Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Sitting here at the TA in Wytheville. Been here since yesterday circa 3:00pm. Finished the day with 4 hours left on the table. Efforts to get a load to use up those 4 hours were unproductive.

Sent in a message via qualcomm circa 7:45am this morning looking for a load. They usually don't get in the building before 7:30.

Just got a call at 9:15am with the following options for a load:

Wytheville to Bethpage, NY, 570 miles, due Tuesday morning at 8:00am.
Wytheville to Mansfield, OH, 350 miles, due Tuesday morning at 9:00am.
Wytheville to Lynchburg, VA, 175 miles, due anytime tomorrow after 8:00am.

Awful lot of thumb-twiddling involved in all three. Since I will be sitting around all day today doing nothing for any of the three, I am rolling the dice and taking the Lynchburg load in the hopes that they can keep me rolling with something else after I deliver it at 9:00am tomorrow.

 

That one and Interstate distributing were the two saddest ones to watch for me. Out here on the west coast that Gordon blue was so cool.

 

Problem with short runs is the company makes the big dollars and the driver makes peanuts usually. If I was paid at least .70 cpm and not sitting because the short run has too much time on it I wouldn’t mind short stuff.

 

I'm one of the drivers that have a new load everyday,I can deal with the regional,the problem is getting continually sent to an area with no freight.
Im at home been trying to get planned for 3 days,called in this morning the options were,Pa,Pa,and Nj all delivering Tuesday.
Ok I'll take the Jersey,dispatch oh you're in Nc,cant plan you from there because no load planners in the office this weekend.
So thankful I went to church this morning needed it.

 

Finfn 1372, it's time, pal! You guys are troopers for hanging in there, but get out now before they turn off fuel cards and leave you stranded.

Scott Jenkins, wherever you are, THANK YOU for firing me 9 years ago! The Abilene has hit an iceberg!

 

A company like Swift would not do that. If anything they would merge the company into either Swift or Knight.

 

Waiting for new decals to be slapped on, lol!

 

Yeah, I ain't worried about my fuel cards getting shut off. All of Knight-Swift would have to go under for that to happen, and I think it's pretty unlikely.

Me driving a red or blue truck a year from now, on the other hand...

 

Wound up hauling a rescue load to South Boston yesterday. Parked at the PFJ a mile down the road from the receiver. Delivered this morning at 5:00am, back at the PFJ by 6:20. Got offered my choice of northeast loads out of Richmond, none of which were particularly appealing, mile-wise or otherwise. Definitely feels like working out of Richmond is becoming more and more "Northeast Regional", since that seems to be the bulk of the loads I'm offered.

Asked 'em if they had anything out of Wytheville instead, and turns out they did. Nothing super exciting, but I did get a load to Columbia, SC, delivering tomorrow morning.

After that I'm going to call Breakdown and tell 'em the brakes on my drives are squealing something fierce. Sounds like metal on metal, and I can see bright metal flakes on the axles. To make matters more annoying, I put the truck in our Richmond shop a few weeks ago to get the brakes looked at. Was told that the tech couldn't find anything wrong with the brakes, and that they'd been adjusted and I should be good to go.

I hate to speak ill of our techs, but it's clear that absolutely nothing was done on my brakes. (Just like nothing was done on the leaky tire and the DPF system.) If I can't count on them to do it, I'll see if Petro in Columbia can do it. It'll be more expensive for the Parent Company, but hey, maybe their techs should fix my truck themselves when I put in a ticket.