How much experience should you have before doing Intermodal?

From what I've seen, about 15 minutes.

 

Atleast 6 months. Schneider is hiring new students and I'm hearing a lot more accidents is happening

 

Intermodal isn't much different than anything else as far as truckiung goes. The biggest difference is pre-trip inspections and changing out lights on the chassis that carries the box. The chassis are usually junk so myou have to really check everything out well. As far as backing, its much like a truck stop when everyone is piling in for the night...you do what you need to do to get your box in the hole without hitting anything.

 

Wow, that long? I'm flabbergasted!

 

Seems like too much even.

 

Containers have less stability, the suspensions are hard and you really have to slow down in your turns. What is the deal with these raggedy chassis? I've seen better coming out of Mexico.

 

I had 6 mos. exp. when I was hired, 17 yrs ago, they typically require 3 yrs driving with 1 yr local before they will hire, I guess I just looked like a nice guy.

Lately though we are getting bottom feeders. We have a core group of 7 drivers ( 6 co. and 1 O/O) that have all been there at least 6 yrs and one guy that has been there just about a year. They hired 5 drivers last Sept/Oct.. The one we thought would stick around lasted 6 weeks then quit because of a family emergency, the one that has lasted a year we weren't sure about. The other 3 flaked out right away. They hired two guys earlier this year, one quit after two weeks, the other one has been around for 5 months now, older guy, says he's going to retire in 5 yrs, so he hopes to stick it out that long. We are now getting ready for a super busy season (pre-bookings for outbound bean/grain loads will have us working 6 days a week from Oct. till Feb. if this is correct), so they are trying to hire three drivers. They ran an ad, had 40 applicants, 10 couldn't speak English, 4 were dumb as a box of rocks. The rest were so so, they are maybe giving two a shot, but one failed his pre-hire screen, the other supposedly starts next week.

 

I am thinking about taking a job with swift or schneider intermodal here in the atlanta area swift is local and schneider is regional tring to decide which company is best.