Nice part about the old R model, you got to look out the back window first...
Now we have 7 yard tractors and 5 tractors that all pull empty trailers and containers.
4 are split into 2 shifts a 2 different customers.and may pull and re-load over 150 doors each on a shift. The other 3 rove around different customers, as needed inside a circle of 4 adjoining towns delivering loaded containers from the drop yard and pulling empties. We have 4 new TICO switchers that outshine the old Ottawa and Champion yard dogs.
All of them have road experience followed by multiple years driving switchers.
Now our port guys will drop them anywhere and anyway, blocking fire lanes and such and in an hour those 3 switchers can shuffle things around and make things right.
My company guys switch from trailer to container and back so often that high hooks and overshot 5th wheel plates are very rare and anyone, company or owner operator knows that a yard dog will be by soon and will pull it out and hold it off the ground while the other driver
adjusts the legs.
Sometimes it is nice to have 98% of your units operating inside a 4 county box. The new changes to the 100 air mile extension helps us by adding 2 more hours to the regular day and the boost to 150 air mile radius makes 99.9% of our units don't need ELDs.
What would you do?
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by TripleSix, Jun 7, 2021.
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I have a very simply system, and it’s never failed me yet. I get the gauging distance and feeling the trailer and lift etc, this is 99% GTG, but I want 100%. So I line up, set my break and get out and LOOK, it takes like 6-8 seconds. Imagine that! Lol
Midwest Trucker, Just passing by and MACK E-6 Thank this. -
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Who else locks both drives when you're hooking to a loaded trailer? Seems to be easier on the drive line that way.
kylefitzy Thanks this. -
We have three docks where if you crank the landing gear down to just over the ground, the yard truck will barely get under it, but when the yard jockey puts it in the drop lot it will easily be 6 inches too high.
In the winter the yard trucks don't always have the traction to get under the trailer or out from underneath it, so they give a few cranks.Kyle G. Thanks this. -
He got thru January with no real issues, but one morning I'm getting my paperwork and he comes in and tells me he high hooked. I show him how to get out of it. Then I remind him of our coupling procedure and to never put the front drive under the trailer until you've gotten out and verified the 5th wheel is in contact with the trailer. A week later the yard jockey told me the idiot high hooked again.
At that point I dropped a dime on him. Turns out he gave his notice, so we let him quit instead of firing his moronic posterior. The funny part is that he quit on day 90, and the sign on bonus pays out AFTER 90 days. If he had worked one more day, he would have been paid $1,000.
The real kicker though is JB Hunt fired him for high hooking.
I'll help anyone out once, and many more times if they have the right attitude. But if they can't learn, they need to go.alds, Midwest Trucker, TripleSix and 2 others Thank this. -
And its only been at shippers and consignees that don't have yard dogs where I have never had to deal with a trailer that was dropped too high.
Obviously, not all yard dogs are engaged in the nefarious activity of dropping trailers too high in order to satisfy some notion of revenge or simply being careless. But, I have picked up many trailers that have been damaged while being switched as there isn't much chance that sort of damage would go unnoticed at the check in trailer inspection.
That being said, I do appreciate the job that you guys do. And with little comfort; no a/c or heat or even a radio. And I remember learning from yard dogs by watching them backing when I was a new driver.
A busy clothing shipper in Ohio I picked up from once had a grassy hill that overlooked the docks on one side of the building. From atop the hill, I gained a great vantage point to observe the basic mechanics of backing into a dock. 'Twas a good way to learn.Savor the Flavor, gentleroger and Kyle G. Thank this. -
MACK E-6 and Flat Earth Trucker Thank this.
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Bless your soul for lowering that trailer. As a driver, I certainly do appreciate that.MACK E-6 Thanks this.
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