Talkin' Trucks With Mike:A History of the TNT Companies

Discussion in 'LTL and Local Delivery Trucking Forum' started by Mike2633, Jun 9, 2018.

  1. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    TNT TEXPORT

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    Alright were going to hit one of TNT Canada's pretty interesting companies and that's TNT Texport.

    TNT Texport was one of TNT's first companies to offer more then just transport. Texport offered full service warehousing and ordering picking and delivery specific to the fashion industry. Texport was dedicated to serving the retail fashion industry.
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    Texport is long gone because TNT was broken up and all those business were sold off and divested, but Texport was operating as late as 2003, but after TNT was bought out by KNP Group they slowly started to go away.

    Anyhow Texport was a pretty big TNT company and there specialty was hanging garment warehousing and delivery. They would warehouse hanging garments and then ship them hanging right to the retail locations wrinkle free. Pretty cool service for it's time. They were big up in Canada and had a warehouse in Montreal, Canada.
     
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  3. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    Busy day today. I had sometime so I finally cleaned out my tractor at work. I was assigned it last year in early November and never really cleaned it out good because of winter and all.

    Any how took me 5 hours to get it cleaned up today it was very dirty.
    04EE9578-58D3-48C9-8370-433547A5C106.jpeg
    That’s the dirty water from the drivers side floor.
    It’s better now though see:

    7D23DD02-0A22-4F28-858E-2680D7A0B0C3.jpeg
     
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  4. Mike_77

    Mike_77 Medium Load Member

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    Good work. Now come clean mine! Lol
     
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  5. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    These stupid new non-polluting trucks are the filthiest things, there always covered in there own brown dust in the cab at least the Volvo's are or at least are Volvo's are and I know it's from the emission system swallowing it's own pollutants and spitting them back up through the cab every clean idle truck I had weather it be this one or my old 2011 the cab was always covered in brown dust, now it doesn't happen overnight it has to creep in a bit.

    This truck was out at one of our dark yards which is essentially a dirt lot with no office or anything and it was covered in caustic dust and debris from being out there, so I was able to get all that cleaned up.

    I polished the rims best I could, but there a little to far gone for me to bring back however I was able to get some life out of them, they need to be pulled off the truck and polished with a grinding wheel that's not my job. Actually trucks due for new tires sooner then later hopefully I get new wheels with the new tires. We have aluminum rims all the way around on all our tractors and they look nice when there new and shiny, but you have to keep up on those. My old truck went to the shop and came back to me and it had new tires and new rims all the way around when it came back and it was sparkly clean. Then a month later they decided to give me a new truck and do a switch ha-ha!

    The funny thing is the newer trucks aren't really that much better then the older trucks actually the older trucks seem to pull better then the newer one's. They said now a days it's like these new trucks are all kind of junk and our fleets about 100% Volvo and Volvo isn't always known for having the lowest cost of ownership although it's a crap shoot we've had trucks do good and others do bad it just depends I guess. Our trucks run a lot of miles so within 100,000 miles a year you're going to have a maintenance issue somewhere it's going to happen even in you're personal car weather it be shocks or control arm or whatever from 0-100,000 miles something is going to have to be replaced so it's hard to say.

    Most of our stuff isn't really hard engine trouble it's mostly electronic censor issues.
     
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  6. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    Oh by the way happy fathers day to all of you out there who are dad's and I know that's many of you. It's an important job you're doing kids need there dads.

    I have to go out and find my dad something for fathers day I'll probably do that here soon.
     
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  7. speedyk

    speedyk Road Train Member

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    Newer trucks are more likely to have a cabin air filter, might be worth a look.
     
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  8. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    Good Gravy was today a long patience testing, running short on patience by the end of the day, day.

    I had this blind route that was just everywhere I swear if felt like I went everywhere today. 16 stops today and it was one of those days where nothing goes quite you're way. The problem is, it was a blind route that I never ran before based out of our far away distant drop yard that doesn't have an office or any amenities at all besides a shed with a trouble light in it.

    So anyhow I got to work this morning and had to use the bathroom. Of course there's no bathroom facilities at the dirt yard, but there is a McDonald's with truck parking not far from the yard so that's where I went to bathroom and got my self a coke as well because you always want to buy something when you use a places bathroom, some boys in Philadelphia learned that lesson the hard-way a couple months ago.

    So anyhow, after I used the rest room at McDonald's I set out on my route. By the way my actual bid route did go today, I subbed for someone else and some one subbed for me. If I had my regular route today I would have been back by 1pm if not earlier.

    So anyhow, I took off for my first stop never been to it before, oh by the way I had a blind route, but didn't use a GPS for anything I knew where most of the places were because they were on my side of town where I live, but I don't know how to do the stops so that makes things tough. So anyhow, I set off for my first stop and almost there I had to turn back because I grabbed the wrong key and had to relay that to another driver who called me (sigh).

    So once again now delayed twice I set off for my first stop you know what they say 3rd times the charm. Never before have I had so much trouble with getting to a first stop and I had 16 stops today! :eek:. So were already off on the wrong foot.

    Anyhow I get to my first stop and it's off of an old narrow Cleveland side street, cars parked in the street and you end up backing in off the street, it was a bit of struggle I'm not going to lie I eventually won, but it was a struggle it was a very hard fought victory not very much room and really ugly conditions there was just enough room for me to get the trailer in and then pull back and fourth the straighten out the tractor it was difficult. I think in the winter time they just run the stop in from the street because of the snow drifts and polls and stuff they can't get the truck in there.

    Actually though I will say this the actual delivery was pretty easy, but even after getting the truck in the driveway there was still a hike back and fourth to the truck because of the way the place is designed it almost wasn't worth backing in off the street, but you kind of had to. I almost gave up on it, but I kept going and was persistent and did eventually get it, but it was pretty ugly.

    The next stop was also a back in off the street, but it was much easier old folks home as well, but that one was no biggie actually it was the easiest stop I ever did (2) guys came out to the truck with flat carts and I lobbed the cases to them and they loaded up there carts and went on there way, I didn't have to ramp anything or run a bunch of 2 wheeler loads in, it was the easiest stop I ever have had I think. I didn't have to do any "Inside Delivery" as the LTL drivers call it.

    Stop after that was ugly as well, the guy was nice enough, but it was a pain drove by it once had to drive by it again then had to run out and figure out what drive way to go in, of course it was a back in off of a side street down a winding driveway. :rolleyes:

    Stop after that was an Italian place that I like to eat at. Of course I was coming from the total wrong direction and had to do a U-Turn in the middle of the street and of course our road specked Volvo's don't have the best turning radius so I had to back up a little to make it work to complete the U-Turn.

    Then after that I had a Mexican place that is another one of those good back in off the main road stops, but this one was interesting, I pulled onto the side street across from the places drive way and I stopped the trailer by the stop bar and that triggered the traffic light and I backed into the driveway with the green light in my favor and that stopped traffic so I had a clear path one shot right in no problem, that wasn't really a hard back I just needed traffic to stop.

    Then next stop wasn't worth talking about.

    Then the stop after that was stupid of course there's a Werner truck in my way at the next stop I was able after some jacking around to get by him, but it was stupid and it was a pretty close call. The whole thing was annoying.

    Then a couple other places what ever more annoyances and stupidities.

    Then finally I get to this Mexican place that shares a parking lot with this flea bag motel and we've always once again backed in off the main road, such a pain if I had a nickle for every main road back in I did today.

    So anyhow, I back in and I get in and there's a Sysco truck backed up to the door of this place with his ramp in the door and I was like, what they pull in and back there ramp up to the door? :eek: Why the hell did we not think of that!:mad:. I took a picture and sent it to my manager and said "I guess our days of backing in off the street at XXXX are over." Sysco was able to swing there 36' trailers around in there no problem, now I will say this there snub nose single screw Freightliner Casscadia's maneuver a bit better then our big twin screw Volvo's.

    So that was annoying to see that.

    Then the stop after that wasn't that hard, but I went to the wrong door and had to drive the truck around the building again. So that was stupid.

    Then the (2) stops after that were back where I came from those weren't to bad.

    Then the last stop I was backing the truck in off the street a busy main road and were not allowed to park in there lot, of course I don't have time to read there stupid sign on there telephone poll that's none of my concern, but I had to run that in off the street it was a shame to because it was kind of tight maneuver, but I was going to make it too what a waste. Of course it's 4:00pm in the afternoon at this time. It's getting busy with people coming home from work and the west side of Cleveland is not the most friendly of truck places the east side I found you have a little more latitude Cleveland Heights on the east side they kind of let you do what you gotta do.

    The west side not a chance where Cleveland Heights will let you go, the west side they will write you a ticket. We've had it happened and I've seen it done.

    You have to be careful on the west side of Cleveland they will get you. Of course that didn't stop me, parked facing the wrong direction with rush hour traffic looming I was kind of stuck between a rock and hard place I ended up going on a no truck road and cut up another no truck road to get to an actual truck road thank god the cops weren't around. Anyhow took the main road west the direction of the yard, when I got the boarder of Lakewood I saw the road was under construction new paving and I thought, that looked messy so I cut up another truck road and said boy that was kind of stupid, because I can't get to the I-90 West Entrance ramp from where I was, so I had to get back on the highway head back east basically almost back to where I came from and that time I was able to get on the highway headed the right direction and zipped down to the yard. I called my boss and said "What do we do for future reference about getting our selves pointed in the right direction." And I told him what happened. He said "Yeah just next time turn around in the grocery store parking lot across the street from that stop and park the wrong direction on the wrong side of the street and then cross over to the right side of the road when you leave."

    I said "I thought about going into there lot and turning around, but I didn't know if they would call and complain." He said "No just go do it."

    Ugggg blind routes I was an hour and a half maybe 2 hours behind the normal guys time.

    Now the good news was I knew where most of the stops were that wasn't so much a problem it was everything else LOL, and the stops I didn't know I just counted the addresses down or up no GPS or anything. Old School.

    The old school pizza delivery drivers do that they don't use GPS they have the streets memorized and know the address patterns memorized and understand how the entire system works. No seriously I worked with one of them and he knew how addresses were laid out and he used to play a game with him self which was called memorize the streets. I actually learned a good deal about that stuff from him and on the west side it really helps, if you don't know where anything is it won't help, but if you have a general idea of the area you can get around with out a GPS if you can figure out the address pattern you can get around.
     
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  9. taodnt

    taodnt Light Load Member

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    Learn something new every day.
     
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  10. Mike2633

    Mike2633 Road Train Member

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    Hi guys sorry, for the delay, I've got a bunch of projects at my house going on. Well not a bunch, but a succession I bought new doors from Renewal by Andersen and eventually there going to come out and install, them, but see I needed a new front screen door and I'm working on rebuilding my front doorway and once the new screen door is on I'm going to take my front door off and sand it down and paint it.

    Renewal by Andersen is also coming out to install a new back screen door and back entry door and replace the door frame and way so I have to get all that done.

    Then I have to paint the weather vain on my garage because it needs it desperately. After that I have a shutter on my house that needs paint other then that I'm alright. Maybe in the fall I'll replace my fence will see.

    That's about all really though this week at work has been very difficult running a bunch of routes I don't know with stops I'm very unfamiliar with it's not been fun.
     
  11. hotrod1653

    hotrod1653 Road Train Member

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    Ya done good man. You didn’t hit anything, destroy anything, so all in all ya done good.
     
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