Tough Career Decision: Need Exp Trucker Advice

i would take the RR job, you can always come back and drive a truck, i didnt start driving truck until i was 40 yrs old

 

Go for the trucking. That seems to be where your real interest lies; job satisfaction is very important. I recommend tanker/hazmat. Good pay and easy; nothing hard about usually just hooking up a couple of hoses and turning a pump on to unload. I hauled acid border to border/coast to coast & Canada, company driver and made $60K-$65K per year.
Made real good money in reefer hauling also, but not as good as tanker/hazmat.
That's my opinion from my experience.
I'll add, I made that money even with taking a month off every year to spend time in my condo in the Orient; you know, goofing off & stuff, which is difficult with the little wife and her eagle eyes.

 

I notice you're in Buffalo, NY. During my reefer days I hauled many load of Ocean Spray out of there. Usually hauled newsprint(dry load) to some newspaper company in Buffalo then Ocean Spray back out, going to where ever. Best wishes.

 

I always loved trains as a kid. There was a vacant lot near a switching yard in Chicago where my Dad would go to work on his cars.The fellows that ran up and down those tracks would always blow their horns for me . They were going slow and I could feel the ground rumble. as they passed. I always thought working on them would be the best job in the world.

Fast forward @ 20 years and I was hitch-hiking up I 57 when a truck pulled over to give me a lift. As we pulled back on the highway I felt that rumble I had felt as a kid. From the tip of my toes to the top of my head the power just grabbed me. Cool.... A train that steers.

It took me about a year to get the licence and get a job driving trucks. (most of that year was spent beating on doors till someone let me in to drive their truck)

To this day I still get the same rush when I'm going through those gears. I still pass by that interchange where that guy stopped to give me a lift almost 37 years ago. ( I'll pass in later today again)

If someone can feel that, have that passion I always say go for it. You won't be sorry.

To those who want to drive a truck because their "whatever" fell through and someone told them "hey you can always drive a truck". I really wish they'd re-think their options.

 

BNSF has trucks too you know

 

I got a few questions to try and compare the two careers, I'll put a few pros and cons for trucking and then you put up what you know about the RR. Then you will be able to see the differences in the two.

Pros.
See the country, yes you will, but mostly thru a windshield (not too time for sight-seeing)

Freedom for "me " time, yes long days and even longer nights

Pay, The 1st few years 2 to 5 pay will be commensurate with experience (read lower) after you get some time in it will increase as long as you find a good company to work for. You can expect as a company driver to make between 50 k and 65 k depending on the company you work for , the level of experience , and part of the country you're in.
Cons. ( There will be more added by others too! )
Its not an easy life, lots of stress daily...traffic, crazy shippers, unfriendly receivers, weather, etc....
Lots and lots and lots of, did I say lots of waiting

you will have limited choices of where to eat, sleep , park, shower (side bar here..some spots are really nasty)

As you can see there is some thinking to do and maybe some questions you might want to ask some of the O/O out there. Good luck!

 

To the OP...the advice above is the BEST you will ever get....Perfect!

 

Even if you get rid of the apartment and go OTR, its not likely you will stay rent free for more than a few years. Sooner or later you need a place to plant your roots even if you're on the road most of the time. But during the time you're rent free, you will be living out of the truck which means you'll be living out of truck stops. Everything costs more at a truck stop. As far as paying down debt goes, I think you would do much better paying rent and living on a railroad salary than paying no rent but three times as much for everything else (food/clothes/electronics etc) at truck stops on a rookie OTR trucker salary.


As for seeing the country, I think it depends on how you define seeing the country. If being able to say you've been to a city qualifies as having 'seen it' then you might be happy with trucking. I've been to lots of cities and towns where the only things I saw were the highway running through it and the grungy dimly lit loading dock of some shipper or receiver 3 blocks from the highway. That ain't seeing the country in my book but I guess I'm picky.

I don't know what railroad you're trying to hire on to or what the particular deal is there. But I've known a few folks who worked for railroads over the years and for the most part, it seemed like a terrific job once you were there long enough to get an actual schedule. But with the folks I've known and the places they worked, it took many years (about 10 or so IIRC) to get to the point where you had some sort of set schedule. But other than that, it seems like a pretty low impact job with an above average salary. If you can hack the no schedule thing (I couldn't) you should definitely go for the railroad gig. It seems like a much better deal in the long run.

 

What planet do you guys live on where company drivers get paid 50-65k per year by big companies? The only thing I've ever seen out of any of the large company is waffling, excuses, and 38-42k. I got with a small company that actually USES their equipment and it looks like I'll finally hit the 55k mark... the per mile pay is alittle low, but I get paid odometer miles, so if an exit is mismarked or no sign at all and I have to circle back, or I get sent to "the wrong facility" and have to drive 20 miles to another city, I get paid for all of it.