Magnum ltd - fargo, nd

Can I do that? I stopped in london, oh. I only have 12.5 hours on my clock, and get back 9 something tomorrow night. I can roll at 7:30, and itll probably take 4 hours to get to Chicago making it noon-ish on a holiday weekend. My plan is to get to mauston WI tomorrow. I should be able to get there before my 11 drive clock. Get 9 something back and have a short trip to martin-bower.

I could have probably made it to the outskirts of IN but either way im hitting cities at the same time as i would anyways, plus the hassle of a parking spot. I had to slide my tandems all the way forward on this load and backing an automatic for the first time has been hell.

My trainer and I ran this route 3 times already.

 

Now that im thinking of it, Mark in safety was talking about the autos, i forgot to who, but he said there is a creeper reverse option. How the heck do I do that? I kind of like driving the automatic since im not proficient with a manual yet like you veterans that do it all by sound. Everyone is switching to autos anyways so a manual sounds short lived. Any help would be appreciated. Ill scour the net as well.

 

Sure you can do it. It was my preferred route when I was with Magnum. BIG travel day tomorrow. I would rather run the corn fields on 70-74-39-90/94 then 70-65-80-294-90-94. But it’s your choice. It’s the way my trainer preferred too.

Mauston was one of my favorite stops. Good showers at the Pilot... and decent food choices. Nice small little lounge across the street at the hotel with a jukebox and pool table if you need to stretch your legs. some good home cooking at the restaurant there too... a Chinese Buffett next door along with a Wendy’s and Taco Bell...

 

Yeah, one last question, do you think itll be faster with the 40 extra miles? I dont know how it compares. Sounds better than potentially burning my clock in traffic. Do you connect to 74 using the belt loop?

 

It will be less stressful. Time wise...well... could be a few minutes longer... but one traffic jam on 65 or around Chicago and it’s faster.
Take 70 west and then take the southern side of 465 around Indy. Take 74 West up to Bloomington and then take 55 north for just a couple miles and then 39 north. That runs into 90 at Rockford, Ill
It’s all clearly marked. It’s about 590 miles to Mauston from London OH.....the other way is about 550...

 

Use google maps it shows traffic and you can make an informed decision. I try to avoid Chicago as much as possible but if the traffic isn’t ####ty I will go through. Do you have a GPS or an atlas? If you take 74 to 39 to Rockford into Wisconsin it only adds a little time. So much better than burning your clock sitting still in traffic.

 

What you can do until you figure the creep mode would be to just rest your left foot on the brake pedal while backing. That helps cut down on the surging.

 

I drove one of the Pete day cabs with that auto on my line haul run Thursday night. I feel bad for you guys. That transmission is terrible to back with. And here I was hating on the auto freightliners and doing my best to stay in the older manual trucks. The freightliner auto even neutered like magnum has them is way better.

Either way I wont have to worry about it much longer. Put in my notice. In a couple weeks Ill be in a new Volvo with no governor, no camera, no onguard (words cannot describe how much I hate onguard) and a 13 speed manual transmission pulling a tank delivering gas to local stations.

Magnum has been good to me on the LTL side but its time to try something new.

 

That trick doesn't always work. I drive a Mack with a 12 speed Mdrive, when you touch the brake, it actuates the grade assist (which keeps the brakes applied until enough throttle is applied to start moving)...then it drops the clutch, and it accelerates like a drag race car off the line. Even when you deactivate the brake/grade assist, it is still a PITA to back, especially in tight quarters with a heavy load and a spread axle.

 

You don’t need to do that with the mDrive, only on the Eaton auto.