Old Dominion--A Newbie's Experience

Cello, seems like they are keeping you busy. Is there otr miles if you want them. Do they hire for solo otr ?

 

Cello, where is the Indianapolis terminal located? I live close to Indy, and I like to keep a list of possibilities in case I ever decide to quit flatbedding. I've always been impressed by the OD drivers I have met.

 

We run solo otr out of Indy. If you bag out they will ask you if you want to come straight back or run wild. I always tell them to bring me back. I know guys who will run wild when it gets slow so they can still get their miles.

 

A couple times this summer OD had a sandwich board out on the road in front of the Morris Street terminal needing dock, line haul and PU/DEL.

What a contrast to Central Transport down the street!

Clean, shiny and freshly-detailed, proud green and white versus tired, yellow, ragged and dirty.

 

Hey Flightline, I had the good fortune to train your o/o buddy here at OD Indy..sorry it didn't work out for you. He told me about your Pete and going to Mercer. OD is not for everybody and you picked a good company so you will do fine. Good luck and thanks for giving us a try!

 

Congrats on the job!

Right now I'm at Conway. I went through the drivers training program about 3 years ago. I'll make close to 70k this year running line haul and still have 3 more raises to get. A lot of drivers don't last a month a conway because of the dock time(drive to terminal and work the dock 2-4 and sometimes 6 hours on the short runs). I personally don't mind getting out of the truck and working the dock and getting to talk and joke around with all the other drivers. You can choose what you want to do each year.. dock, city, line haul(am or pm) or spotter. They are cutting the dock positions and replacing them with non cdl holders so they can pay them less. I'm getting bumped down cause our am cdl dock workers now have to go to the city and line haul and they all have 10+ years in the company. The pay is good and we have nice trucks but just tired of getting crap runs and getting bumped down all the time. You need 15 years in this company to be in a good spot! Not to mention they put cameras in our trucks to watch us and EVERY accident is preventable even if it's not your fault. I know OD has some nice long runs. Our runs out of STL are 514, 458, 454, 400, and 152...miles.

Well, without ranting on about reasons why I dislike my job i'm trying to figure out if I wanna take the chance and leave them for someone else. I want AM line haul which at conway takes roughly 17 years. I was going to post earlier but wanted to let you get a few months in before you decided it's a worthy company or not. Is ODs line haul board split into am and pm or is it certain runs run at a certain time and you bid the runs you want? I don't want city and can't go over the road. Any idea on how long it takes to get a decent run(450+ miles)? I'd be applying to the St. Louis termial. Not sure how big or small it is. I haven't seen the Indy terminal and I know the LaSalle terminal is small... well at least to the conway terminal next to it that I go to nearly every night when it's busy. I like the blue but i'm willing to trade it in for some green cause I feel as the years go by, it's harder and harder to keep your job at conway.