonishment to work AROUND the maryland I 70 scales near Baltimore. To make a long story short I painfully dragged that load thru back roads around the I-70 scales stacking up traffic at 10 honking road range miles an hour (There were several poleece in that reear view mirrior) made it to baltimore and handed the papers and the keys in. I found better work later on but never again did I load dangerously heavy. I can say that Mack is tough. If it was a ordinary road truck that we have today it would have broken in half at the frame rails just ahead of the 5th wheel long before it got that far. I also concur with the nature of the complaints. The complaints are a varied nature. I cannot remember them all but I think the top three are in this order: 1- I slept last week 2- Where is my pay? (Comcheks drained the pay last week) 3- My spouse (Kids, dog, dispatcher, reciever etc etc) is (Insert action) And my favorite top three questions: 1- You want that load WHERE? 2- You want it there at WHAT TIME? 3- Do you understand I cannot average mileage that high? (Average mileage I plan trips at 35 mph from the moment I get dispatched against the delivery schedule. If I come up short time wise, I tell boss you aint putting that load on me unless you can get a better schedule.) Boss says either one of these two things: 1- Get moving and fast yer late! 2- Ok ok ok Let's get it moving and I will call em. (Does he or anyone?) If you have a accident with the rig, the number one question: "WHADDA YOU DO TO THE RIG? WHERE IS MY LOAD?" (Who cares about the driver?) I can add lots more but I think I better stop now. Reply Edit 12345 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Originally posted by futuremodal [ Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:49 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed How do the cherries from E/wash move? [:D][:p] Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ You forgot your other smiley face. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:04 PM Cherries? I hauld em out of a state warehouse somewhere in the Northwest for Nevada. Those are expensive and even more watched than apples. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:12 PM edbenton, I had a shining oppertunity once I guess I was too young for it anyways. A owner operator had a 379 pete with a dane spread 48' (8 foot spread) reefer and he was hiring for a driver specifically for Cookies out of Gettysburg PA-Harrisburg PA region to New Orleans and Seafood back to Baltimore. Salary roughly 1100 a week. I said salary not mileage pay. Home every saturday night until Monday AM. Dedicated. Talk about paradise! I showed up as neat and clean as possible with a stack of good papers for the interview. He was very nice, he had 6 other trucks on the same run. Then I tried to "Close the sale" by asking him if he knew if I was to be dispatched out... I had him leaning towards getting the rig out on the road as we both had that afternoon for it. He leaned back and smiled, then reached over to the filing cabinet. Pulled 4 drawers open and papers fluttered out of all of them. Told me that is two days worth of applications since he ran the ad. Someone is going to get it and it aint gonna be me. (experience etc) when I left there were 12 people waiting in the other room to talk to him. Man what a crew. I learned something that day. I still smile at the recollection because that particular set up is really good if you can get 6 trucks on it and keep em going long term with just those two (Actually 4) customers. I have been pondering refriegerated train service to that part of Washington State and it has to be worth something to somebody. But the railroads need to be very fast with these loads and they gotta be "smooth" not tripping over the rails and stumbling over the paperwork or slipping on the fuel puddles or getting run over by eager local drivers waiting for the quitting time whistle. Reply Edit passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:54 PM Can't mention the name of the company but was in dedicated service for six years from southern California to Toronto a round trip every two weeks. As an owner/operator it doesn't get a better than that I got the same rate of pay loaded or empty and most westbound trips were empty. The people at Windsor Customs got to know me so well they asked which one of two trailers I was pulling and handed me the correct number of seals eastbound. In fact they tipped me off to loads of whiskey going west from Windsor that i hauled one load a month to a west coast distributor and this was mad money for the driver pretty nice to get paid twice for the same trip. They were so happy with the ride on the air-ride suspension they used to leave a couple of cases of whiskey on the truck each trip for the drivers bonus. Used to sell the whiskey at the Ontario 76 truck stop as I could not go back to Canada with it. About eight years after getting out of the whiskey hauling business wife and I were at the 76 having dinner one evening and a guy walked up to our table and asked if I still had any of the whiskey for sale. I guess technically that was bootlegging but it sure used to make a few people very happy everytime I pulled into the Ontario 76 with the cheap whiskey. Reply edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:01 PM The 2 hardest types of fruit to haul are cherries and apricots look at them wrong and they bruise. Best load I ever pulled I was running team with my father for a good sized company out of IA we were sent to PU a load of Apples in Yakima and take them to Medford OR not a bad run but the only way we could get there was on I-5 the state rds were closed due to snow. pulled out at 81000 bs got on 5 and had a blast pulling all of the grades. Boss belived in HP luckily and still I had the Pyrometer showing 12-1300 and tranny was redlined at 350 degrees got to medford and lost a day reloading for Pittsburgh relayed the load in Gary IN to get a driver home for the hoildays. Funniset thing is that was the first time for the month of Dec we got east of Cheyanne exept when we left the house. still managed to get 25000 that month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:03 PM I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread, and have learned a thing or two about the industry that I have been apart of for 35 years. I also have been reading Transport Topics now for several months. I see that the driver turnover rate for TL (truck load) carriers has hit 136% and that rate for small TL carriers during the same period was 102%. That this “Churn,” term used to describe driver turnover, costs the companies between $4,000 and $7,000 per driver. One expert that was quoted in this article said churn would continue to be a problem until pay for long haul drivers was ratcheted up to $60,000. As a non-expert I’d add the benefit packages might need sweetening too. Also, from the articles read to date, I’ve gleaned that the LTL segment of the trucking industry doesn’t have churn problems. It was also interesting to see some of the problems with churn listed in the articles read to date and Highiron’s remarks squared. Also, it seems many of the problems discussed have been around for more years than I’ve been in trucking, remembering articles from OverDrive magazine about similar issues. If pay and benefits are fair and working conditions are decent, why would a company need driver recruiters? I certainly see some opportunities for railroads if they are willing and able to market solutions. I think greyhounds touched on what is being done and what may be done. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:40 PM I have enjoyed the Ontairo 76 TA stories regarding the Whiskey. I also have enjoyed the hospitality of Ontario (Ambassador-Buffalo) The whisky bit got me laughing today because I hope no one comes up to me asking about cheap steak. (I keep the steaks to myself once everything is settled with claims even today I am not so sure if it was all above board although the entire company on both sides told me gwan.. take it home!) I have to express surprise that the onboard computers would even allow Pyros to run that high. 1100 or so is the highest Ive seen and that was on Vermont's 18%er near the Canada Border. Certainly the newer alloys must be higher in heat tolerance these days. Churn (Aka driver turn over) is a problem. Railroads dont have much churn however they treat power like a commodity. Airlines simply park the plane at the gate and find pilots to man it. Pilots make like 150,000+ and perhaps fly 30 hours a month. But when they do fly they are absolutely under great stress every second from gate to gate. Yes I agree with the 4,000 to 7,000 cost of replacing a driver. What bothers me is some companies refuse to replace a set of Bobtail tires at 3,000 dollars + Shop work twice a year to keep everything on the road. Pups that run LTL usually run out of say... little rock, meet a driver somewhere 250 miles away, swap trailers (Doubles) and return. Home every night. I think some of these are union with the pay and benefits that makes it all worth while. But god help them pups in bad weather as they cannot hold the road as well as the heavies. Or bad roads. Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:59 PM Newer turbos can handle 1300-1500 on the turbo temp but dont keep them there all day long. Boss got the download and asked us what was going on for that run constant up and down with a headwind and fully loaded did not help. Plus the fact we found out in the shop we were losing the #4 hole due to a bad injector at the time. I have to say one thing about Cat they build them to pull. I sure miss those days kind of ironic both my father and I are now on disability him for eyes and lung issues and me for seizures. But while we were a team we were known as Fed-ex when it absoulity possitibly had to get the **** there we got it. The following month we set a record that still stands 36000 miles took mutilple logs and a stuffed gorillia known as Harold the 3rd to do it but we did not get caught until the end of the month when I made the mistake of giving the boss the wrong logbook he was wondering what we were doing at the shop getting our oil change for the second time in less than a month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:24 PM edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry. Reply Edit greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:32 PM " had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day)" Good Lord! What were the Stephen City Scales? Were they a truck stop scale or what? I can't imagine the cops....or can I, they like turkey too. You know, I've also enjoyed this thread. It says a lot about the compitition the railroads face. The trucking companies (and employees) can be, and are, much more innovative and flexible than the railroads. One trucking manager can size up a situation and set up a beautiful move that pours money onto his bottom line and into his drivers' pockets. Of course there's a downside. It's aparently illegal to abuse a draft horse but not a truck driver. Anyone who worked a horse the way some of you drivers were worked would be in trouble with the law. The railroads have got to figure a way to cut through their corporate beauracracies and get to a better level of this innovation and flexiblity, and they need to do it without mistreating their employees. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:46 PM Remember running eastbound on I-40 one trip when DOT inspoectrors were at Blue Springs scale just east of Kansas City. Since my route very rarely took me through KC they red lighted me to pull to the side and bring in my log book. I had stopped about fifteen minutes before scale to make my log book presentable when other westbound drivers passed the word what was going on eastbound. The DOT man obviously saw the bags under my eyes as he read my log book that said I had just completed eight hours rest. Finally after loooking back several pages and seeing that I at least kept a neat log book he handed the book back and stated if god loved a liar he'd squeeze me to death. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as i exited the scale house. Another time I completed a day long loading in Marina Del Rey and the company boss asked me how long would it take me to get it to Albuquerque. I said that if the weather held out I would have it their by noon the next day. He said he would really appreciate that. Well I ran all night and had it their by eight the next morning only to be told by the receiver that hye had me schedulked for unloading the next AM as it was not legal for me to have run from LA to Albuquerque as fast as I had. I made a phone call to Marina Del Rey and was told to return to the unloading dock. As I backed up to the dock and went inside where I had been fifteen minutes before I witnessed the former receiver packing the contents of his desk and a five man crew waiting to unload my truck. Went to the same dock many times thereafter and always received excellent service. Some shippers a driver would go out of his way for others were given what they deserved. Once called the DOT myself in Denver for a shipper that wanted me to run straight through to LA. Needless to say I never loaded there again but kept that load. The major reason there is a shortage of drivers is the same companies are the ones always looking for drivers. If they ever learn to treat there drivers with respect and a decent pay and benefit package they will keep them and not be constantly searching and recruiting for new drivers. That CB radio in each drivers cab lets drivers know what companies are good and those that leave a lot to be desired. And time and time again when I was driving the complaints were always the same companies. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:10 PM Greyhounds, Not to nitpick, but what I said was "ag" products dominate going to the West Coast, not "apples". Wheat, hay, ect are mostly bound for the Pacific Rim, while fresh fruit is bound for domestic markets. The PNW fruit growers keep trying to expand their Asian markets, but for some reason they always seem to run up against some roadblock put up by the Asian authorities. The Pacific Rim is just a hard market to crash for quality specific food stuffs. With regards to your topic question, it may be that the railroads simply don't want to deal with sensitive commodities. As I've said before, because of the railroads' current economic classification (it begins with an "m" and ends in a "y" and is also the name of a popular Parker Brothers board game), they are more risk averse. Truckers are in the opposite category (e.g. highly intercompetitive), thus they are more willing to take these risks despite all the hassles. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:16 PM Greyhounds, The stephens city was in Virginia along I-81. I think it is near Toms creek around the I-66 changeover. Part of my weight issue was my fault. I was told in no uncertain terms "FILL DAT UPITH!" so I did. I only hoped that box made it to destination overseas intact. I did have a standing permit for 99,600 pounds gross due to the intermodal weights. The derisive (Scornful) laugher from the officers gathered around my meager paperwork and that permit I still remember to this day. I am just glad they did not add in the axle fine, just the gross. I think the Axle fine would have placed 3 months profits out of the window. The scale house is a platform about 75 feet or so (I realy dont know how long- I do know the new 53's and long wheelbase trucks had to axle out at times) It is sensitive to about 20 pounds. So if you walked across it they knew your weight. I ground my way off the highway onto the ramp knowing I was doomed. The tower filled with Officers watching thru the glass expectantly as I groaned onto the scale. The platform should float a little bit under legal loads. This one did not. A dull flat "THUMP" as each axle climbed down 4 inches or so into the platform. When I eased it to a halt the scales groaned with the stress. The C.B. was absolutely silent as well as the "Intercom" next to my cab. Silence.... finally I heard a female officer "Yer way too heavy! Get it around back and prepare for tickets." 3 hours later I walked out with several thousands of dollars in fines against the company and a admonishment to work AROUND the maryland I 70 scales near Baltimore. To make a long story short I painfully dragged that load thru back roads around the I-70 scales stacking up traffic at 10 honking road range miles an hour (There were several poleece in that reear view mirrior) made it to baltimore and handed the papers and the keys in. I found better work later on but never again did I load dangerously heavy. I can say that Mack is tough. If it was a ordinary road truck that we have today it would have broken in half at the frame rails just ahead of the 5th wheel long before it got that far. I also concur with the nature of the complaints. The complaints are a varied nature. I cannot remember them all but I think the top three are in this order: 1- I slept last week 2- Where is my pay? (Comcheks drained the pay last week) 3- My spouse (Kids, dog, dispatcher, reciever etc etc) is (Insert action) And my favorite top three questions: 1- You want that load WHERE? 2- You want it there at WHAT TIME? 3- Do you understand I cannot average mileage that high? (Average mileage I plan trips at 35 mph from the moment I get dispatched against the delivery schedule. If I come up short time wise, I tell boss you aint putting that load on me unless you can get a better schedule.) Boss says either one of these two things: 1- Get moving and fast yer late! 2- Ok ok ok Let's get it moving and I will call em. (Does he or anyone?) If you have a accident with the rig, the number one question: "WHADDA YOU DO TO THE RIG? WHERE IS MY LOAD?" (Who cares about the driver?) I can add lots more but I think I better stop now. Reply Edit 12345 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed How do the cherries from E/wash move? [:D][:p] Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ You forgot your other smiley face. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:04 PM Cherries? I hauld em out of a state warehouse somewhere in the Northwest for Nevada. Those are expensive and even more watched than apples. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:12 PM edbenton, I had a shining oppertunity once I guess I was too young for it anyways. A owner operator had a 379 pete with a dane spread 48' (8 foot spread) reefer and he was hiring for a driver specifically for Cookies out of Gettysburg PA-Harrisburg PA region to New Orleans and Seafood back to Baltimore. Salary roughly 1100 a week. I said salary not mileage pay. Home every saturday night until Monday AM. Dedicated. Talk about paradise! I showed up as neat and clean as possible with a stack of good papers for the interview. He was very nice, he had 6 other trucks on the same run. Then I tried to "Close the sale" by asking him if he knew if I was to be dispatched out... I had him leaning towards getting the rig out on the road as we both had that afternoon for it. He leaned back and smiled, then reached over to the filing cabinet. Pulled 4 drawers open and papers fluttered out of all of them. Told me that is two days worth of applications since he ran the ad. Someone is going to get it and it aint gonna be me. (experience etc) when I left there were 12 people waiting in the other room to talk to him. Man what a crew. I learned something that day. I still smile at the recollection because that particular set up is really good if you can get 6 trucks on it and keep em going long term with just those two (Actually 4) customers. I have been pondering refriegerated train service to that part of Washington State and it has to be worth something to somebody. But the railroads need to be very fast with these loads and they gotta be "smooth" not tripping over the rails and stumbling over the paperwork or slipping on the fuel puddles or getting run over by eager local drivers waiting for the quitting time whistle. Reply Edit passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:54 PM Can't mention the name of the company but was in dedicated service for six years from southern California to Toronto a round trip every two weeks. As an owner/operator it doesn't get a better than that I got the same rate of pay loaded or empty and most westbound trips were empty. The people at Windsor Customs got to know me so well they asked which one of two trailers I was pulling and handed me the correct number of seals eastbound. In fact they tipped me off to loads of whiskey going west from Windsor that i hauled one load a month to a west coast distributor and this was mad money for the driver pretty nice to get paid twice for the same trip. They were so happy with the ride on the air-ride suspension they used to leave a couple of cases of whiskey on the truck each trip for the drivers bonus. Used to sell the whiskey at the Ontario 76 truck stop as I could not go back to Canada with it. About eight years after getting out of the whiskey hauling business wife and I were at the 76 having dinner one evening and a guy walked up to our table and asked if I still had any of the whiskey for sale. I guess technically that was bootlegging but it sure used to make a few people very happy everytime I pulled into the Ontario 76 with the cheap whiskey. Reply edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:01 PM The 2 hardest types of fruit to haul are cherries and apricots look at them wrong and they bruise. Best load I ever pulled I was running team with my father for a good sized company out of IA we were sent to PU a load of Apples in Yakima and take them to Medford OR not a bad run but the only way we could get there was on I-5 the state rds were closed due to snow. pulled out at 81000 bs got on 5 and had a blast pulling all of the grades. Boss belived in HP luckily and still I had the Pyrometer showing 12-1300 and tranny was redlined at 350 degrees got to medford and lost a day reloading for Pittsburgh relayed the load in Gary IN to get a driver home for the hoildays. Funniset thing is that was the first time for the month of Dec we got east of Cheyanne exept when we left the house. still managed to get 25000 that month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:03 PM I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread, and have learned a thing or two about the industry that I have been apart of for 35 years. I also have been reading Transport Topics now for several months. I see that the driver turnover rate for TL (truck load) carriers has hit 136% and that rate for small TL carriers during the same period was 102%. That this “Churn,” term used to describe driver turnover, costs the companies between $4,000 and $7,000 per driver. One expert that was quoted in this article said churn would continue to be a problem until pay for long haul drivers was ratcheted up to $60,000. As a non-expert I’d add the benefit packages might need sweetening too. Also, from the articles read to date, I’ve gleaned that the LTL segment of the trucking industry doesn’t have churn problems. It was also interesting to see some of the problems with churn listed in the articles read to date and Highiron’s remarks squared. Also, it seems many of the problems discussed have been around for more years than I’ve been in trucking, remembering articles from OverDrive magazine about similar issues. If pay and benefits are fair and working conditions are decent, why would a company need driver recruiters? I certainly see some opportunities for railroads if they are willing and able to market solutions. I think greyhounds touched on what is being done and what may be done. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:40 PM I have enjoyed the Ontairo 76 TA stories regarding the Whiskey. I also have enjoyed the hospitality of Ontario (Ambassador-Buffalo) The whisky bit got me laughing today because I hope no one comes up to me asking about cheap steak. (I keep the steaks to myself once everything is settled with claims even today I am not so sure if it was all above board although the entire company on both sides told me gwan.. take it home!) I have to express surprise that the onboard computers would even allow Pyros to run that high. 1100 or so is the highest Ive seen and that was on Vermont's 18%er near the Canada Border. Certainly the newer alloys must be higher in heat tolerance these days. Churn (Aka driver turn over) is a problem. Railroads dont have much churn however they treat power like a commodity. Airlines simply park the plane at the gate and find pilots to man it. Pilots make like 150,000+ and perhaps fly 30 hours a month. But when they do fly they are absolutely under great stress every second from gate to gate. Yes I agree with the 4,000 to 7,000 cost of replacing a driver. What bothers me is some companies refuse to replace a set of Bobtail tires at 3,000 dollars + Shop work twice a year to keep everything on the road. Pups that run LTL usually run out of say... little rock, meet a driver somewhere 250 miles away, swap trailers (Doubles) and return. Home every night. I think some of these are union with the pay and benefits that makes it all worth while. But god help them pups in bad weather as they cannot hold the road as well as the heavies. Or bad roads. Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:59 PM Newer turbos can handle 1300-1500 on the turbo temp but dont keep them there all day long. Boss got the download and asked us what was going on for that run constant up and down with a headwind and fully loaded did not help. Plus the fact we found out in the shop we were losing the #4 hole due to a bad injector at the time. I have to say one thing about Cat they build them to pull. I sure miss those days kind of ironic both my father and I are now on disability him for eyes and lung issues and me for seizures. But while we were a team we were known as Fed-ex when it absoulity possitibly had to get the **** there we got it. The following month we set a record that still stands 36000 miles took mutilple logs and a stuffed gorillia known as Harold the 3rd to do it but we did not get caught until the end of the month when I made the mistake of giving the boss the wrong logbook he was wondering what we were doing at the shop getting our oil change for the second time in less than a month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:24 PM edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry. Reply Edit greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:32 PM " had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day)" Good Lord! What were the Stephen City Scales? Were they a truck stop scale or what? I can't imagine the cops....or can I, they like turkey too. You know, I've also enjoyed this thread. It says a lot about the compitition the railroads face. The trucking companies (and employees) can be, and are, much more innovative and flexible than the railroads. One trucking manager can size up a situation and set up a beautiful move that pours money onto his bottom line and into his drivers' pockets. Of course there's a downside. It's aparently illegal to abuse a draft horse but not a truck driver. Anyone who worked a horse the way some of you drivers were worked would be in trouble with the law. The railroads have got to figure a way to cut through their corporate beauracracies and get to a better level of this innovation and flexiblity, and they need to do it without mistreating their employees. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:46 PM Remember running eastbound on I-40 one trip when DOT inspoectrors were at Blue Springs scale just east of Kansas City. Since my route very rarely took me through KC they red lighted me to pull to the side and bring in my log book. I had stopped about fifteen minutes before scale to make my log book presentable when other westbound drivers passed the word what was going on eastbound. The DOT man obviously saw the bags under my eyes as he read my log book that said I had just completed eight hours rest. Finally after loooking back several pages and seeing that I at least kept a neat log book he handed the book back and stated if god loved a liar he'd squeeze me to death. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as i exited the scale house. Another time I completed a day long loading in Marina Del Rey and the company boss asked me how long would it take me to get it to Albuquerque. I said that if the weather held out I would have it their by noon the next day. He said he would really appreciate that. Well I ran all night and had it their by eight the next morning only to be told by the receiver that hye had me schedulked for unloading the next AM as it was not legal for me to have run from LA to Albuquerque as fast as I had. I made a phone call to Marina Del Rey and was told to return to the unloading dock. As I backed up to the dock and went inside where I had been fifteen minutes before I witnessed the former receiver packing the contents of his desk and a five man crew waiting to unload my truck. Went to the same dock many times thereafter and always received excellent service. Some shippers a driver would go out of his way for others were given what they deserved. Once called the DOT myself in Denver for a shipper that wanted me to run straight through to LA. Needless to say I never loaded there again but kept that load. The major reason there is a shortage of drivers is the same companies are the ones always looking for drivers. If they ever learn to treat there drivers with respect and a decent pay and benefit package they will keep them and not be constantly searching and recruiting for new drivers. That CB radio in each drivers cab lets drivers know what companies are good and those that leave a lot to be desired. And time and time again when I was driving the complaints were always the same companies. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:10 PM Greyhounds, Not to nitpick, but what I said was "ag" products dominate going to the West Coast, not "apples". Wheat, hay, ect are mostly bound for the Pacific Rim, while fresh fruit is bound for domestic markets. The PNW fruit growers keep trying to expand their Asian markets, but for some reason they always seem to run up against some roadblock put up by the Asian authorities. The Pacific Rim is just a hard market to crash for quality specific food stuffs. With regards to your topic question, it may be that the railroads simply don't want to deal with sensitive commodities. As I've said before, because of the railroads' current economic classification (it begins with an "m" and ends in a "y" and is also the name of a popular Parker Brothers board game), they are more risk averse. Truckers are in the opposite category (e.g. highly intercompetitive), thus they are more willing to take these risks despite all the hassles. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:16 PM Greyhounds, The stephens city was in Virginia along I-81. I think it is near Toms creek around the I-66 changeover. Part of my weight issue was my fault. I was told in no uncertain terms "FILL DAT UPITH!" so I did. I only hoped that box made it to destination overseas intact. I did have a standing permit for 99,600 pounds gross due to the intermodal weights. The derisive (Scornful) laugher from the officers gathered around my meager paperwork and that permit I still remember to this day. I am just glad they did not add in the axle fine, just the gross. I think the Axle fine would have placed 3 months profits out of the window. The scale house is a platform about 75 feet or so (I realy dont know how long- I do know the new 53's and long wheelbase trucks had to axle out at times) It is sensitive to about 20 pounds. So if you walked across it they knew your weight. I ground my way off the highway onto the ramp knowing I was doomed. The tower filled with Officers watching thru the glass expectantly as I groaned onto the scale. The platform should float a little bit under legal loads. This one did not. A dull flat "THUMP" as each axle climbed down 4 inches or so into the platform. When I eased it to a halt the scales groaned with the stress. The C.B. was absolutely silent as well as the "Intercom" next to my cab. Silence.... finally I heard a female officer "Yer way too heavy! Get it around back and prepare for tickets." 3 hours later I walked out with several thousands of dollars in fines against the company and a admonishment to work AROUND the maryland I 70 scales near Baltimore. To make a long story short I painfully dragged that load thru back roads around the I-70 scales stacking up traffic at 10 honking road range miles an hour (There were several poleece in that reear view mirrior) made it to baltimore and handed the papers and the keys in. I found better work later on but never again did I load dangerously heavy. I can say that Mack is tough. If it was a ordinary road truck that we have today it would have broken in half at the frame rails just ahead of the 5th wheel long before it got that far. I also concur with the nature of the complaints. The complaints are a varied nature. I cannot remember them all but I think the top three are in this order: 1- I slept last week 2- Where is my pay? (Comcheks drained the pay last week) 3- My spouse (Kids, dog, dispatcher, reciever etc etc) is (Insert action) And my favorite top three questions: 1- You want that load WHERE? 2- You want it there at WHAT TIME? 3- Do you understand I cannot average mileage that high? (Average mileage I plan trips at 35 mph from the moment I get dispatched against the delivery schedule. If I come up short time wise, I tell boss you aint putting that load on me unless you can get a better schedule.) Boss says either one of these two things: 1- Get moving and fast yer late! 2- Ok ok ok Let's get it moving and I will call em. (Does he or anyone?) If you have a accident with the rig, the number one question: "WHADDA YOU DO TO THE RIG? WHERE IS MY LOAD?" (Who cares about the driver?) I can add lots more but I think I better stop now. Reply Edit 12345 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Originally posted by greyhounds Originally posted by futuremodal [ You forgot your other smiley face. Gabe Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:04 PM Cherries? I hauld em out of a state warehouse somewhere in the Northwest for Nevada. Those are expensive and even more watched than apples. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:12 PM edbenton, I had a shining oppertunity once I guess I was too young for it anyways. A owner operator had a 379 pete with a dane spread 48' (8 foot spread) reefer and he was hiring for a driver specifically for Cookies out of Gettysburg PA-Harrisburg PA region to New Orleans and Seafood back to Baltimore. Salary roughly 1100 a week. I said salary not mileage pay. Home every saturday night until Monday AM. Dedicated. Talk about paradise! I showed up as neat and clean as possible with a stack of good papers for the interview. He was very nice, he had 6 other trucks on the same run. Then I tried to "Close the sale" by asking him if he knew if I was to be dispatched out... I had him leaning towards getting the rig out on the road as we both had that afternoon for it. He leaned back and smiled, then reached over to the filing cabinet. Pulled 4 drawers open and papers fluttered out of all of them. Told me that is two days worth of applications since he ran the ad. Someone is going to get it and it aint gonna be me. (experience etc) when I left there were 12 people waiting in the other room to talk to him. Man what a crew. I learned something that day. I still smile at the recollection because that particular set up is really good if you can get 6 trucks on it and keep em going long term with just those two (Actually 4) customers. I have been pondering refriegerated train service to that part of Washington State and it has to be worth something to somebody. But the railroads need to be very fast with these loads and they gotta be "smooth" not tripping over the rails and stumbling over the paperwork or slipping on the fuel puddles or getting run over by eager local drivers waiting for the quitting time whistle. Reply Edit passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1:54 PM Can't mention the name of the company but was in dedicated service for six years from southern California to Toronto a round trip every two weeks. As an owner/operator it doesn't get a better than that I got the same rate of pay loaded or empty and most westbound trips were empty. The people at Windsor Customs got to know me so well they asked which one of two trailers I was pulling and handed me the correct number of seals eastbound. In fact they tipped me off to loads of whiskey going west from Windsor that i hauled one load a month to a west coast distributor and this was mad money for the driver pretty nice to get paid twice for the same trip. They were so happy with the ride on the air-ride suspension they used to leave a couple of cases of whiskey on the truck each trip for the drivers bonus. Used to sell the whiskey at the Ontario 76 truck stop as I could not go back to Canada with it. About eight years after getting out of the whiskey hauling business wife and I were at the 76 having dinner one evening and a guy walked up to our table and asked if I still had any of the whiskey for sale. I guess technically that was bootlegging but it sure used to make a few people very happy everytime I pulled into the Ontario 76 with the cheap whiskey. Reply edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:01 PM The 2 hardest types of fruit to haul are cherries and apricots look at them wrong and they bruise. Best load I ever pulled I was running team with my father for a good sized company out of IA we were sent to PU a load of Apples in Yakima and take them to Medford OR not a bad run but the only way we could get there was on I-5 the state rds were closed due to snow. pulled out at 81000 bs got on 5 and had a blast pulling all of the grades. Boss belived in HP luckily and still I had the Pyrometer showing 12-1300 and tranny was redlined at 350 degrees got to medford and lost a day reloading for Pittsburgh relayed the load in Gary IN to get a driver home for the hoildays. Funniset thing is that was the first time for the month of Dec we got east of Cheyanne exept when we left the house. still managed to get 25000 that month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 2:03 PM I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread, and have learned a thing or two about the industry that I have been apart of for 35 years. I also have been reading Transport Topics now for several months. I see that the driver turnover rate for TL (truck load) carriers has hit 136% and that rate for small TL carriers during the same period was 102%. That this “Churn,” term used to describe driver turnover, costs the companies between $4,000 and $7,000 per driver. One expert that was quoted in this article said churn would continue to be a problem until pay for long haul drivers was ratcheted up to $60,000. As a non-expert I’d add the benefit packages might need sweetening too. Also, from the articles read to date, I’ve gleaned that the LTL segment of the trucking industry doesn’t have churn problems. It was also interesting to see some of the problems with churn listed in the articles read to date and Highiron’s remarks squared. Also, it seems many of the problems discussed have been around for more years than I’ve been in trucking, remembering articles from OverDrive magazine about similar issues. If pay and benefits are fair and working conditions are decent, why would a company need driver recruiters? I certainly see some opportunities for railroads if they are willing and able to market solutions. I think greyhounds touched on what is being done and what may be done. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:40 PM I have enjoyed the Ontairo 76 TA stories regarding the Whiskey. I also have enjoyed the hospitality of Ontario (Ambassador-Buffalo) The whisky bit got me laughing today because I hope no one comes up to me asking about cheap steak. (I keep the steaks to myself once everything is settled with claims even today I am not so sure if it was all above board although the entire company on both sides told me gwan.. take it home!) I have to express surprise that the onboard computers would even allow Pyros to run that high. 1100 or so is the highest Ive seen and that was on Vermont's 18%er near the Canada Border. Certainly the newer alloys must be higher in heat tolerance these days. Churn (Aka driver turn over) is a problem. Railroads dont have much churn however they treat power like a commodity. Airlines simply park the plane at the gate and find pilots to man it. Pilots make like 150,000+ and perhaps fly 30 hours a month. But when they do fly they are absolutely under great stress every second from gate to gate. Yes I agree with the 4,000 to 7,000 cost of replacing a driver. What bothers me is some companies refuse to replace a set of Bobtail tires at 3,000 dollars + Shop work twice a year to keep everything on the road. Pups that run LTL usually run out of say... little rock, meet a driver somewhere 250 miles away, swap trailers (Doubles) and return. Home every night. I think some of these are union with the pay and benefits that makes it all worth while. But god help them pups in bad weather as they cannot hold the road as well as the heavies. Or bad roads. Reply Edit edbenton Member sinceSeptember 2002 From: Back home on the Chi to KC racetrack 2,011 posts Posted by edbenton on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 3:59 PM Newer turbos can handle 1300-1500 on the turbo temp but dont keep them there all day long. Boss got the download and asked us what was going on for that run constant up and down with a headwind and fully loaded did not help. Plus the fact we found out in the shop we were losing the #4 hole due to a bad injector at the time. I have to say one thing about Cat they build them to pull. I sure miss those days kind of ironic both my father and I are now on disability him for eyes and lung issues and me for seizures. But while we were a team we were known as Fed-ex when it absoulity possitibly had to get the **** there we got it. The following month we set a record that still stands 36000 miles took mutilple logs and a stuffed gorillia known as Harold the 3rd to do it but we did not get caught until the end of the month when I made the mistake of giving the boss the wrong logbook he was wondering what we were doing at the shop getting our oil change for the second time in less than a month. Always at war with those that think OTR trucking is EASY. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:24 PM edbenton, the stories you tell are one of the reasons why some folks dont choose the driving life. I will share a few of my own. These rocords I made are rather small and of little value to the trucking industry but show what one person and a husband and wife team is capable of doing. My top single mileage a month stands about 16,000 give or take 500. I cannot reconcile the exact mileage because for the last 6 days I had no hours and logged that entire work week as vacation at home and picked up the log book again from the same place the last duty change was made. Literally off the books. *Shudders I had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day) The load took many hours because the steering would go out at about 22 mph because of the weight on the axles was too great for the hydralic pump to handle. A personal distance record is from Ohio to Garden city (Kansas), 2 days sleep waiting on a meat load and then a 2500 mile run down to I-40 across to Mohave and up to Salinas (CA) without stopping except for fuel. I needed 15 hours sleep plus one day to recover from that one but it was on time. I think I left on a saturday afternoon and was there monday afternoon. I had a single onion load from Washington across the North Dakotas (In -40 temps and a 50 mph wind) into the Boston market as a single driver in less than 4 days. Teams usually run these loads and the reciever was NOT happy as his restrauants were out of the product. I never did figure out why dispatch gave me that one. I have at times gone 4 days without eating due to payroll / paperwork problems to make ends meet. When I got out of there I was down to 130 pounds Now I am back to near 200 where I should be. I have had more than one inspection done to me where the LAW knows DARN well that I broke the HOS somewhere but cannot find it in the log book I gave him. I would rather run Donner or Emigrant in a roaring blizzard with half tanks of fuel and a failing engine than to sit for an hour and stress as the "Man" carefully examines and calculates literally every mark I ever made in that book with the pen. The stack of unfinished laundry, unshaven face, sunken eyes and a nervous tic that comes with fatique and trembles along with a million mile mug of steaming coffee is all that the officer needs to clue in that I broke the hours law somewhere. He never did find it. If you are reading this today officer... I apologize to you. I had my job and you had yours. (I used household miles rather than actual miles to make it all work to within 15 minutes of his traffic stop that morning) And yes, I took your advice not to return to PA the remainder of the day =) And you wonder why you cannot keep drivers sometimes in this kind of industry. Reply Edit greyhounds Member sinceAugust 2003 From: Antioch, IL 4,371 posts Posted by greyhounds on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:32 PM " had a load of Turkey meat on a Harrison Burg to Baltimore for the ship (Intermodal container) 40' reefer with a U model Mack (Offset cab) and a gross weight of 139,800 pounds at the stephen city scales (This was before the new computers, I think I hurt the platform there that day)" Good Lord! What were the Stephen City Scales? Were they a truck stop scale or what? I can't imagine the cops....or can I, they like turkey too. You know, I've also enjoyed this thread. It says a lot about the compitition the railroads face. The trucking companies (and employees) can be, and are, much more innovative and flexible than the railroads. One trucking manager can size up a situation and set up a beautiful move that pours money onto his bottom line and into his drivers' pockets. Of course there's a downside. It's aparently illegal to abuse a draft horse but not a truck driver. Anyone who worked a horse the way some of you drivers were worked would be in trouble with the law. The railroads have got to figure a way to cut through their corporate beauracracies and get to a better level of this innovation and flexiblity, and they need to do it without mistreating their employees. "By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that. Reply passengerfan Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Central Valley California 2,841 posts Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:46 PM Remember running eastbound on I-40 one trip when DOT inspoectrors were at Blue Springs scale just east of Kansas City. Since my route very rarely took me through KC they red lighted me to pull to the side and bring in my log book. I had stopped about fifteen minutes before scale to make my log book presentable when other westbound drivers passed the word what was going on eastbound. The DOT man obviously saw the bags under my eyes as he read my log book that said I had just completed eight hours rest. Finally after loooking back several pages and seeing that I at least kept a neat log book he handed the book back and stated if god loved a liar he'd squeeze me to death. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as i exited the scale house. Another time I completed a day long loading in Marina Del Rey and the company boss asked me how long would it take me to get it to Albuquerque. I said that if the weather held out I would have it their by noon the next day. He said he would really appreciate that. Well I ran all night and had it their by eight the next morning only to be told by the receiver that hye had me schedulked for unloading the next AM as it was not legal for me to have run from LA to Albuquerque as fast as I had. I made a phone call to Marina Del Rey and was told to return to the unloading dock. As I backed up to the dock and went inside where I had been fifteen minutes before I witnessed the former receiver packing the contents of his desk and a five man crew waiting to unload my truck. Went to the same dock many times thereafter and always received excellent service. Some shippers a driver would go out of his way for others were given what they deserved. Once called the DOT myself in Denver for a shipper that wanted me to run straight through to LA. Needless to say I never loaded there again but kept that load. The major reason there is a shortage of drivers is the same companies are the ones always looking for drivers. If they ever learn to treat there drivers with respect and a decent pay and benefit package they will keep them and not be constantly searching and recruiting for new drivers. That CB radio in each drivers cab lets drivers know what companies are good and those that leave a lot to be desired. And time and time again when I was driving the complaints were always the same companies. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:10 PM Greyhounds, Not to nitpick, but what I said was "ag" products dominate going to the West Coast, not "apples". Wheat, hay, ect are mostly bound for the Pacific Rim, while fresh fruit is bound for domestic markets. The PNW fruit growers keep trying to expand their Asian markets, but for some reason they always seem to run up against some roadblock put up by the Asian authorities. The Pacific Rim is just a hard market to crash for quality specific food stuffs. With regards to your topic question, it may be that the railroads simply don't want to deal with sensitive commodities. As I've said before, because of the railroads' current economic classification (it begins with an "m" and ends in a "y" and is also the name of a popular Parker Brothers board game), they are more risk averse. Truckers are in the opposite category (e.g. highly intercompetitive), thus they are more willing to take these risks despite all the hassles. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:16 PM Greyhounds, The stephens city was in Virginia along I-81. I think it is near Toms creek around the I-66 changeover. Part of my weight issue was my fault. I was told in no uncertain terms "FILL DAT UPITH!" so I did. I only hoped that box made it to destination overseas intact. I did have a standing permit for 99,600 pounds gross due to the intermodal weights. The derisive (Scornful) laugher from the officers gathered around my meager paperwork and that permit I still remember to this day. I am just glad they did not add in the axle fine, just the gross. I think the Axle fine would have placed 3 months profits out of the window. The scale house is a platform about 75 feet or so (I realy dont know how long- I do know the new 53's and long wheelbase trucks had to axle out at times) It is sensitive to about 20 pounds. So if you walked across it they knew your weight. I ground my way off the highway onto the ramp knowing I was doomed. The tower filled with Officers watching thru the glass expectantly as I groaned onto the scale. The platform should float a little bit under legal loads. This one did not. A dull flat "THUMP" as each axle climbed down 4 inches or so into the platform. When I eased it to a halt the scales groaned with the stress. The C.B. was absolutely silent as well as the "Intercom" next to my cab. Silence.... finally I heard a female officer "Yer way too heavy! Get it around back and prepare for tickets." 3 hours later I walked out with several thousands of dollars in fines against the company and a admonishment to work AROUND the maryland I 70 scales near Baltimore. To make a long story short I painfully dragged that load thru back roads around the I-70 scales stacking up traffic at 10 honking road range miles an hour (There were several poleece in that reear view mirrior) made it to baltimore and handed the papers and the keys in. I found better work later on but never again did I load dangerously heavy. I can say that Mack is tough. If it was a ordinary road truck that we have today it would have broken in half at the frame rails just ahead of the 5th wheel long before it got that far. I also concur with the nature of the complaints. The complaints are a varied nature. I cannot remember them all but I think the top three are in this order: 1- I slept last week 2- Where is my pay? (Comcheks drained the pay last week) 3- My spouse (Kids, dog, dispatcher, reciever etc etc) is (Insert action) And my favorite top three questions: 1- You want that load WHERE? 2- You want it there at WHAT TIME? 3- Do you understand I cannot average mileage that high? (Average mileage I plan trips at 35 mph from the moment I get dispatched against the delivery schedule. If I come up short time wise, I tell boss you aint putting that load on me unless you can get a better schedule.) Boss says either one of these two things: 1- Get moving and fast yer late! 2- Ok ok ok Let's get it moving and I will call em. (Does he or anyone?) If you have a accident with the rig, the number one question: "WHADDA YOU DO TO THE RIG? WHERE IS MY LOAD?" (Who cares about the driver?) I can add lots more but I think I better stop now. Reply Edit 12345 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
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