Scully - Ever Hit It?

Scully, LOL Yea, try blowing it out the top of trailer. 600gpm wrong compartment, delayed scully equals volcano of gas out the top. That was years ago, and didn't get locked out. Now days tend to stay off them but still happens. Maxing out most compartments on the trailer, loading 8800 gals on a 9200 gal trailer, I max out at least 2 out of 4 compartments sometimes 3 depending on what the load gets

 

There is one company that I know of that uses the theory of maxing out a compartment. Let's say a 3000 gallon compartment, certain racks have it programed to only let 2990 in a 3000 gal. so this certain company's "business plan" involves getting drivers to load to the max out........... not much room for error.................and yes well over legal 80,000 lb sure if your paid by the load or gallons..............

 

Pulled liquid and dry tankers for years, and loved it. Sure beats folding tarps at 95 in the shade or -5 F, although I did that as well. Tankers are very often self load and unload, so broken forklifts and lazy whiny dock & yard folk not often in the way of commerce.


2 very important rules for tankers, especially haz mat tankers, as applicable to all types of trucking:

1. Don't f' up
2. See rule one

 

Not enjoyable when you hit the overfill sensor. Had it happen once, but the terminal operator was working on the meter, and I was the guinea pig after he put it back together for a test run. Turned out the meter wasn't recording the correct amount, and it hit the overfill about 1500 liters before the pre-set.

Even though it wasn't my fault, I still had to explain the situation to the manager and he had to verify with the ops guy standing beside me. Not much fun pail draining 200 liters.

If dispatch orders that I load up to the compartment max, I always load a little bit less, just to be safe.

 

just hit it a few days ago, loaded 11,111 litres in a compartment with the capacity of 10,500. i usually double-triple check everything, but for some reason i didn't on that compartment. dispatch screwed up the compartment sizes and wanted me to load 12500 in that compartment, but ultimately it was my fault for not checking the compartment capacity.

thought it was a scully problem and sent him on his way to the shop, came back 6 hours later to be offloaded and boy oh boy i felt like a retard when my boss pointed out what i did.

 

Scully from X Files? Hell yes I would!!!

 

I hit the scully a few times. Usually it was either I left too much retain, or the wet sensor was set up too low. The racks I worked out of didnt really care much. If it was happening every day, then yea your probably getting locked out. But if you scullied out once in a blue moon, you just call the operator and have them check the blend.

 

I did it the first week I was solo. Got my arms crossed and confused. Luckily it was after hours and I was at a rack where you could "fix it." I hadn't loaded a couple of other compartments yet, so another driver showed me how you could connect a hose between the two compartments allowing the overfill to drain into the empty compartment. Once it drained it out below the sensor, I was not scullied out anymore. And luckily I was loading all the same product NE10. Without fixing it, the alarm sensor wouldn't have allowed me to load any more, and I would have had to call an operator at the rack to come out and reset it.

It was a little messy, and the math was a little difficult figuring out in order to get as close to 8500 gallons as possible for the total, but basically went off without a hitch. I'm glad the experienced driver was there to show me how to do this, and also that it was this particular rack. The two other racks in town would have resulted in a lockout for a couple of weeks or more and I would have been disciplined by my company.

 

It was a different world when I started
It used to be very common to bump a probe and just bucket off enough to get a green light and go back to loading the other compartments but these days with over fills causing unsafe conditions and epa reporting and transmix restrictions I haven’t hit a probe in years

 

I know a guy that tried to fill up a hose to do that. He got caught and ended up getting locked out for life.

In the Seattle area the Conoco racks shut down completely if anyone gets a red light. The guy in the next lane steps on the cable and gets a red light.... entire rack shuts down and you wait for the operator to reset the alarms. They have signs telling you to card out before removing the scully cables.