TransAm reviews

I am a former TA driver also truck 29012 from May 2014 to June 2015. I enjoyed my time with TA. Keep in mind its an apprenticeship of sorts. You will make a paycheck as opposed to 98 percent of the lease drivers. You will want to move on after 6-12 months. You will do many swaps that may cut into your miles and sometimes you may benefit from the swaps. As a company driver, you will need to do what they need you to do. Its ok. Remember its a foot in the door into the industry. An apprenticeship! To me, trucking has been a godsend, a salvation and a deliverance of sorts. I love what I do. The traveling, interacting with shippers/receivers, even sleeping in the truck. The TA trucks are nicely spec'd! When I was there we could only run 62, but then at a Raleigh NC KW dealer, they turned mine up to 65. 

The reason TA swaps so much is to a) Insure on time delivery and b) to help you get your hometime ontime. They were pretty good at it. 

Satellite radio (you have to pay for that yourself, but I can handle that), Satellite tv with HBO and NFL Sunday Ticket and a DVR, refrigerator, cb and an inverter. 96" condo cab that a guy 6'4" can stand all the way up in and to top it all off it's a KW. Pay sucks as all your second tier companies do but I'll be very comfortable while I rack up the time and miles it'll take to be hired by a top tier, well paying company.

Do learn that manual!! Know it backwards and forwards. Only way to know if their screwing you or not. Training can be spotty, and that manual can truly help you out.I did my 1st comcheck, right out of the book.

Make sure you know how to get into the employee system to check pay. Remember, they are only required to keep a copy of your logs for 6 months. Ask how you can get a download of it. You'll need it for tax purposes.

spent all my years as a company driver with transam. Transam is designed to keep their fleet at 70% lease drivers and 30% company drivers.
Company drivers do a lot of swaps (repower load). When you get a swap it probably won't be because load is on time. In order to make sure you don't get blamed for the late load you have to let your dispatcher know over qualcom (treq) that it will be late and it's previous drivers fault. It's best to make sure your DM knows on mon thru fri. The Night and weekend dispatch may not make notes on who caused late load.

Main issue with the hometime request is that you enter your request by qualcom/treq unit, then that request goes into their computer system to see what days are open. I believe only 25% of drivers can be on hometime at one time. So drivers will put request in 3 weeks or more ahead of time. They tell you to request 8 days ahead but you would not get days you want in that short of time frame.
(If you want 4 days off such as friday to monday. You request thursday at 2001/8:01 pm till Tuesday at 0759/7:59 am.) This way you end up getting 5 days at home and you can always tell your DM you can't leave till a day later. (excuses; doctor, lawyer, dog ate homework, etc.)

the other part that you need to look into is truck speed. I'm governed at 65 and I pass Trans Am trucks all the time, just something to think about

They have a 11 day training program for newbies and then they let them go on their own.
They do push lease , all you have to do is refuse a lease.
Just stay company.
They have great trucks KW 680 & 700's
Fridge , APU and I think inverters.
The swaps come because people run out of hours so they give their load to someone who as hours and then you will take their load that still has plenty of time on it.

TransAm at least has top of the line equipment with all the driver ammenities.

Trucks at transam are governed at 62 if ur company 65 if u lease which I don't recommend at all they are scam artists

The trucks are good and you get the direct tv, so resets won't be too boring. You will average about 2700 miles per week. My advice is go company for at least 3 months, even tho they will push lease on you hard. No sense learning how to manage your time and fuel on your dime when you can do it on theirs. Yes, the lease always sounds good, I mean .84 instead of .31, but untill you learn time management and fuel management, you'll make more getting that .31cpm.
Otherwise they aren't too bad a company to work for as starter companies go. After 6 months to a year you can then go about anywhere and start making more.

TransAm has a terminal in Rockwall Texas, a suburb outside of Dallas. If you do go to TransAm, you may want to move from Houston to the Dallas area, to be much closer to the terminal. During home time, you could park your truck at the terminal for both safety and repairs / maintenance that may be needed on the truck. 

Can't say nothing bad about them at this point. I started out lease, first check was $727 after all expenses for 2725 miles. Little less miles the next week but will get close to 3000 this week.

But if you want to spend your time in truck stops or 4 days at home, lease probably isn't a good idea.

First 3 days are classroom, the next week 4 days of pad, backing etc. Then 11 days out with a trainer. Was worried at first about only 11 days, but if you got common sense you'll be fine when u got your own truck.

I'll keep this updated for those thinking of leasing and let you know how things go. Heard a lot of bad things but so far I got no complaints, but then I'm not sitting but driving. I mean that's what I get paid for and a sitting truck makes no money.