Transporting containers from the Port

The only thing i know is the waiting time stinks and the pay also stinks. I have had some container companys call in the past and what they offered i would rather sit at home.

 

If you like pulling crappy trailers, this job is for you.

 

I pulled containers 210 miles to STL rail for awhile. These were decent trailers but the pay wasn't very good.

Most of what I see on this forum is minimal pay and ragged trailers. Some complain of paying to fix trailer tires and being blamed for trailer damage.

If you are in AZ talking about a port that would mean CA? I can't see making a living doing this with a new enough truck to please the brainless lawmakers in that state.

IMHO, if you're looking for a place to work a beat up truck for almost enough to live on this might be for you.

What exactly are you asking about? What port? Going where?

 

No way in Hello I would pull containers again. No way in hello I would even think of pulling them in your area as that means commiefornia with all their insane idle rules, CARB rules and now what ever it was they did at the ports!

Here is how it was on the East Coast pulling containers. First rule is NEVER go in a port or rail yard with a flat! You WILL buy a new tire. You will buy a new tire if it has a nail in it and is half way flat! NO! You will NOT get the old tire!It's on a different rim but you paid for it because it was "flat!"

The rail yard in Atlanta Ga. (Not the new Austell one. Never been in it and it's only 8 miles from parents old home) I NEVER found a container in the slot they said it was in! Those morons just stuck it somewhere and pulled a number out of their six! And that at union pay!
I had spent several hours just looking for a container at times at the ports.
I have spent hours looking for a chassis that would pass my inspection much less a DOT.
I have been looked at like I was an idiot when I would hand the foreman on the inspection lane a book of things needing to be repaired on a chassis before it could go out the gate.Then get asked if I couldn't find a better one? Thats when they get to see MY look of "you gotta be s******g me!"
Try to get a 20' container legal when it has 80,000+ pounds in it and watch the face of the port controller when you complain about it getting reloaded! You'll never see that shade of purple again in your life!
After spending 3 hours looking for and finding a good chassis, the container and getting the container put on the chassis, getting through inspection and the gate for a 300 mile load and then waiting over night for the receiver to open only to find out it's the wrong warehouse and then driving another 50 miles and finding out they are open 24/7! Your pay will be whatever your cents per mile is for almost 29 hours on this load!
Holding your breath every time you get pulled behind the scales as Mr DOT does his thing hoping you didn't miss anything on that book you handed the inspection foreman!
Containers are for drivers who really don't need money.
Containers are for O/O's or companies that drive POS trucks and could care less.
Containers suck big time and the only ones making any money are the rail roads, d shipping companies and your boss!

 

Do not do it. That's my advice. I'd flip burgers before doing that. At least you might meet a few girls working there. I pulled cans off of Ports and Rail heads for more years than I care to remember. Might as well be a Carny driver. One outfit actually asked me to pull a loaded trailer over the mountain(120 mi) w/ one side of an axle chained up to the frame. How much extra are you going to pay me? Oh the going rate. Hello anybody there? Hello? Bzzzzzzzz.......

 

Well, glad to see your getting excellent advice . Are you planning to do it as an O/O leased to someone or as a company driver? I've been doing this for about 14 yrs as a company driver. As an O/O expect to be paid a percentage or per move (depending on the company). The companies will also vary, some will want you to be a totally independent (your own authority, insurance, etc.) but you will operate under their SCAC code and typically their cargo insurance (that is how mine does it) others will want you to buy your own tractor, carry bobtail insurance, but operate under their authority, SCAC code, etc., etc., etc. Pay will vary based on this. From what I have seen, the companies where you are an independent using the company as a broker (this is how we do it) you will be paid much better than the other route.

In my area, the companies that have drivers who are independent pay about 95% of what they charge the broker, the companies who have fleace drivers typically pay 72% to 78% of what they charge. When we are busy, I've seen our independent drivers pull $4,000 to $5,000 settlement checks for a 5/day week to the truck/company. Flease drivers, I've heard of some doing that, but most, it's about $3,000 to the truck per week.

As for equipment, it can vary greatly from railyard to railyard and port to port. I deal with UPRR, BNSF and a chassis pool daily, all are getting better. UPRR is super strict on tires/repairs, they will try and back charge a driver/company in a heartbeat for blowouts/flats. The UPRR policy (and they change it regularly) at present, if you pull it out of the gate as a flat and don't notate it on your interchange, you'll be buying the tire. If you pull it out flat and notate it on your interchange, and bring it back generally within 24 hrs, they will not charge you for it.

Now, both railroads and the steamship lines have different policies. I'll break it down using the UPRR and Chassis Pool.

If your pulling rail owned equipment, let's say an EMHU box on a UPHZ chassis (UPRR owned box/chassis) and you have a blowout on the highway. You call EBS (Emergency Breakdown Service) and they will dispatch (hopefully, I'll explain later) road service to you. Road Service will fix the blowout, handle the comcheck with EBS, and send you on your way. If your lucky, the UPRR won't ask to see the old carcase and dispute the repair, I'm not going to delve into this one as it would take forever.

If you have a flat, not a blowout, on the road. STOP!!! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, call EBS, they will send road service to you. Now, typically, you will pay for the road side flat repair (if it's repairable, if not well, that's a whole 'nother can of worms), then bill the UPRR and they will sometimes reimburse 75% of the cost of the flat repair. If the tire cannot be repaired, then you and/or road service will need to call EBS back and get authorization to get the tire replaced at the UPRR's expense.

Now, if your pulling a chassis that belongs to a chassis pool (typically this is any chassis that belongs to a steamship line, at present almost all of the steamship lines allow their chassis to be part of the pools setup at most intermodal ramps, in Denver it's DCCP - Denver Container Chassis Pool. Salt Lake, Kansas, Phoenix, etc. all have different pools), the procedure is different.

If you take a pool chassis out the gate with a flat and do not notate the flat on the interchange, you just bought the tire, no if's, and's, or but's about it. If it's notated on the outgate, the pool will replace it, but not on the roadside. If you outgate it flat, notate it on the interchange, and terminate the chassis/container at a depot or the ramp, then the pool will cover the flat.

Now, let's say your on the road, and you get a flat, blowout, or tire that is not road worthy (cap is starting to seperate but still holding air, severly weather checked and unsafe, dry rot and unsafe), before you do anything, you need to call the pool manager. Why? Well, if you want reimbursed, they want to know ahead of time. In all these situations, once the repair is authorized (again this depends on the pool manager, the manager here in Denver is pretty liberal with tire repairs) you get it fixed, pay for it, submit the repair bill to the pool for reimbursement (typically about 30 to 45 days).

As for general repairs on equipment. This is why you do a pre-trip on the chassis. Brakes, air leaks, lights, twist locks, springs, lugs, frame, etc. Both the railroads and pools are pretty standard on this, if it's not roadworthy, DO NOT PULL IT!!! You can bad order equipment, depending on what repairs it needs, they will generally fix it at the ramp/depot before you leave, fix it ASAP or they will flip the container to a roadworthy chassis. Now, this may also depend on the company your working for. In my case, every situation is different. If the load is hot or going on detention at 5pm (this applies on at the railroad), my company will tell me to get it repaired at that time. It is upto the railroad or chassis pool manager (they typically have their office at the railroad) if it gets repaired or flipped. If it's something minor; tire, lights, mudflap they will fix it right then. If it's something major; broken/missing twist lock, spring, frame, electrical (non-light or 7-way), air leak they will have it flipped to a new chassis at that time. If the load is not hot or going in detention, we will generally bad order it and the railroad is supposed to take care of the problem within 8hrs.

Now, if your picking up a container/chassis at a depot, whether loaded or empty, the depot is required to do the repairs per their agreement with the chassis pool. Again, this will vary by depot yard. Some depot have the ability to flip a loaded container to a new chassis, most don't. They all have the ability to flip an empty container to a new chassis, or in some cases simply assign you a new container/chassis.

Intermodal equipment is getting better, but, both the railroads and the steamship lines are still being dragged kicking/screaming into this. Remember, they specialize in trains and ships, not chassis. If you notice, I didn't say anything about the BNSF, they are a whole different animal. They have their own procedures, and it varies by ramp.

Oh, and my comment about hopefully for EBS getting you road service. The EBS service of the railroads has changed names/companies 4 times in the last 10 yrs. Why? Well, because perhaps they are a bit slow to pay, perhaps they have a really really bad reputation for refusing to pay vendors the full amount or any amount if the vendor doesn't jump through every hoop. Example: If you have a blowout, they require the old and new DOT number from the tire, the location of the tire, the chassis and container number. Miss any of those items and good luck getting paid. Hence, a lot of vendors have gone bye-bye. I had a blowout 50 miles N. of Sheridan, Wyo. on I-90 a few years back. I was on the reservation portion of I-90, EBS called for service, no one would come out when they called. Why? because the vendor wanted a secured form of payment (credit card) that they could put a $1,500 deposit on before they would roll (apparently fake calls on the reservation are common and road service guys have been beaten/assualted when they have gone out on these fake calls). EBS doesn't have that option, hence no road service. We had to handle it personally and then submit the bill to EBS for reimbursement.

One final word on tires, unless you carry $1 to 2 million in liability insurance (and I'm not talking about the insurance on your tractor either), do not attempt to change a flat yourself. The railroad will not reimburse you without proof the liability insurance, this is a new policy as of 2 yrs ago.

 

Just like the railroads, the companies are all different in how serious they take things.

 

How long u wait all depends on which port your at and how many other trucks are in front of you its all part of the game unfortunately , if you don't get enough sleep at home this'll be the perfect job for you.

 

From what I've seen the job is the last stop for a lot of tractors. I would see older sleeper cab trucks hauling the ports all day long. I believe they try to get you in and out as fast as they can. The killer was what the state of CA did to the port haulers on the west coast. They had this big port expansion project going on and CARB told the ports they needed to come up with a plan to clean the air asap. The ports had a problem with this because they knew if they didn't come up with a plan the state would shut them down and they had two very large cranes aready underway from overseas. The only plan they could come up with in a hurry was to require the trucks to meet the new truck emission standards. So you had a lot of older trucks and guys that went out of business because they just could afford the modification to the truck. So now you have trucks that are either new or modified and the company paying their drivers nothing.