CTL Transportation reviews

I'd like to give a background on myself. I'm 21 years old with student debt, live with parents, has no obligations or kids, and wants to travel...while getting paid to do so. I'm a simple guy with a absolutely clean record (I've never been pulled over...yet)! My search for a company was simple, who would provide decent pay and valuable experience to move to a better company later on? Tankers, flatbeds, and LTL were my routes in mind for the future better paying jobs. I chose to start with tankers due to me being not physically strong and wanting to do OTR mostly. 

I had 3 companies in mind start with.

#1. Superior Carriers

#2. Trimac

#3. CTL 

My number would choice out of all would be Superior Carriers. I've heard nearly universal acclaim about them on this site. They pay well, have a new fleet, have great driver relations, and most importantly, they have a terminal down the road from where I live in North Charleston, SC. Unfortunately I haven't heard anything back from them. It's may be due to them not normally hire new grads and their application process takes weeks to process. 

Trimac is second due to hearing mostly good things with their training and elite fleet (a 1 year goal). Their closest terminal to me would be in Holly Hill, SC. The recruiter called me saying they had a local job available, but it paid no where near what otr makes. I declined.

Soooo that leaves CTL. I didn't apply anywhere else because i was either not in their hiring area and or most frustratingly...not being old enough. Don't get me wrong, CTL looks very nice on paper to new grads with good pay, auto transmissions (personal opinion), laid back environment (pro or con), and accommodating drivers. I'd just would have gone with the other if I could. Ok well enough of that, lets talk about an overview of CTL's orientation.

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All new hires must go to either Tampa, Florida or St. Gabriel, Louisiana for Orientation.

CTL provides Greyhound tickets or 20 cpm reimbursement for driving your personal vehicle or equivalent value with any other mode of transportation (train, plane, ship).

Orientation is generally paper work, physical/agility exam, and classroom lectures for 2-3 days.

Pay for orientation is nice at $100 a day/$50 a half-day.

Advance Driver Training Program (ADTP) takes place immediately after orientation at the same location and week. This is mostly hands on training with how to use the equipment, safety gear, electronic logs etc... Pay is the same at $100 a day/$50 a half-day.

After both orientation and ADTP is finished and you received your driver number, you'll be assigned to a trainer for your home terminal (mine would be in Savannah, GA). This training period usually last around 3 weeks. Pay is a $500 per week.

Once you prove yourself ready by passing a test with a normal load, you get assigned a your own truck. CTL use automatic Mack Pinnacles btw. Pay is 45 cpm loaded and empty!

OMG, can you say torture. One year and a half with them, low pay for hazardous work but now Im a lease opertator so had to start somewhere

I worked there out of the Tampa terminal in 1999, at the time they paid $25 per load, 4 loads a night. I checked on them about 2-3 yrs ago and the pay is pretty much the same. I would say this is the LAST resort company to work for as they pay has not changed in 16+ years. They used to use 5 spd Mack Truck, slip seating and as a new driver, expect to work from Midnight-Noon, to do your 4 loads from the Port of Tampa, to Melbourne through Brandon traffic.

About 5 years ago they were paying around .29 cpm, which was lower than most companies. Its a starter company and I worked out of the Jacksonville terminal. Even after a year I was getting low miles and only a slight pay increase..maybe in part because of the recession. Honestly I cant stand working in chemical plants whether I'm unloading or not as they're putrid facilities with workers there rarely friendly. The idea of pulling 6000 gallons of ethanol, other flammables around the country for .29cpm is bottom line corrupt. But if you gotta do it to get somewhere else then...

I'm now pulling vans as lease operator...whew

CTL is not worth the time in my opinion. I went there right out of school and was told if make around 700-1000 a week locally but in reality it's more like 200-400. Local drivers get paid a flat rate that varies based upon the length of haul. If you do two local loads a day you'll make about $600 (gross) in load pay alone not including detention pay and break down pay (If St Gab is anything like Houston the. Expect to break down weekly)

as much as everyone would like to do two local runs a day, most days you'll only get one load. Roughly $70 for a day's work. long story short: pay isn't do-able if you have a fam to support so stay away.

Equipment: terrible shape and all filthy from the last driver. None of the drivers want to do regional runs out of fear of inspections at weigh stations. (Can't say I blame them because when they bring up truck issues to managers, all repairs have to be given the ok from Florida...which defeats he purpose of a terminal manager in my opinion.) speaking of terminal manager... The Houston terminal has had 3 different managers this year. They keep quitting. 

I don't recommend this company at all, not at least until they get their stuff together. The only benefit of working there is the local work if you don't want to go OTR.