Lepton1's transition from door swinger to flatbed

After a full week of running solo I've only done 4 local loads. One pallet of dry sacks (non Hazmat) on pallets; a couple of mixed loads with subs, pipe, and boxes of tools; and a standard load of casing.

The problem is that each of these loads took less than a day to deliver and deadhead back to the terminal. In each instance I had at least a 34 hour reset between runs.

The good news is that I'm "home" at my brother's apartment each night, the bad news is that my total income for last week was less than $500. This is like training pay at Swift. I told my brother last night that unless things pick up soon I'll need to consider alternatives to keep cutting my teeth on flatbed with an eye toward my end goal to get into heavy haul.

Today I got dispatched on a load paying 55% of the total income I had last week, picking up at a rig south of OKC to make delivery to a warehouse in Texas tomorrow morning. The first time I've been out of Oklahoma. The trick will be whether I can get a back haul to OKC or get a load off the load board. I'm sick and tired of waiting a day between loads.

I was reading an article last night about oil prices, predicting they will get above $70 a barrel soon. This seems to be the benchmark that will trigger more rigs into action. I hope so. Seems like Saudi Arabia declined to get into a long term contract with China, which will drive up the cost of oil.

Weather in Oklahoma and Texas has been miserable. Many nights my brother and I are alerted with tornado apps that we need to seek shelter, with heavy thunderstorms but so far no tornados. We've been lucky living just west of OKC itself. Seems like most of the bad weather takes a line at or just east of OKC and to the southeast.

I finally finished reorganizing the trailer side boxes today, getting all the straps and related tools to the passenger side box. This will speed up my loading and unloading, as I like to throw all straps to winch on the driver's side. It's easier to check my load in the driver's side mirror, and the painter's stick with the roller for easily doing belly wraps stows easily on the passenger's side as well. Today I was able to load and strap down a load of casing within 30 minutes and I know this will be quicker after making the changes this afternoon.

I love this job and hope it pans out financially. The challenges are fun. Two days ago I was navigating off the Oklahoma atlas and my brother's Rand McNally and Google Satellite view. The only way to the rig required running through 20" of water over a paved 2 lane road, then making a 120º turn onto a MUDDY dirt road and getting enough momentum to keep my trailer tandems from getting stuck in a ditch/bog while speeding up to make it up a slippery hill that had to be at least a 20% grade. Fun stuff! Nothing at all like the challenges of being a door swinger.

Methinks my time in the past off roading in a 4-wheeler, being at the helm of a sailboat, and skiing have given me a sense of what is possible with this rig in dicey situations. Haven't yet engaged the inter axle lock, just relied on my feel on the throttle, soft hands on the wheel, and downshifting two or more gears at a time as needed. It's a fine line when running up a hill at speed to make a hairpin corner to a rig platform with a narrow entry over a cattle guard with a max heavy load. I wouldn't have it any other way for now.

 

Yesterday early morning I delivered my load in New Boston, TX. Per the owner of the truck I tried getting a back haul from the pipe company, but they had NOTHING on their board for the day. Then I tried the DAT load board app. Best available load was tarped lumber to Tulsa for $450. I called OKC dispatch, and they said they were low on big trucks. I decided to deadhead back to OKC.

An hour before I arrived I got a dispatch picking up early this morning in Enid, OK and delivering to a rig in Mentone, TX tomorrow morning. I stopped yesterday afternoon at the TA in OKC to grab a shower and ran up here to Enid.

This is a multi truck load, and I know some other drivers already have backhauls or dispatches. Hopefully this trend will continue. Talk at this little truck stop has a rumor that over a hundred rigs are getting ready to go back into operation.

Rearranging the side boxes sure made a difference. Having all my straps stowed on the throw side makes it much easier and faster. Now to transfer some winches to the winch side from the throw side will help on the complicated loads.

 

This last week was much much better than the first week of solo driving. I haven't finished calculating, but I think I made about $450 the first week with four half day runs out of OKC with 34 hour resets between each one.

This week I started with a run to just west of Texarkana, tried to get a backhaul or a load off the load board, but decided to deadhead back to OKC as they were low on big rigs. Then I snagged a load from Enid, OK to Mentone, TX with good dollars.

As I got underway to Enid I ran through a ferocious thunderstorm with hail in both Lawton, OK and especially again just east of Seymour, TX. Near Seymour I was seriously thinking of turning around and going all the way back to Wichita Falls and parked the rig. I was getting rocked by a broadside north wind with hail coming down. Even with a heavy, short load of drill pipe I was getting tossed around. After checking the MyRadar app I decided to push through the supercell and came out to light rain in about 10 miles.

Then I got a text message saying the rig in Mentone was flooded and I should meet up with six other ACME trucks in Orla the next morning. I did that, was fifth in line for unloading at a drop yard out in the middle of nowhere. When they had unloaded the second tier of pipe the company man came up and said I had the wrong size pipe!!!??? Called dispatch and apparently my load was confused with another rig and I now had to get back to the rig in Mentone. Made it there at 1:30 in the afternoon for a load that should have delivered at 7:00 am SHARP. The company man was none too happy about having to call his forklift driver back to the rig.

Finally got offloaded and started calling the Odessa office to see if they had any loads available. Forget the DAT board stuff and there was no way I was deadheading back to OKC. I'm out here to make money. Got a call back from the Odessa dispatcher to work today (Saturday) on a field move with three other trucks, moving drill pipe from a rig in Orla to the same yard I was at yesterday.

I got to the rig in Orla this morning 15 minutes early after spending the night in Pecos. This turned out to be a nice paycheck for the day to take two 14 mile round trips to the pipe yard. As I'm sitting there waiting my turn to load my truck was rocked with a "BOOM!". Turns out three holding tanks three miles north went up in flames. Nobody was injured or killed, thank God. Had to pass the fire going to and from the pipe yard. For a while it seemed they were getting the fire under control, but on my last pass of the day it was starting up again.

After finishing the day's work I told the same Odessa dispatcher I was ready to haul anything he needed, and said I was heading to Odessa to get to a truck stop and a shower. Before I got to the 320 he called back and asked if I wanted a load to Houston. "You bet!" He gave me the address to pick up some sucker rod in Odessa this afternoon.

Got loaded in Odessa and made it to the Big Springs TA for a nice shower and dinner in the truck. The owner has a microwave and a refrigerator with a 1500 watt inverter, so life is good.

Lessons from this week:

1. With ACME different terminals can be very helpful getting loads. Don't just rely on the DAT board or deadhead back to OKC with no pay.

2. I think the dispatchers are figuring out I like to run and don't need to get back home to momma (she's still in CA anyway). I might have another load stacked on me from Houston to Midland on Monday.

Here are a couple of pics of the holding tanks going up in flames.

 

My first week running solo my paycheck was less than $400, what with the heavy rains and half day hauls to local rigs out of OKC. This second week my gross is almost $1400, which gives me a much better attitude to say the least.

On the way to make delivery in the Houston area (Magnolia) for the first time I was stacked with a load picking up in Houston and delivering in Odessa. Nice to be able to plan my schedule. Delivery and pickup in the Houston area went smoothly, and I just made delivery in Odessa with 11.5 hours left on my 70 and no recap hours coming back tonight.

I'm sitting here waiting to see if I can get a load from ACME headed either back to OKC or in the general direction. I hate the concept of running deadhead miles, although it seems that most of the OKC drivers prefer to run back to OKC deadhead if they make a delivery in Odessa.

Lessons learned:

1. Different regions/terminals have different rates. Odessa has some of the highest rates, and OKC has some of the lowest. Therefore whenever I'm in the Odessa area I'm calling the terminal to see if I can "run and gun" on their rates. Forget deadheading out of the most lucrative area to get back to a low rate area. The issue I see with many of the OKC drivers is their need to get home frequently, which means they are burning miles and hours without pay.

2. Trailer organization - I need to get some of the winches off the passenger side over to the driver's side to finish out my winch and strap setup for most efficiency. I haven't had to chain a load yet, and need to break out the binders and make sure they are greased. The passenger side side box has a serious leak, I'll need to seal that to keep the straps dry.

3. Strap stowage and management - I've noticed a lot of the pipe haulers keep their straps wound on the winches, degrading in the sun. I prefer to wind and stow my straps in the box. During the field move in Orla it seemed they could strap a load faster than I could, since they simply unwound and threw the hook over the top, but they are much slower than I am winding the straps back on the winches while I use my speed winder to button up on delivery.

4. I'll need to open up the tarps and make sure they are folded to my preference. Haven't had to tarp yet, that seems to be a very rare occurrence with ACME loads, but it won't hurt to make sure what I've got.

 

The owner of my truck is really on top of keeping it maintained. After chewing up a trailer tire when the winches crept back above the rear axle and chewed up the tire on the washboard roads he opted to replace all 8 trailer tires with new tires and kept one for a spare.

I finished by 34 hour reset early yesterday, and then got a load picking up early this morning that only went 60 miles for about $630 billed. The catch was that I'd have to sit on the load for a day. I got to the pickup early, first in the morning. It was a huge yard and we had four ACME trucks for this load to a rig. I was sitting first in line, but when the pickup driver came through to signal that the ACME drivers needed to follow him the other three ACME drivers jumped my position and I was last to load...

... but as the third driver got loaded the foreman of the loading crew came over and said they were out of pipe and there wasn't any load for me!?

Called dispatch and they said I could bill $430 for "No Truck Needed" and put me first on the load board. That works out to about $75 for my time, and I went back to my brother's apartment to wait for a load.

Then I got a call saying I needed to be at a shipper within an hour, for a load headed to PA that also had a backhaul to OKC. Total billing is about $6400 for the round trip, which I can do in three days and bring in about $1200 to my gross pay. As my brother said, I shouldn't gloat about this windfall, as the cards my fall differently in the future.

I'm still trying to figure out how the loads are paid out TTT and to the "company" driver. According to the way I calculated it on an Excel spreadsheet, my paycheck should have been well less than $500 for my first solo week, but it turned out to be about $515 gross.

Next week my gross should be about $1300. If things go smoothly with this PA round trip the week after that should be quite a bit more. Sometimes it is the luck of the draw. On the other hand I think I might have some advantages here because I've spent two years running OTR and not seeing my beautiful wife for 4-6 weeks at a time, so I'm not hesitant about staying away from OKC for a week or so.

My wife gave me a boost earlier this week. She said I should take my time to figure out if ACME is the right position before she commits to moving from LA area. That gives me some more time to lay some money aside. If this is the right move for me, which I think it very well may be, then I'll take a half a week off to fly back to LA, then drive with my wife back to OKC. That will require I find my own apartment or house to rent, and rent seems to be VERY cheap based on what I'm used to in LA or Seattle.

 

I should add that it is REFRESHING to be on loose leaf paper logs and an ungoverned truck. No "nanny" whining about my HOS. Just me figuring out when I'm tired and need to take a rest. I had a bit of a brain fart today, trying to figure out when I could make delivery in PA. I'm so used to figuring times on a 62 mph truck with "nanny logs" I know I'm going to beat my estimate of my ETA by about 16-18 hours....

 

Entering a month of working at ACME now. The last couple of weeks I've had fairly good luck with the "draw" of being "on the board". With the ACME system you declare you are ready for a load and you are "on the board". Whatever load comes up when you are #1 is your load. You can turn it down, but it is not encouraged. I've never turned down a load and don't plan on doing so, but time will tell.

So far I've seen paychecks with take home of $400 and $1600. Tomorrow should be in the $1000 range, as well as the week after. The big paycheck was because some loads made it in before the deadline early, pushing some of the loads from the 3rd paycheck into the 2nd paycheck.

I just finished rearranging my winches, so the majority are on the driver's side. This should make it easier for me to secure loads, as I've stowed all my straps in the passenger side box. I'd rather throw all or the great majority of straps from one side, making it more efficient.

I've observed other ACME drivers and flatbedders with other companies at various job sites, watching how they manage their straps and securement. I'm not a big fan of keeping my straps wound on the winches. It degrades the straps and then you end up throwing the hooks and makes belly wraps a real chore. I think I'm now one of the more efficient drivers getting loads secured and unsecured, and my confidence in being able to handle any load thrown my way is increasing.

While the majority of loads are either pipes, motors, or other long pieces; many of our loads feature a real mix of items. Tool boxes, FRAC pumps, loose subs, liquid totes, or paper bags of dry chemicals.

This is certainly a fun job. Every load is like having a baby. Every delivery is like walking your daughter down the aisle.

 

I'm not sure what thread it was in, perhaps in the Beginners section or Experienced drivers section, discussing when a driver should make the decision to park it because conditions are too difficult or dangerous weather wise. I remember an old hand saying something like, "if you drove what we drive every day it would melt your mind".

That quote was an inspiration to me last weekend when I was making a delivery to a rig just north of Laredo in the middle of the night during a flash flood event. When I got off the paved road I had 10 miles to the rig. The first half mile was "dry", then I had to ford a quarter mile that was a pond about 12-18" deep.

There was a truck parked just on the other side of that quarter mile section of water. I thought he was parked, considering whether he should cross that section or not. I stopped and talked with him. He was broke down, waiting for someone to come with parts.

Then he said that the next 9.5 miles were MUCH MUCH worse. "Uh oh!"

Some pickups came by shortly after that and one guy turned out to be the directional tools guy, "Hey! Those are my tools! It's really bad up ahead, just make sure you stay in the middle of the road, because it's really soft on the sides!" Then he went on ahead, leaving a wake.

It took almost two hours to cover 10 miles. At times I stopped and used a hand held spot light to see which way to go, there were options at some points. Either go through 3-4 feet of water on one side or go up and over dicey little bridges barely wide enough for the truck.

I made the delivery and the rain let up, so I decided to try to get back to the main road. On the way out most of the flash flood was gone, except for one 30' wide stream that wasn't so bad on the way in, but now it was a RUSHING river. I gunned it down the slope and my headlights submerged, blowing out my high beams.

My mind was surely melted that night.