latest news from the possible (rumor?) mill =

we take delivery of our first intermodal trailers at the end of april, and by late july early august, the national fleet will be effectively cut in half replaced with regional positions.... ?!?!?!?!

speculation possibly, but everyone said the same thing about keeping our trucks to 620k and them becoming nazis about out of route miles.

I've been sitting for hours waiting, sending messages every 15 min. They claim it's a qualcomm problem. But while waiting, I would be checking payroll, and getting other 'no response needed' msg's. So if it's a qualcomm issue, then it's selective about what it delays. I have even gotten just the fuel solution and routing, but no load info...I had to have them resend everything so I could get trip and p/u-delivery info.

As for the national going to regional... I Have heard that's what Tonn has been trying to work out. Just more of the changes to make us more like everyone else.

If they start riding you about out of route miles, just tell them they need to look up the meaning of 'suggested'. Since our routing is a suggested route, you are not forced to use it, and they are starting to bully a little bit more because the fuel prices are taking a larger chunk out of their profit. If they force us to use their routes, then they have to pay hub miles instead of the practical miles.(not that I'm complaining about practical miles, it's a lot better than the HHG or short route miles they used before.)

When you talk about intermodal trailers, are you talking about the 'train' type of containers like JB uses. Or are you talking about the overseas cans that come off of the ship? We have had a container fleet for a while. If it's a train trailer, that may be the company's solution to California's anti idling laws. Rather than putting on California approved APU's.

Plus, mileage doesn't determine trades here anymore. They keep the truck for 48 mos, from the 1st in-service date, regardless of miles. I have had trucks with 450K get traded (was a lemon at one time but finally figured out all of the bugs) and I have had trucks with mid-600's. I saw an old 27### truck still in use. Those must have 700K+, but must not be part of the trade-in deal we have with Freightliner.

Don't forget, "THEIR PROFIT" translates into YOUR ability to get a RAISE.

__________________
Thank you Christ & Veterans for the blood you shed for my freedom! Hope is knowing that Christ will not let failure be your final resutl.

This week starts our extremely early. How early? Well 12:01am to be exact. Thanks to ridiculous government regulations I ran my 70hr clock out of hours around noon on Sunday. Even though I could driven during the day and would have been to my consignee by 5pm. But instead I was forced to stop and sit in a truck stop for the rest of the day. It’s early and there is no way of getting any sleep because I’m wide awake, so I spend the rest of the day trying to amuse myself. By 10pm I feel tired enough to lay down for a quick 2hr nap. As soon as the clock hits midnight I get back 11hrs and I’m off to make my delivery which has to be there no later than 6am. I get there a little after 5am.

The live unload goes by fairly quickly and I am now in what has become the dreaded land of no freight known as Houston Texas. Although I am optimistic about getting a load offer because I delivered in the area just last week and was offered 3 different loads. I didn’t even get the expected “No freight, check back in 3 hrs”. As it turns out good luck was still with me and I received a two load offer within minutes.

The first load was a short hop into LA(under 300mi) and I would have taken it because I had already run 350mi today and it was a drop/hook on both ends and would have had me sittin good for a morning load, but my 14hrs were going to be up (since I had to start at midnight) before the load was scheduled to be ready.
I ended up taking the second load offer to Kansas City (800mi). Good miles but it was a live load and unload with scheduled appointments and I had to wait almost 3hrs for my loading appointment just down the road. That meant that I wasn’t going to get many more miles for the day, but since the delivery was scheduled for early Wednesday morning I had the time to spare.

Tuesday was another annoying short day due to hour restrictions and I once again I had to shut down shortly after noon. This was again followed by a lot of sitting around and a short nap before starting my day just after midnight so that I can make my 7am delivery Wednesday morning. A 34reset would sure make my life easier, and more productive. Too much sitting around with this game of waiting until midnight to get my hours back.

The live unload takes forever, but then I’m in no hurry once again. I only have 7½ hrs available for the day and most of them have been driven off anyway.

My empty call is greeted with a two load offer (the multiple offers seem to becoming more common again). Offer one was going to KY (600mi) and the other was going to MI (757mi).The KY load had enough time associated with it that I could have put in a reset, but I was gaining some good hours over the next three days, so I took the MI load even though I had some concerns about the freight availability in that part of the country once I was empty.

This load turns out to be very interesting. Not because of what it is, but because of where the warehouse is located. My first clue was when I read the directions and came across the final line “turn into cave entrance 8300 and go to pier 209”. This made no sense to me at the time, but that is often the case with directions until you arrive at or near a destination. The directions became very clear as I came to final turn:

;

I had no idea that this place existed. Apparently it’s called Subtropolis and it is located on the east end of Kansas City. It is a spent underground limestone quarry and had been converted into an underground warehouse and storage facility. From the expressions on some of the other drivers faces they were also first time visitors to this facility. Very interesting to say the least.

; ;

I’m loaded by noon, but once again out of hours for the day so I ran over to our terminal which is about a mile away and shut down for the rest of the day. I would rather keep driving, but at least I can get some laundry done without having to pay the ridiculous prices the truckstops charge for their laundry facilities. I end the day with a good meal at the local casino.

Thursday is an uneventful day, for me at least. The driver of this tanker pulling doubles probably had a different opinion of the days event. I sure hope he faired better than his truck did.

;

Friday is a 3am start so that I can make my 8am delivery on-time just outside of Detroit. It’s another live unload and take just under an hour to complete and I put in my MT call and hope that I don’t have to wait around for a load. My last two times up here I was forced to wait 6+hrs for a load.

That will not be the case today, I am sent a single load offer within 15mins that was a D/H PU 150 miles away in OH that delivered to VA (646mi total) anytime the following day and was a D/H delivery. Can’t ask for anything better than that. I’m surprised that they are going to deadhead me that far, but I’m not going to complain and head off to get my load.

When I arrived at the customer at 9am Saturday morning I am somewhat confused. I pulled up to a gate that opened automatically. I assumed someone watching a moniter had let me in, but when I pulled into their property I found all doors locked and no one in the shipping office. After about ½ an hour of wondering around the place I decided I was the only one there and I went ahead and dropped the trailer in what seemed to be the appropriate spot and made the appropriate notations on the BOL. I have occasionally done drops like this before, but never without some kind of heads up in the load assignment. I was a little leery about getting myself in hot water with dispatch, but the trailer was scheduled to deliver today and that’s when I got it there. I sent off a detailed message to the weekend dispatch (no, I didn’t expect an answer and they didn’t disappoint) to CMA.

The next trick was to find and MT. There were two next to my dropped trailer, but they looked like abandoned crack houses. I’ve never seen so much garbage in the back of an unloaded trailer in my life. That combined with the fact that they appeared to be two of the oldest trailers in our fleet with the old torn up wood paneling sides. A number of our customers won’t even load these kind of trailers so I set my sight on a few trailers that were still docked in the warehouse doors. After pounding on a few and pulling a couple away from the doors (they all had green lights) I found and acceptable empty and put in my MT call and waited to see what I would be offered. Why do I go into such detail about this particular Drop and Hook? Well, to set the stage for a future crisis that I will have to deal with before this week is over. Anyway, it’s a weekend and I’m hoping for a load that I can shut down with so I can finally get my reset and stop fighting these damn hours.

It takes a little longer than normal, but within 30mins or so I receive a three load offer. It’s getting more like the old days all the time. Looks like freight is picking up a little bit, I haven’t seen the “No freight, check back in X hours” for a couple of weeks now. I zero in on a load that is a D/H PU in Suffolk and has live unload Monday evening in Owensboro, KY (806mi) at the ridiculous hour of 5:30pm. This late delivery means I won’t be getting a load till Tuesday morning, but we have a couple of customers in that town and I know I could get a good load. This load also means that I can run out my last few hours for the day on Saturday and find a comfortable place to shut down for my reset. I could then drive all day Monday to make my PM delivery and be ready to roll and finally start getting some decent miles. I’ve had to turn down too many good runs over the last couple of weeks due to the lack of available hours.

My PU 70 miles away goes without incident and I pull out the map and try to decide where I’m going to stop for my reset. I decide on a truck stop about 3hrs away on I-81 in Virginia because I know they have a Days Inn next to them and I am ready to treat myself to a hotel room for the weekend. OK, I’ll admit a Days Inn isn’t exactly a treat, but it gets me out of the truck.

Everything goes swimmingly well and on the way I stop to scale out at a truck stop that is less than a mile away from where I dropped my trailer at the apparently deserted warehouse earlier this morning (so close, this will make sense shortly). Three hours later I arrive at my pre-determined destination and spy the Days Inn just up the hill. I pull out the computer and do a quick check on Priceline to see if I can catch a good deal and I do find an acceptable quote but decide to hold off on securing a room until after I’ve had a chance to stretch the legs a bit.

It is at this time that I decide I will grab my lock to secure the trailer door. The Enforcer locks we use are rather heavy duty and are more than a simple paddle lock that can be snipped off.




I routinely do this at the first place I stop after I PU a trailer. Why I wait until I stop instead of when I PU a trailer I can’t really say, it’s just a bad habit I’ve gotten into. Many times I PU a trailer and deliver it on the same day without stopping and don’t want to waste time with the lock in those circumstances and it’s a habit that has carried over to most of my loads. My thought is, “no one can steal anything if I’m driving down the road”. Well this bad habit is about to bite me in the #####! As usual, I popped open the side door and reached in to pull out the lock and a horrible sinking feeling hits the pit of my stomach when I realize it’s not there.

It only takes a few seconds of recollection to realize that I left my lock on the trailer that I dropped this morning. At all times, the very first thing I do when I get to a receiver is to pull the lock off the door. After all, these things cost us $120 and it’s not like someone at a warehouse can just pull out a set of bolt cutters. I can’t imagine this is the first time a driver has left a lock on a trailer, but out side of a torch or a good quality grinder, I don’t know how someone would go about getting one of these locks off. I could only image a locksmith being called and a hefty payroll deduction.

I can’t believe I did this, but with the confusion of no one being around when I made the drop, my search for an empty and my attempt to get a resolution from the absent weekend dispatch, well, I just screwed up big time.

The worst part of the whole thing was the number of times I had the opportunity to catch the mistake. If I would have attempted to lock my next trailer when I picked it up or if I would have thought about it when I scaled out. That really got me going because I was less than a mile away at that time.

Well, here I am 200 miles away and ½ an hour of drive time left on my clock, there is nothing I can do at this time. If I only had a hour I could have made it to Roanoke. They have an airport; therefore they have weekend rental cars. I know there is no chance of getting a rental out here in the middle of nowhere and I can’t drive the truck back until tomorrow. Not that that’s any kind of option. I’m not about to put 400 miles on the truck at Crete’s expense because of my bonehead move. Although I have the funny feeling that it would have been my expense anyway.

My only feasible option is to wake up when my 10 break is up, drive into Roanoke (this will result in the neighborhood of 45 out of route miles, could be worse) pray for a parking spot at the Pilot or TA Easter Sunday morning (anyone who has ever been there knows what a crap shoot that can be), call a cab and PU a rental car at the airport and take a little day trip back to Richmond. And that’s just what I did. So much for my reset. Son of ^%##!

When all was said and done I found myself back in Roanoke by 4pm. Since my reset was shot I decided to take off and put some miles behind me. I drove until I was tired and shut down a few hours from my destination.

Another week down.

What the last few weeks has shown me is something that I really already knew. Not being able to get in my reset is costing me miles. Not that an average of 3200 paid miles a week is anything to complain about, but I can do more and want to do more. It has resulted in a definite increase in the number of shorter haul, therefore more loads which inturn causes me to burn more of my 70hr clock on line 4 doing P/Us and deliveries and it also increases the number of unpaid miles due to all the extra running around between loads (and chasing down misplaced locks).

I have had to consistently turn down loads with good miles because I don’t have the hours to complete them in a timely manner. I am also getting myself into situations where I have to shut down in the middle of the day after running for periods of 4-7 hours. Running like this has definitely given me a lot of unwanted downtime and makes me put more effort into load planning than I care to deal with. Not that I’m incapable of it, I just get very frustrated when I am so limited in what I can do on any given day.




WEEK TWELVE RESULTS
Monday, March 17th through Sunday, March 23rd
Miles include deadhead

Slidell, LA to Houston, TX (final leg).......................................323mi
La Port, TX to N. Kansas City, MO.........................................800mi
Kansas City, MO to Brownstown, MI.......................................757mi
Cuyahoga Heights, OH to Prince George, VA............................646mi
Suffolk, VA to Mt Sterling,KY (first leg)...................................674mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. .....................3200 miles
Actual Miles………………………3325 miles


3200mi x .42 = $1344.00

__________________
"I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN" Mythbusters

Ah, I slipped up and left my lock on a trailer too. Though, I was only miles away when I realized Id forgotten it. Have the QC messages gotten any quicker for you? My last 3-4 loads have come through very quickly! Im beginning to think there is something wrong!

QC response times seem to be hit-n-miss. Yesterday the load info came through in a couple of minutes but the fuel, routing and directions took another 30 minutes. Other than that they have come in a timely manner for the last few days.

__________________
"I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN" Mythbusters

Ahhhh Subtropolis.... It is a cool place. Unless you're claustrophobic that is. There are several cave complexes that we deal with around the KC area. This means that they(Crete) trust you as a driver. They don't send just anyone into the caves.

Guess I shouldn't have said anything about things going good. Haven't had a good week since. March 7, truck in shop for electrical problem. One of my relays is tapping me a morse code, and occasionally kicking off my cruise. After sitting at the shop until 2300, they said it was fixed. Lasted until I go to the truck stop and it started again. Suppose to be on my way home for the 15th of March, sat in Indy waiting on a load from Friday at 1400 until 10 a.m. Saturday. Guess Walmart-almighty changed their way of doing paperwork in the middle of the week. This shipper is running over 50 loads behind. One Werner had been sitting almost 2 days for his load. While on hometime, took truck to local Frieghtliner. It was out in a day, drove to end of lot, still clicking...Back to the shop. Was in shop all week, got it Friday afternoon. 1st load out, started doing it again. Picked up a drop trailer in the Jacksonville Bud plant. Brake valve out, no parking brakes (or at least it took 5 minutes to bleed the air out before they set) and very little service brakes. Heading to NY state, so had to stop at the TA shop in Brunswick. 7 hrs before they could get me in and try to fix. It took a senior mechanic to figure out how to modify a valve to work, they didn't have the right one in stock. Easter weekend and I'm sitting again. Got trailer fixed and load delivered, but because of the wait time for the repair, it killed my 14 and threw off the timing of the load so don't have as much time to run once empty. Sat all Monday morning waiting for a load. Got one, from NJ to Milwaukee. And load info said will be picking up a return load from same place. 30 miles out of Milwaukee on my return trip, blamoooo the sidewall on an almost new tire(recap) blows on trailer. Puts me tight on my 14 again, and going through Chicago at the beginning of afternoon rush. And now I am getting a check engine light with my cruise kicking off and no opt idle until I let truck sit for 5 minutes and restart. Ahhhh Freightliner... gota love 'em. I think God is trying to see how much I can take before my bp gets so high my head explodes

Duct tape should help hold things together.

__________________
Thank you Christ & Veterans for the blood you shed for my freedom! Hope is knowing that Christ will not let failure be your final resutl.

Hey Evertruckerr

First: Great Thread. I look forward to reading your latest post each week. Keep up the great work.

Second: Since you seem to be "somewhat" level headed about a lot of topics, what do you think about Opti-Idle? Does Crete still use this or have the switched to a APU?

Thanks again and drive safe!

__________________
John " E "



“the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”

Jim McKay 1921-2008

I second the "great thread" comment. I've been off work (from Crete) for the entire winter and was planning on starting up again this month. Your past few weeks of entries almost make me want to call Ray down in Marietta on Monday. I take a much more relaxed approach to running my hours - no family, no big mortgage, so I don't need the big miles - but it is good to see you maintaining high miles on a regular basis. I'm hoping the rumor of cutting back the national fleet isn't true - my other preference is the GMIlls fleet, but I'd rather get back to OTR and not have to worry about Chicago so much.
stay safe out there and enjoy.bruceb.