FCC--Fremont Contract Carriers

It was definitely crap up there this morning! Started my day early in Ottawa, went up there to the ACT yard dropped and hooked, got out of there as fast as possible snowed like crazy until south of Harrisonville. headed down to Fort Smith. By the time I got to Arkansas it was 55 and sunny! 65 and sunny in Southern Oklahoma right now, and 2-3 inches of snow coming here tomorrow. Mother Nature needs to be drug tested!

 

It’s strange, these Mars loads to Clayton have a lot of pallet shavings and kindling too. I’ve never had a week here that I’ve had to sweep out so many trailers.

You stay safe out there playing in the snow.

 

It’s official. I hate Gateway.

The Drop Lot we use in St. Louis is the worst one that we use. (Granted I haven’t visited all of them)

It’s a freaking dirt lot with potholes, it’s dang tight to back into our spaces. I’m not sure if it’s the spot that are narrower than normal, or the lack of space at the nose to maneuver, or this Drivers backing skills (or lack thereof)

BUT… today I was on the lot for approx 52 minutes in total and I was “informed” that we are only allowed on the lot for 30 minutes… for safety… geesh.

so ya, I’ll drop there as I’m committed to do so for two more weeks, but I would rather not see the place after that. LOL

oh, btw, there is a brand new truck repair business just to the south of Gateway… with LOTS of space to both park and maneuver… and it’s paved too. Just Saying…

OK, I’m done.

 

Just parked at the J in Lansing Michigan area. Just started snowing here too.

 

The St. Louis drop yard is Gateway across from the racetrack in East St. Louis?

 

Yes, in East St Louis. Exit 4B I believe. Very convenient location and easy to get to from I70.

 

Ok gotcha, thank you. Yea that place is kind of a dump. There’s a really nice drop lot off Carrie Ave. downtown behind the Loves, it’s almost a mirror image of the one in KC. Nice, lit, gated, plenty of room and concrete. For some reason I thought that’s the one FCC used. When I worked in St. Louis I was in and out of there a lot I could have sworn FCC had trailers there. Evidently not!

 

FCC is taking on a bit more business from Mars. They have loads coming out of KC going to Clayton, IN (SE of Indy) but seem to be dividing it up into two legs.

First driver grabs the load in KC and moves it to Gateway. Then another driver (me) grabs them and takes them on to Clayton.

Return trip has been grabbing an empty in Clayton and moving it to Mattoon IL to then grab a load to take back to Gateway. (this load eventually finds its way to Aurora, NE)

Rinse; Repeat

I think the hope is to find drivers that want to be “Home Nightly” so first driver just runs KC/STL/KC each day while second driver runs STL/Indy/Mattoon/STL each day and then both just go home.

My DM asked me if I wanted to help out and run it for three weeks while it’s getting created and built out and in the process I get to go visit my mom in IL on the weekends.

So I’m running it as Home Weekends like a Regional but it’s more of a Dedicated Daily Route. Or will be at some point, I think is the hope.

Still working out a few bugs and glitches in the process before it will be a Home Nightly option. One location can’t keep track of what trailers are actually on their lot and the other one is DnH some days and Live Load on others. Which tosses a wrench into the timing aspect of such a run.

But it’s coming along.

 

Update: not paved
(But not dirt either)