Starting at Magnum Transportation

My main beefs with Magnum were:

- Recruiter told me they could get me home to Texas no problem. Reality: they have very few loads going to Texas and could never get me home on time

-Had a very convoluted online payroll system that made it a total chore to see if I was getting paid correctly and reimbursed correctly. There were plenty of mistakes.

-I had a personal dislike for my dispatcher, and despite making myself available for work, spent too much time sitting causing me to miss out on bonus pay.

-Boring freight lanes in the coldest parts of the county. Some of the worst reefer shippers/receivers in the industry. Sitting all day at Americold and Sygma on a regular basis.

-Trucks gimped at 63mph.

 

To be honest a job where all I had time to do was work and sleep sounds terrible to me. But to each there own.

Pay wise you have to keep in mind that the op is an inexperienced driver. When I left a little over a year ago base pay for experienced drivers was 47 cpm plus up to 8 cpm in bonus money. I made 71k in 2020 and left the company on December 20th so I could have made a touch more and I sure as heck didn’t train. They have also gave a pretty significant raise last year and according to the op just bumped it up again.

Magnum isn’t the best fit for everyone but for some it works pretty good. Especially if you learn the lanes and pick your outbound loads right. I usually sent a message to the dispatcher for the area I was delivering to with an eta as soon as I had a good idea of when I would be there and what my hours would be like when I got there. Sure places like Pa and Jersey suck but I ran the heck out of that lane because I could often grab a drop and hook in Elizabeth headed back to le suer mn where they would happily unload me a day early so I could grab something else and keep going. I also very rarely went west only going there with the rare hazmat load out of Carlisle pa.

Magnum’s strongest lanes are from mn to the east and south east so that’s where I tried to keep my truck. Sure. I preferred to go to places like okc or the Deep South but that’s not where the money is with Magnum.

 

I get paid .60/mi driving 2500 miles per week. I leave out at 14:30 Tuesday and drive 5 hours. Wednesday I deliver and drive back towards home, 625 mi. Thursday I drive 325mi and get home at 14:00. Friday I leave at 14:30 and drive 5 hours. Saturday I deliver and drive back towards home, 625mi. Sunday I am home by 13:00 until Tuesday at 14:30 to do it again. Easiest $1500 a week I’ve ever made and I’m home a lot.

I’m embarrassed when I tell people the company I drive for. It’s PAM. They pay good on their dedicated runs. OTR might get .35mi lol. They call it Penny A Mile for a reason. These dedicated runs they have running parts are pretty sweet.

 

Ain't nothing wrong with working for PAM. You're doing great over there. I tend to believe if you're making good money(and 1500 weekly is good money), and it works for you, the name on the truck don't matter. PAM has been in business for years. They're doing something right.

 

You're doing really good there man. It's enetertaining to see your journey at Magnum develop. It looks like running in Minnesota, Chicago, and North Carolina is their bread and butter!

 

I'm surprised about Pam, but don't really know much about them. I guess it's time to see if they have any dedicated runs by me.

 

I’m surprised by PAM also. Some of these dedicated gigs these companies have the pay is no joke. A driver I used to work with put in his notice and all he said was “well I’m just gonna be local around KC” or he’d skirt the question “I found something with better hours that pays good too” and would always avoid the question. I caught up with him the other day conference calling with friends he’s at CR England doing some dedicated day cab city work and making like $1,300 a week and home everyday and off weekends. He said too he was too embarrassed to say who it was. Like @bryan21384 said if the money is there who cares what it says on the door!

 

Hell yeah!! Every time I got to Denver or Hershey in Palmyra, PA, CR England has these daycab jobs on lock! People get too caught up with what others say, and others really don't know Jack #### about all these companies. They only go by what the complainers say. I don't see why it's unfathomable that some could like working for PAM or CR. I say get your money....sorry OP, I didn't mean to hijack your thread.....on a side note, I didn't know Magnum ran freightliners til I saw this thread, and then I saw an actual freight shaker in Cheyenne last week!

 

Yeah, me too. I knew PAM was Penny A Mile, until I saw this run posted on Craigslist for .60 cents per mile dedicated. They have lots of dedicated runs that pay this. I recommended one to a friend out of Chicago that goes to Ohio, same deal. I guess they are up Fords ### for now. I’m getting spoiled making $1500 a week and home 3 nights a week on this KC ford run.
No APUs. Pete 579 with autostart. We’ll have to see how summer AC works out.