The Luckey Log

I am starting this thread to document my experience with Luckey Trucking out of Streator, IL. My first day is tomorrow (5/19/11).

A little about Luckey. They are a small (125 drivers) company that has been around about 40 years or so. They have 3 divisions. Dry Van, Tanker (hauling primarily acids), and Dry Bulk (primarily plastics). The Dry van (where I'm starting) division has about 75 drivers. They run mostly in the Midwest (IA, IL, IN, OH, KY, WI) but also have runs into Minneapolis, Dallas, and Atlanta. They haul for the same group of customers. The way the owner explained it to me (I only have interviewed with the owner and his son--no recruiters here) they operate on an "out and back" philosophy. They will route you out to your first destination and the subsequent load will be heading back home. They don't do the IL to Atlanta then to Dallas then to St. Louis then home routine. This assures that their guys are home every weekend. You may make 2-3 "out and back" runs in a week.

The tanker and dry bulk guys are home almost every night, but sometimes may be out for a couple of days, but it is rare. Ability to move into the tanker/dry bulk division is based upon performance in the dry van division.

Openings with the company are somewhat rare. The average tenure of their drivers is 8 years. They did indicate that the bottom 5% or so of driver to seem to rotate out, but even those guys are going a year or more before moving on. You actually have to fill out a paper application and speak to the owner or his son before even being considered for employment. They advertise very little and use existing drivers and referrals from the College driving instructors. (They called my instructor immediately upon receiving my app to discuss my progress in school). When you report for your first day, you have already been investigated and are actually reporting as an employee. None of this week long orientation hoping to actually have a job when you are done.

Not trying to toot my own horn by discussing these points, but I have often read here that the best companies don't advertise, and I can now understand why. I knew of the company, of course, but until I decided to pursue a driving career and starting checking into them, everything I discovered led me to believe this is the place I wanted to be.

I am reporting to morrow for 2 days at HQ for paperwork and and some safety training and other misc. training items. I will be going out Monday for 1-2 weeks with a TE. After the first week if both I and the TE feel I am ready to go then I will start the next week in my own truck. If either of us feel it is needed, we will go out together for a second week. I will be meeting my TE either tomorrow or Friday. I am both excited and nervous to actually be starting this new career. I will regularly update this thread as I progress through training .

Let's get this show on the road....................

 

As far as I know, they only hire from the Streator/Bloomington/Ottawa area because they route their truck back this was after each load.

 

Day one in the books. Pretty uneventful. Peed in cup again. No new physical, they were fine with my DOT physical from early April. Watched several safety videos. Met the dispatchers (5 of them) and shop manager. Went over what the company supplies in the trucks. They provide 2 replacement headlights and 2 of every other type of light on the truck. Guess this is the newb in me, but I knew most companies would pay for replacement items like that, but I thought is kinda nice that they give you a tool box with all those items in there so you don't have to go looking in an unfamiliar area.

I also met our safety director. It is only his second week there. (Their previous Safety Director passed away) He is a former DOT officer, so should be well versed in the regs. Seemed like a straight up good guy if first impressions count for anything.

Was informed that I will be meeting my TE tomorrow and we will know then where we will be dispatched on the first run next week. He is a 15 year driver with the company. He even has a sheet made up for his trainees that they give out that welcomes you to the company and talks about suggested items to bring. While most of the items are common sense, I thought it was a nice touch.

Everyone I have met so far has been friendly and welcoming. Seems like a real "family" type of atmosphere but yet very professional at the same time. You oftentimes get one or the other, but not always both with smaller companies (in any industry).

Will update after day 2 and I should know where we will be off to on Sunday night/Monday.

 

Day 2 over. Watched 1 more video (HAZMAT) that wasn't working yesterday. Had me go out to the yard grab a tractor and hook to a trailer. Practiced backing for an hour or so. Came back in and met with the log book lady. She showed me the software they used to scan and "read" the log pages. She also showed me the report they used to discover the drivers who are goofing up on the log. Definitely a report to avoid being on. Although they said that they do not track it to "yell" at people, only to help people avoid mistakes and avoid audit problems. It was a pretty neat program to see in action.

My TE actually got in Thursday night, so he was not there this morning. I did talk to him on the phone and he seemed very accommodating and I look forward to meeting him. He informed me that we will be meeting at the terminal on Sunday at noon as we have a load to be delivered to Fredonia, NY on Monday morning. We already have a back haul set up for after we deliver this load so starting off with a nice 1100+ mile round trip.

Well, going out tonight to pick up a few last minute items for the kickoff on Sunday. I will update again Sunday night after the days driving is done, assuming I don't crash into anything...........

 

Made it to Fredonia around 0100. Drove all 576 miles. Only had 1 spell of heavy rain for about 30 miles, other than that it was smooth sailing the entire way.

Dropped the trailer(36000 lbs of Peanut Butter) in a dock first thing this morning, hooked up to an MT and headed down the road about 4 miles to Dunkirk to pick up a backhaul going back to Streator. Get to the shipper, check in and give them the load#, and find out that that load was already picked up last Thursday.....OOPS.......

Place a call to dispatch to figure out what's up and here we sit in Dunkirk...........

For those that are curious, we are in an '09 KW T660 w/ a 475hp Cat engine and 462k miles. This truck sure shifts a lot easier than the Volvo I drove during school(Probably from lack of abuse

Will update again once we have made our escape from Dunkirk.