Swift Flatbed Training question

Good to know. I'll certainly ask. Main goal is to stay on road for 2-3 years bank $$ and buy/build house. Then do more home time. What's the pay like on those runs? $1k a week? Seems like those consistent miles would give you that

 

I was grossing ~1300$ per week in the triangle making 47cpm (base+platinum). If you get stuck out west like I did for home time, pay goes down quite a bit, sometimes under 1k.

 

What about a person living around Dallas? I didn't even know Swift ran skateboards until I met a husband and wife team at the local Walmart in Corsicana. They were cool af, but said they only did about 2500 miles a week and were only running like 8-9 hour days. Had a couple of USPS vans on their flat, multi drop. Said they were getting a .51cpm split.

I give zero ####s about home time. Far as I am concerned, my new home will be that truck and just keep moving until dispatch of safety tell me to take a day before I lose my sanity.

I was more or less approved for training here in town at the school, but it seems like dry van is what they put you in by default... Should I be making contact with the guys in the cost division now before ever obtaining my cdl, or when should I be going about doing that?

I have a potential offer more money pulling reefer for a smaller company, which has a lot of positives other than the fact that I really want to be running skateboards. Please advise

What kind of miles can one hope to get if they are willing to go balls to the wall and take everything dispatch throws at them?

 

The triangle is like 2500 miles/week and you'll see Laredo every week if you get lucky enough to stay on it. So you could get a pass-through at the house way more often than you planned but your home terminal would have to be Laredo so 7 hours away from the house.
You could see more miles, pretty much all the freight in the triangle can be delivered early unless you have a crane appointment with bus chassis.
Especially coils to Laredo. They're all t-called so get it there a day early and you'll get loaded a day early with vans heading back out, vans can take you anywhere though so if you're gonna fall off the triangle that's normally how it happens.

 

Is there any opportunity for more miles in there as a flat bed driver at Swift? I'd love to have some 3k+ weeks. Don't mind working my ### off for them either. In fact, I need them lol.

 

Deliver early and load early and it'll happen. You'll make a real good wage on the sprinter vans if you can get a step deck w/ ramps in Laredo.
I think it's like $25?? for every van you unload yourself. 3 vans per load. Multiple stop pay on top of that. @plant might remember the numbers more accurately but I think that's close.

 

If they are only running 2500 especially as a team then that is by choice or dispatch doesn't trust them. I was always pushing my HOS to the max and that's with only logging 5 minutes for all on duty activity including loading/unloading. They never said anything about it. I ran the wheels off my truck for sure. The miles are there if you can handle it but it does take time to build trust with dispatch and the planners. I had the personal cell phone #s of my dispatcher and planner, not many swift drivers can say that.

Dallas is definitely a hot area for flatbed and there are a few dedicated FB accounts out there too. Delta steel which I ran for a couple weeks filling in for a guy on vacation, that's a good account. Also Lowes and Home Depot. Then there's always OTR flatbed of course. If you want to do flatbed and haven't talked to anyone about it, I would call the flatbed division. I posted the phone number and people to contact in a previous post.

And if Swift doesn't work out, Lonestar is a great flatbed company out of TX. And you won't have to tarp as much.

 

I definitely want to go otr for the experience and to gtfo of my town. Just was wondering if 2500 was about the max I would be able to hope for. Also wanted to know if now, even before I begin school, was the time to contact that division... Or if you make a choice in orientation of during school and that may affect where orientation even takes place. I know flatbed training to Tarping and chaining runs like a week, just not what to expect when leaving school or how to go about making sure they don't just load me into s dry van by default.

 

Yea I would call the flatbed division and make sure you are set up properly.

 

Well, I have officially been cleared by the head saftet at the Flatbed division, and voluntarily taken a hiatus from training, as soon as they can get me to Phoenix im taking the securement course and switching from Reefer to Flatbed.

So perhaps in the very near future I'll have something to add to these threads.