Tanker - drivers loading / unloading responsibilities

Why does every tanker yanker say that...

 

We get paid for everything and our CPM's are significantly higher. No money and/or no life in trucking is a myth if you know where to look. I'll never pull anything but a tank again.

 

I do food grade (sweetners) and there is a lot of driver involvement if the customer doesn't have their own pump. All places have different rules...pretty much cut the seals, pop the lid, hook up your hydraulic hoses and the hose from your tank to theirs...then open the plunger and start your pump.

The time depends on a lot of factors...thickness of product, if you have the tank at a good angle, your pumps performance. Can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 11/2 hours. I go to a customer that uses their pump and it takes 24 minutes...but getting the sample cleared takes 30.

Loading is easy and done by the shipper...takes 30-45 minutes.

All shippers and receivers are different...some don't give a crap...just do it and some have all sorts of rules which make it take longer.

I like it...keeps me active...gotta stay on top of your equipment as well which I like doing.

 

5 more months of this OTR which isn't bad at all and really do like... but I'm not home to start having kids and I spent 11yrs gone in the military came back set roots down and bam jobs dry up back on the road literally. Jus waiting to find this even if I start just pulling fuel and can get into chemical after a few yrs I'm fine with that. Cause it'll be totally worth it.

 

I've loaded myself twice in my career. Both times at SafetyClean, freaking hate that place. Unloading is usually done by the customer, if I had to put a number on it I would say I do it 20% of the time. In a year here at Trimac I've done one pump off but I'm on a load now that will be number 2. Unloading varies from product to product and customer to customer.

Generally you get there and determine if it's pump or air. Pump for all flammable unless the plant has nitrogen. Also, some products have to be pumped for a variety of reason. It's rare but some customers prefer pump for just regular products. Once you figure that out you just get the hoses and fittings you need. Hook up, air up if using that and open the valves then pull out your phone and play on the forum till the hose jumps, lol.

There is more to it, especially when air unloading into a tank that will be close to full, bottom feeding tanks, thick products etc. If you want specifics then I could try and explain it.

 

Hauling milk, each dairy is a little different and then it all depends on what type of tanker you are pulling. There are two types of milk tankers, transport and farm pick-up. A transport does not have any hoses or pump so basically if you do anything, it is only hooking up the hose at the dairy, but most dairies do it themselves.

On the farm pick-up tankers, you will wash and sanitize the hoses and pump. The pump will need to be taken apart and then after you are through cleaning it, you will put it back together again(piece of cake). All this can be done within 10 to 15 minutes. Companies around here don't pay for this, they claim it is included in the trip pay.(bull)

 

Chemical/Foodgrade here, 98% of the product we haul is from our plants so our plant employees load it. I may load 1 in 20 but, have never loaded at the few places we pick up at. As far as unloading, we unload almost everything and I can only think of one active customer we have at the moment that unloads for us.

All our trucks have pumps and blowers. We do a lot of solvents and such at my plant so we pump off most of the time which sucks simply because it involves more hoses and my pump is getting a little long in the tooth. We also do some food grade which is always air off and our branch across town does a lot of corrosives which is also almost always air off simply because we don't have many stainless pumps. Unloading is no sweat, you'll get used to it.

We get two hours to unload. Sometimes it takes 3 hours, sometimes it takes 30 minutes. Time all depends on product, how your unloading it and how far it is going.