Adventures at the railhead

We use subhaulers on a fairly regular basis, to handle the more strung dealers on the periphery of our territory. There's outfits that I don't really have to worry about, most of whom are just using our freight to help take the sting out of a long bounce, as eastbound freight is a scarce thing from the Rockies at the moment. It's usually the guys who haul the oversize vehicles and the RV haulers. I have to do little more than a quick run through of procedures, and rarely have to do more than a passing glance to check on them. And then there are the, uh....find a nice word, Hammer....., inexperienced who try to live off Central Dispatch.


If (and that's often a large 'if') I can communicate with them, they don't have even the beginning of clue as to what I'm talking about. I've had guys try to strap through wheels, I've seen them try to axle strap, and I can't for the life of me understand why someone with a trailer with a 20 degree approach angle would even think of booking a car! This isn't a rant against immigrants, I'm only 4th generation myself, but if you send me driver who can't speak English, at least have someone in the office who does!!!


So this last week, I have an outfit send me a truck with a team in it. The truck was old, but looked fairly well maintained, but the trailer was some shop-built abortion, one of those with the inverted pyramid above the 5th wheel (And 15" Dayton wheels. When is the last time you saw a trailer with 15" wheels?) And they think they're going to load 4 F-450's on this thing. The first guy really didn't speak any English, and our communication was in my very rusty Spanish from 30 years ago. He was fairly bright, and after showing him what he needed to do to pull his vehicles, I went to take care of another issue. I come out of the office to check on him in a few minutes, to find he and his codriver cursing and hollering in Russian, as they attempt to back on a 450 without engaging the front hubs, and the resulting squealing and screeching that entailed. The second guy actually has at least some English skills, and tells me they want to load 4.

"Ain't happening," I try to explain, but he insists it will work. Fine, I point to a unit on his next load and tell him to pull it up so they can see it won't fit in the bottom. Another distraction, and when I come back, they have the top chained down. Well, maybe they have chains on the top units would be more accurate. Grab hooks in the front arms and on the shock mounts in the rear. Uh....NO! So I point out the proper tiedowns, again, off to something else for a moment. Come back, units properly chained down, and fixing to check to see if a dually will go in the belly, WITH BOTH FRONT TIRES FLAT! WTH?????

"It not hurt anything. It ok."

"No it's not ok. Not happening here!" So off they go with 3.

The next morning, our resident Mad Russian comes in and asks me where I find all the crazy Russians. Oh??? Seems when they came back after the second load, and despite my O/O telling them that was the incorrect way, it was back to any hook/ any hole, and that was good enough. Seems they'd been hauling cars for exactly three days when they showed up at the yard, and were both here working illegally. Needless to say, any doubts I had on pulling the plug on this Charlie Foxtrot were now gone. A quick call, and BOOM they're out of here. Right? I think it took 7 or 8 phone calls back and forth, and about 30 minutes to finally speak with someone on their end who understood enough English to realize I was telling them to get their ##### out of my yard! ARRRRGGH!

And now I've been interrupted enough times, I'm not sure where I was going with this. But it does occur to me, when we see the new guys come on here who have jumped into (imitation) carhauling, how very rare it is for any of them to ask anything about the most critical aspects of carhaul: loading and securement. I think this pic pretty well sums that up.









Now where's the rest of that drink?????

 

Boss man wants me cracking the whip pretty hard on the 4 strap/chain, and I do, even on our guys. These outside guys look at me like I'm nuts for telling them to 4 strap. Some of the things I've seen in other yards would just make your skin crawl. SME is the worst, with Pacific not far behind, as far as having guys without a clue about hauling cars.

It's actually pretty strange how rarely we see anyone here. We don't have any onsite inspectors, I've seen the logistics folks 3 times in nine months, and I've never laid eyes on a Ford employee. But things have been so screwed up in the rest of the system, and we're taking care of business, so we get left on the back burner. And I'm not complaining about that!