Moneycat, I just found out today I will not be at school until Feb 4. They are going to send me to another terminal for a week to work with a different trainer.

Monday was a real long day. We started at 5 AM and didn't finish up until 7 PM. All local work picking up and spotting trailers within a 30 mile radius of the terminal. We finished up the day loading a trailer that was to be delivered today at 8:00 AM about 75 miles away.

We started at 6:15 AM today and got ourselves in a bit of a mess. Our directions from dispatch were wrong. They told us to turn left at the first stoplight once we got to the town where the plant was. Problem was they added a stop light. You could not read the street sign as it was on the opposite side of the road. I turned down this road and drove about a mile. By the time we realized we were on the wrong road we were too far down it to back out easily. It was a dead end and we were hoping for an intersection that we could get turned around in. We stopped a car on the way out and asked them if there was a turnaround at the end of the road. They told us yes so we continued on. Then the road turned into a dirt road and we were afraid to go down it loaded with 44,000 lbs. I surrendered the drivers seat and my trainer began backing out. As we went by this one house after backing about 100 yards with our beeper going off a man came out and told us he would open his gate and let us use his road to get turned around. It took some work but we got turned around and actually made our delivery appointment. In talking to the guy he told me that they get several tankers a month down that road and that several had gotten stuck trying to turn around farther down. One rolled over and a tow truck driver died in an accident pulling one out. Real nice guy. This experience convinced me to buy one of those $150 gps units once I get out on my own. Even if they don't route you for trucks they will at least give you the street names before you turn and would have prevented todays mishap.

Waited 3 hours to unload. Got back to the yard about 2:30 PM and they cut us loose early for the day.

Wednesday was all local work. We dropped and hooked about 7 trailers total spotting empties and bringing loaded ones back to the yard. Good practice.

Today we did nothing but pump waste water into 2 tankers and spot them on the yard. It takes over 3 hours to fill one because you have to add acid to lower the ph so the disposal company will not refuse them.

I also found out the vacation pay I got last week was a mistake. They are taking it out of this weeks check. Sort of sucks to get it then have it taken away. I just wanted the record to be right. Student trainees do not get vacation pay.

haha, I just found out on friday the school was full and was also setup for 4th. I'll be driving there since its only about 375 miles from me. I just did a week of dry bulk training in B'more at Grace davison plant. that dry bulk stuff is sure is a hassle, watching the gauges, tapping the hoppers, loud blower

Look forward to meeting you at the school Moneycat. We have a few bulk trailers on the yard but I haven't pulled one of those yet.

Friday was an easy day. All we did was load 2 trailers of transformer oil and spot them on our yard for other drivers to deliver this weekend. The company that loads them is about 20 miles away. Its easy work. All you do is pull on the scale straight line back into the hole. Pull back on the scale and off you go. Takes about 1 hour to load the oil and the company does all of it. Started at 8 and got off for the weekend at 2:30PM.

Seems like Superior is hiring a lot of drivers lately. I read several message boards and lots of people are posting that they are coming on board. One guy that drives for crete posted a spreadsheet where he made 65K last year (only 53 days home) is joining up. Another experienced driver is starting with my trainer on the 21st.

They tell me I probably will have about 3 more weeks with the trainer after the school. That will put the training period at close to 3 months but it was during the holidays. A little longer than most but I am starting from scratch and want to be well trained. So far so good. I have improved tremendously.

Hey, I'd recommend the garmin gps. I've used it (nuvi 350) when I was doing city deliveries in DC, baltimore, va beach area. It can say street names ahead of time. You can zoom out and see roads miles around you, so you'll know where to jump off at or continue. Also, if the gps routes to a road you don't want to go just keep driving and it recalculates new directions within seconds. I'd had it for 10months now.

I bought my wife a Garmin 330c from Walmart for Christmas for $135. She works for Hospice and needed it to find patients houses. Works great.

I have both Delorme and MS streets and trips on my laptop so I just bought a little usb gps antenna for $30 to try that out before buying a stand alone unit. I like the idea of a 15 inch screen

Jan 14-18 5th week

Had a good week. I am really getting a grasp of the paperwork involved in doing the job. There seen to be little differences between companies that we deal with. Some of it is the same every time but every once in a while something will be a bit different.

This week was a lot of local work with one 350 mile trip up to Riverview Va thrown in. It was good to get up into the mountains loaded again this time on a 2 lane road. I commented to my instructor this week that its like trying to learn how to drive the truck 3 different ways. The truck reacts differently bobtail, empty trailer and loaded trailer. It changes shift timing and how fast or slow you have to come off the clutch to stay smooth. With a smooth bore tank different product reacts differently so every load drives differently. Its one of the challenges in driving tankers that aren't dedicated to one product. I also feel like my backing is improving. I was able to get the truck into every loading and unloading hole that I was asked to do.

Naxt week will present new challenges and i will begin working with a new trainer for a couple of weeks. I leave Monday to go to Kingsport Tenn. I will drive with a trainer out of that terminal for the next 2 weeks. Have to be there at 10:00 AM Monday and will be off by noon Friday so i can get back for a terminal safety meeting on Friday. They are putting me up in a hotel at company expense for the next 3 weeks. I still will get to come home on the weekends. The third week will be the company training school.

I am looking forward to working with a different trainer for a couple of weeks. I am not implying that there is something wrong with the guy I have been with for the last 5 weeks. He has been excellent. Its just always good to get input in a different way. No 2 teachers communicate the same way.

Hopefully the hotel will have free wifi. If not it may be a few weeks before I can update this thread

Monday 1/21

Left around 6:30 AM Monday and drove up to Kingsport. Got here around 10:00 AM and found out my trainer had a doctors appointment so I just hung out in the drivers lounge until he got there around 11:30. This terminal is much bigger than High Point so I got to meet a bunch of drivers. I really like the guy i am training with up here. His truck only has 136K miles on it so it drives a lot different from the one in High Point. Biggest difference is how quiet it is. I was used to listening for the engine rev on the upshifts. Also this trainer teaches slip shifting. He only wants me to use the clutch when I take it out of gear not going in. It really did make shifting easier and smoother. We went over to a paper mill and air unloaded some yellow liquid that literally smells like ####. That afternoon they didn't have a load for us so we went into a conference room and went line for line over travel orders and how to fill them out. I had been doing them for a few weeks so I already knew most of it. It was nice to know why things were done a certain way and the conference room was more conducive to type of learning than a truck cab is. That afternoon we just sort of hung out and talked to other drivers for the last couple of hours of the day.

Tuesday 1/22

Got there at 8:00 and we went over to Eastman. This is one of the largest chemical plants in the country. Its huge. Watched a safety video, got carded in then we loaded some ammonium hydroxide. Nasty stuff. This plant does all the work for you. You pull in the gate and immediately go to a bay where they check you trailer. Then you go to the scales. After that they send you to a loading bay and they load you. Then back to the scales. Before you can leave you have to go back into the bay and they check the trailer again before you leave. Nice people throughout and very professional. Really active surge with this product. Mt trainer told me he has had experienced drivers that had always pulled vans quit after pulling this product back to the yard.

Drove the tank back to the yard and dropped it. Went to lunch then they sent us bobtail back to Eastman to pick up a 5 compartment tank and load the last compartment. This one was in a real tight part of the plant so my trainer drove while we were between the scales and backed it into the bay. Drove it back to the yard and dropped it.

Then we went and picked up the "training trailer" from a welding shop that was repairing it. Its a 3 compartment tank with a section cut out of the back and a plexiglass window installed. We filled one compartment up with water. My trainer is teaching at the school tomorrow so I guess I will see this part twice. They are going to air off the water to the other tank on the trailer then pump it back to the first one. They have some special clear hoses. Should be interesting.

All in all this has been an easy week so far. Starting at 8 done by 5 and staying in a nice hotel 5 minutes from the yard. Sure beats dropping and hooking 9 trailers a day in Greensboro.

Sounds like you have hooked on with a real good company. Safety conscious but kind of laid back as well. Keep up the great posts.

Wysrob: Thanks for your detailed updates. Does Superior still hire and train students right out of driving school? I went to their website and under "qualifications" it states that they only hire experienced drivers. Thanks.