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

Discussion in 'Discuss Your Favorite Trucking Company Here' started by JohnBoy, Apr 10, 2013.

  1. RebelChick

    RebelChick Road Train Member

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    I appreciate that, JB. You know I am completely out of my element over here on the left coast!
     
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  3. JohnBoy

    JohnBoy Road Train Member

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    Safe travels.
    Yes it is, but getting caught in that cluster, with Haji and the gang fighting for parking, fueling and getting out will be enough to hate Mt Shasta, Northern California and trucking.
     
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  4. JustCallMeDriver

    JustCallMeDriver Light Load Member

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    Yeah, before Abilene my home terminal was in Portland, OR. Absolutely loved every one of those 2-lane US highways west of the Rockies.

    And sometimes I miss that Freightliner Century without all the computer controls overriding human input, and the 10-speed Eaton Fuller manual. Like now, when my Cascadia with 750 miles on it is at the dealer for an air leak in the automatic transmission that only pops up in the high gears.
     
  5. RebelChick

    RebelChick Road Train Member

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    Well now. No one seems to know a thing about this replacement cooler at my 2nd stop. Been here for about an hour waiting for Harvey or their office to figure out what they’re doing. My offer? Just take the thing off the truck. But, they don’t want to touch it if they’re not supposed to. And I sure as heck am NOT because the thing is humongous! I don’t have that kind of money to give away! LOL! My home time is now also messed up. So, I guess I’ll be out for 18 days before getting home. Will definitely NOT be making the mistake of coming up here again. If they weren’t sending me all the way to LA, I’d make it home but....holiday weekend, yada, yada, yada. I still have to bust tail to get to my pick up and delivery, though.
     
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  6. Finfn1372

    Finfn1372 Road Train Member

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    Wouldn't that be someting if you had to bring it back.

    On the yard for a reset,than leaving tomorrow night with a wood load going to Ga. for Sunday morning.

    Hated having to do it,but I had to request a new dm this morning,was nothing personnal,but the guy was still to new.
     
  7. ExtremeUnction

    ExtremeUnction Road Train Member

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    A review of the past couple of days:

    Wednesday, get informed that an Abilene driver local to the Phoenix area will be coming off of hometime, and will be bobtailing over to my hotel to pick me up. From there our instructions are to hook the empty dry van over at the KW dealership (which was dropped there by whoever rescued my loaded trailer), mosey over to some place that makes potato chips, and get loaded. Ultimate destination is some small town in the boonies of Tennessee, south of Nashville and west of Chattanooga. We are required to take the low-altitude southern route through El Paso so that the little bags of chips don't go all splody going over the continental divide on I-40. On the way there, the other driver is to drop me off to pick up a lease-op truck whose driver is in the hospital. Truck is parked in a rest area near Toyah, TX.

    All very fine and good. Other driver arrives, I gather my belongings, and we begin our journey. We establish that the other driver likes to drive at night, something I hate doing, so we agreed that I would drive until I got sleepy and he would take over from there. It's about a 9 hour drive from the chip plant to the parked truck, and the appointment time was noon local, so 3:00pm according to my body clock.

    Get to the shipper, I go in with the pickup number. Am informed that the load in question is only 4% completed and will need to be rescheduled. Will be ready tomorrow.

    Go back to truck, call driver manager of the other driver (who is point-of-contact for this excursion), inform them of the latest developments. She tells me she will get to the bottom of this and call back with further instructions.

    Time passes.

    Couple hours later she calls back. She's got a new pick-up number. The broker assures her that THIS load is ready to roll and we can get loaded as soon as we get there.

    Armed with these new instructions, we mosey back to the shipper. New pick-up number is provided to shipping clerk. Shipping clerk informs me that the load in question ALSO isn't ready, and won't be ready for four days.

    Back to the truck to make more phone calls. By this point it's 2:30pm local time. The DM I am dealing with works out of West Memphis, so she's still in the office because it's 4:30pm there. But she cannot raise anybody at the broker because the broker is in Richmond and it's 5:30pm there and everybody has left for the day. So she tells me that the other driver can go back home for the night and I am to go back to the hotel for the night and we are both to put in for layover for the day, and we'll try this whole rigamarole again tomorrow.

    Fair enough.

    Next day (which was yesterday) we get a new assignment. We are to go to the chip place again and pick up the load that was supposed to be ready the day before. The load which was not ready and was rescheduled for the next day. As it is now the next day, the load should be ready to roll. Appointment time is 2:00pm local.

    We arrive at 1:30pm local, armed with the appropriate pick-up number. I am informed by the shipping clerk that the load in question is still not ready, and will in fact be cancelled.

    Back to the truck to make more phone calls. DM in West Memphis is flabbergasted. She tries to raise someone at the broker, but again it's after 5:00pm in Richmond by this point and they've all taken a powder.

    Load planner decides we've had enough fun with this shipper for two days and gives us a load to pick up a bunch of Gatorade in Tolleson. We arrive at the Tolleson Pepsi plant. Huge line of trucks there. Took us an hour just to get through the gate. THIS time, however, the load was indeed ready. So we got loaded with Gatorade and hit the road. I drove late into the evening, then parked it once I got too sleepy to drive. Other guy took over. Dropped me off at the lease-op's truck this morning.

    Dunno why the driver is in the hospital, but he was pulling a loaded trailer. Current instructions are to drop the loaded trailer off at West Memphis, then grab another load going to Richmond so I can drop the lease-op truck at the Richmond yard. Whereupon I will be given a loaner to drive until such time as my truck (which is still in the shop in Phoenix) is ready. Whereupon they will presumably give me a load assignment out that way to pick it up.

    Apparently they're having to completely rebuild the engine, so I expect it will take a while.
     
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  8. Finfn1372

    Finfn1372 Road Train Member

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    I'd ask for a new truck,than go by to pu your things.

    That trucks probably gonna be down for atleast a month.
     
  9. JohnBoy

    JohnBoy Road Train Member

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    That truck has 604K on it? Abilene won’t fix it. They’ll glue it back together and put it with a few other green machine vehicle at the mothership yard on Buckeye Rd with artwork that’s says “4 sale”.
     
  10. JustCallMeDriver

    JustCallMeDriver Light Load Member

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    Had an 0800 delivery, 1100 pickup, and 2145 delivery, and got enough stuff packed into the loaner in time to get to 0800 delivery before 0100 and they have overnight parking.

    So what the hell, why not try out the 7/3 split on the Qualcomm. Made pickup with plenty of time to take my 3. Only it didn't give me a fresh 14, and instead counted it as if I got back the 14 that happened in between the 7 and the 3, only that one was getting back the 14 before the 7. I didn't have a fresh 14 in between the 7 and 3, but my current 14 is exactly less 14 than my period between the 7 and the 3.

    Doesn't seem right but maybe I misunderstand the current split rules. This slowass refrigerated warehouse better unload me in time to make it back to Richmond from the DC area tonight for my weekend, that's all I'll say.

    Stillng got the green light from bumping the dock an hour ago.
     
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  11. ExtremeUnction

    ExtremeUnction Road Train Member

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    Naw, it's only got 213k on it. Still under warranty I think.
     
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