What if it Snows?

What it’s like now, have no clue. Been at least 8 years since the last time I did any port work.

 

Effing June bugs are setting off my outside motion light -

 

Fired the truck up this morning at 0535. Shut it down just a few mins go at 2040. Granted I wasn't trucking all day, in fact most of the day I was running the load out computer loading trucks. The regular guy took today off to go with his daughter to some class. But none the less... Over 15 hours is a long day, I'm pooped.

Time for a cold soda... With some rye added in.

 

We don't get much Snow, nothing to worry about

 

Michigan? How much gross do they run like that?

 

Sorry folks wall of text time. If you have zero interest in ports just skip this mess.

On the time it takes to deal with the ports up this way. I have experienced the joys of T6 in Portland, Husky terminal in Tacoma, T30 Seattle, and T18 Seattle.

T18 is the most over administrated of them. Must set an appointment to pick or drop. Have to be registered with the port to make an appointment. must enroll in some service on the internet before you register with the port. Took 5 days of find all the steps to get one container out of the port. Also can not drop one and grab a loaded on the same trip. I think there is only a 2 day window for appointments, chances are you will not get a a good one. Short lines for check in because of all the administrative hoops. Still a half hour or more waiting after check in to get a loaded container out of the stacks because of inefficient processes. And the break times like covered below make for a lovely day in the harbor.

The others ports I've seen up to 5 hour lines to check in. Lines are dependent on how many trucks are bringing in freight for a ship at the same time as a big batch of folks are picking up freight that was just pulled off the same ship. Number of trucks that can be processed per hour is dependent on how many union people are working the check in stations and how fast or slow those people are. The business side of the house wants minimum number of people working to check people in. Also most of the ports out here shut down for breaks and lunch causing lines to lengthen out. You have about 6 hours scattered in an 8 hour window to get checked in.

From the T6 website:
TRUCKING COMPANIES:
Mon - Fri 08:00 - 10:00
Mon - Fri 10:15 - 11:45
Mon - Fri 13:00 - 15:00
Mon - Fri 15:15 - 16:00

Those are the gate times for checking in. The break times end up expanding out a bit because the people working the loaders in the yard are taking the 15 minute/ 75 minute breaks and the travel time between their work station and break room gets added on. The 6 hours of available gate time morphs to only about 5 hours of loading time on the yard.

That's just dealing with the standard cans, less than can and odd sized stuff gets even more "interesting".

 

I’m aggravated just reading that.

 

And to think, I got you that worked up without even going into chassis and container availability issues.....