Can someone take me through their typical night time weekend linehaul job?

Extremely interested in doing a type of work that you know nothing about.
Rather like the cart leading the horse, don't you think?

 

What's your location?

 

What is so wrong with having a goal? It’s like when a kid starts college. They pick a major and usually wind up changing it at least once.

 

Howdy, and welcome aboard. Good luck finding a line haul, as most of the old P&D( pickup and delivery) drivers gravitate to that, and for good reason. It, generally, is the easiest form of trucking there is. A typical day would have you come in at maybe 7-8pm, after all the P&D trucks have been sorted, and depends on location. Hook up to a preloaded trailer, or 2, and go. Not sure about weekend stuff, very, very few live load linehauls even during the week. I did 2 loads a night, about an 80 miles one way, and was done by maybe 3-4 am. Generally, linehauls don't go very far. The stuff you bring usually has to go on different trucks for daytime delivery, so getting there is paramount. Day drivers get crabby if they have to wait. The HUGE plus, is most is drop and hook. Once, I saw'r an old lady getting out of an ABF doubles truck, that I bet her husband had 30 years in. A word of caution, it's boring as heck. You do the same thing, usually doubles and that's good, but it's a lonely job. I liked P&D because of the people I met. I think there's more money in P&D, simply because it's so unpredictable, and long hours can result. I guarantee you'll like line haul, if'n you can stay awake, that is. Good luck.

 

Almost all line haul is night time with little weekend work. Estes is the only one I can think of that runs differently with their extra board, but in that case it's akin to OTR.

Most line haul runs M-F, meaning your last run ends Saturday morning back at your terminal.

Starting out you'll be extra/wild board. You'll have a call window, usually 17:00-19:00ish were Dispatch will contact you about your options for the night. As bottom man, you won't usually have a choice - eat the scraps and be content you're working. Each run has a 'show time' and a 'gate time'. At 'show time' the driver needs to be in the office ready to be on the road before 'gate time'. Each run has a set amount of time to be completed and if the driver misses he'll have to explain why. IE a driver has a 215 mile run with a 1930 for 2000 gate. The driver must pick up the paperwork by 1930, build his set and be out of the gate by 2000. He then has 4:05 plus a 15 minute break to get to the hub (0020), then have the set broken and in doors by 0050. Then the driver takes his break, and if applicable goes and works the dock. On the way back - same thing. Driver has a show and gate time and he's expected to leave out on time and again make the service center on time.

Rinse and repeat each night.

Once you have some familiarity with the company and the routes, it gets very easy - then very boring. The money can be good compared to OTR wages right now, but working nights suck and you have to be able to work with/endure a variety of different people. I say the money can be good because it varies by service center location and distance from hubs. Milwaukee is a lousy place to do line haul out of because 90% of their runs go down to Chicago - 90 mile drive then work the dock for 5 hours and drive 90 miles back. On the other hand Indy is a great place - 150 miles to Chicago, 200 to Columbus, 200 to St Louis, 240 to Detroit. When you interview ask which hubs they service and how many bid runs each has.

 

The work on the dock is usually driving a forklift or sorting the items on pallets onto other pallets or moving all of the pallets for city-name over there, and the pieces or pallets for other-city-name over to that location, driving forklift to load/unload trailers, putting trailers into/out of dock door from the yard. Maybe making up a set of doubles or breaking down a set of doubles. That means the combination of 2 small trailers get hooked together or the combination is separated and the trailers are distributed on the yard/dock as needed and the converter dolly is placed on the yard.

Times of work, commute times, and specific details are highly dependent on the company, the city, and where you live. Commuting means driving from where you live to where you work. I'm not sure how anyone but you can even guess how long it will take to commute from some place you might live to someplace you might work. I must be misunderstanding something.

It's not really common for newbies to get hired straight into LTL and you usually get assigned the shift the company needs filled, not what you like. Jobs are scarce, not abundant, so I would keep that in mind. In trucking you are a gear in a big running machine. YOU don't decide what, where, when, and how you will be used in their machine. You are placed into their machine after you get hired. Your choices mostly come from deciding where you will work.

Since LTL companies are often seen as better work and usually have more drivers with experience wanting to work for them you can expect stricter hiring standards like requiring more experience to be considered, hair follicle drug testing (which might look back 6 months, not 30 days) and not wimply P-tests. THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE, if anything, there is a glut of drivers at the moment. It's good to really lockdown what things you want in a job, but understand having a Christmas list and expecting Santa to deliver all of it are different things.

 

I ran a linehaul.for a private carrier. Factory transfers. New Carlisle, Indiana, to Brook Park, Ohio. Started at 7:30Am, ended about 5 PM 5 days a week.

Pretty decent gig, boring as hell. Indiana Toll Rd/Ohio Turnpike. Learned every crack in the pavement.

 

Typically in linehaul you don't drive to customers. You typically drive from one of your company terminals, yards, service centers to a company terminals, yards, service centers in another city. Usually which city you drive to is determined by company need or by seniority and the new drivers may fill-in for whatever senior driver isn't working or drive to the cities that have more freight that normal and so it would be different cities night to night. At some companies you drive the same assigned truck when you work and some companies trucks are handed out first come, first serve (FCFS). At some companies the assigned truck you drive at night is used by the daytime pickup & delivery (P&D) driver or another LTL driver during the day so if he is late getting back to the yard, you have to wait or drive another truck. Quite a lot varied from company to company or location to location within a company.

 

I just quit 27 years linehaul in NW Ontario. Pin to pin between 2 terminals. 4 nights a week…Can you stay awake all night 20:00 to 06:00? I pulled tandem/tandem A-trains or reefer. My employer required 7 years experience with 3 years pulling trains when i was hired. The qualifications have been reduced due to lack of people wanting to do this type of work. If you want plenty of time for hobbies and doing your own thing Line Haul is perfect.