Heartland Express in Dallas

I am working out of the Columbus terminal.
I have not run into anyone from the Dallas terminal yet, so that is a good sign, meaning they are not stuck in the northeast or northwest too much.

Heartland is a short to Medium haul company. Most loads are under 600 miles. Any longer ones the system drivers take or are dropped and done as shuttle runs.
As a regional driver plan on about 2000-2500 miles a week and home most weekends.
System drivers are 2300-3000 and home a few weekends a month.
Right now we have an over abundance of freight. So home time is a little short, but more miles.
I hear they are in need of drivers in Dallas and Western areas.
Most of our freight is East of the Rocky's. Though I am guessing Dallas is doing the southern Cali runs.

 

Hi ChromeDome. Are you still driving for Heartland? I'm supposed to go to their orientation this week in ATL. Has freight picked up since January? Are their trucks 8 speed or 10? Do they have webastos? I drove for Swift--no auxillary heat and my dm bit my head off if I idled at all. Are you relatively satisfied with them, or just hanging on til something better shows up? I'd like to get with a company and stay a good while, but I've seen some pretty nasty stuff written about Heartland on this forum. Hopefully it's a bit exagerrated. Well, thanks for answering my questions. (If you do!)

 

I just wrote a long reply and lost it, I will post again later. Time to roll.
Still with them though.

 

Thanks CD. Look forward to hearing from you. My orientation starts Monday.

 

Ok....
Sorry, my laptop battery went dead, so had to wait till I was in a truckstop again.

On idleing.
They really do not want you to idle the truck. There are no under bunk heaters, APU's or even ICON.
The 9400's have nothing at all in the way of idle management.
The Prostars will not idle more than 5 min if the temp is between 55-76 or something near that.
Above and below that temp they will idle, but you will loose speed with raised idle.
Trucks are governed at 64, but as idle gets higher up to 40%+ speed goes down. At 40% idle you have a top speed of 60.
If temps are below 20 degrees the company policy is to idle the truck, if you do not and you need a jump or have jelled fuel, you will pay for it. So even if you are home and not in the truck they want it running if temps are below 20.

Miles are going up, or seem to be.
My fleets average was 2200 when I was hired and I think it is up to 2300 right now. Home 2-3 weekends a month.
So while there pay is higher than many the miles are lower. This is not a long haul company. They haul short to med haul. This way they can charge more per mile.
All equipment is extremely well maintained.
They own all equipment, none is leased. None has a payment. All is paid for with cash.
Average age of the fleet right now is 1.5 years old.

No inverters.
That is all there is to say about that. None.
If you are found to have one in the truck you are fired on the spot.

They are loosing long term drivers fast it seems, and do not seem to be able to replace them fast enough.
I am hoping this will spur them to fix the heartland cares program and make it a good program again. This is where short haul money, detention, layover, short mile weekend pay etc came from.
I have seen the old numbers, and it was a good program. It is gutted at the moment.
But to get and keep good drivers over the next year or so they will have to fix it.

Overall I am doing ok here. Not the best but not the worst.
They could be the best with just a little effort. I have hopes they will eventually see the light and make the changes needed to do this.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my questions. I'm really surprised that a company that doesn't want their drivers to idle doesn't at least have auxillary heaters on their trucks. Even Swift uses webastos. Oh well, I'll see how it feels during orientation. If they can get me home with some regularity I'll give it my best shot. Thanks again for all the info. Be safe.

 

'Scuse me for interrupting the thread but, as a wannabe, I zero in on companies that I haven't heard much about. Heartland, to their credit, has some very impressive Driver and Vehicle SEA scores. I haven't looked into their requirements yet, but I'm going to. Thanks!

 

You need 1 year minimum OTR.
You cannot have more than 3 jobs in 3 years. (layoff does not count)
Those are the big 2 that make drivers not eligible.

Home time is not too bad. You really cannot request time off till you have been there for a while. You are home some weekends. If you really need to be home one weekend in particular, then you just need to let dispatch know.
As I said, regional they say 3 weekends home a month, but usually it is closer to 2 home.
The guys that go system are supposed to be home every other weekend, but most of them I am hearing are getting 1 weekend home a month, but they do have better miles and higher starting pay.

I have not made it to the Atlanta terminal yet. They have drivers in my region all the time, so our loads that way all go to the Atlanta and Jacksonville drivers to get them back south.

Inspection bays are my biggest gripe.
You never go to a terminal between 0730 and 1630 unless you have too.
If you are in one of the larger terminals in the day time, you will sit in an inspection line for at least 3+ hours.
Then if you need service you will wait hours and hours more.
At some point management needs to find a better way to do this. Many drivers run out of hours waiting and loads have to be swapped etc.