Stevens Transport aviary

Formy, I have to do the same thing. My stuff is in my bags. During the day my bags go in the upper bunk. If the truck is moving I place my blanket over the bottom bunk and sleep there. When both of us are sleeping I just place my bags in the front passenger seat and the floor.

Smokr, I hope you get back out on the road soon. You have come a long way only to have this hurdle thrown at you.

One thing I have heard about the t700 is that it has that DEF (diesel exhaust fluid). I don't know how much it consumes but I did find some at the Moriarty TA this morning. It was $11.95 for a 2.5 gallon jug.

Tlea you were right. Yesterday there was strong winds across AR, TX, and NM. The fuel mileage went to the dumps.

Almost to CA, we deilver in Victorville later today. After that it is up to OR then WA.

5700 miles of my 7k requirement are now complete.

Smokr, while back on the yard I am willing to bet they are going to make you take the FMCSA 2010 workshop. I missed it by a few days, however, I did get the winter and spring workshops complete.

 

I was going to call this day the meat department cluster circle jerk, but....

I started my day at 5am, to get up to Amarillo drop my trailer, get a 34 hour reset in, grab my load and head to California.

Meat decides to change loads on me, as I am turning down the road to the gate. This load is ready, has been for 2 days!!!! Needs to get rolling on it, delivers in Philly Tuesday, wee morning hours. My plan quickly change, get the load, scale, am legal, barely, stop at the pilot for a pit stop, send in a running late message and a repower request, letting them know I can make Tulsa on I44 or chicopah on I40.

Start rolling east into the wind and rain. repower set for Big Cabin. Do they even Read? Tell them I can not make Big cabin legally. repower canceled. Repower, at the TA Amarillo TX.What I am 45 miles east, get it across the QC they will pay the 100 miles of out and back. Okay, head back to Amarillo, against the wind and rain.

Find the truck, a G2 student, wanting to go home to florida. Was repowered off of a california load, to a Mclane Lubbock load, which I now get, and it delivers sunday 23:45. So much for my reset as I will be setting around under load.

Phone rings, Meat needs my help, a truck has sent in a breakdown message at the TA, and they need to keep the load moving towards Phoenix. She knows I have ZERO hours for sunday, and wants to know how far can I get, and they will repower it again. Okay, better than waiting on Mclane. Find the other truck, drop this trailer I have had for 15 minutes, go to give him the paper work, and smoke is coming out of his ears....he is pissed that they are giving him this load...his DM promised him a good repower off this 4 stop Sysco load. Well it is now 2pm, and your DM has went home. Besides you are broke down. "no i am not, that was to force the repower". At that point I walked away with the paperwork and hooked up to the new trailer. Tried to game the system and got gamed.

Made it to Moriarty New Mexico, before my 14 11 and 70 ran out. Will now be repowered in the morning after a truck delivers to Wally world in Las Lunas.

So after thinking about it, it all worked out. I got 600 miles today, still have Zero hours tomorrow, but will complete my reset at 0500 on Monday. It was still a Saturday Cluster, but I am better off for now.

Monday, which meat patch will I be headed too?

The G2 student in my humble opinion will not make it. He refuses to drive at night, to deliver during the danger zone, or drive more than 500 miles per day. refer is the wrong part of trucking with that attitude.

 

Maybe Monday someone will come to work with enough common sense to let you haul something back to the east side.What you are going through is what I always think of when a big company talks of "saving"money.

 

Wow. Glad to hear you're safe and on the road to recovery there smokr. I'm sorry you gotta deal with Doc Holiday and all the rigamarole that comes along with him. As Tlea said, a lot of time and money's wasted in that process. Don't understand why. I'm sure it makes the Aaron's a nice chunk of change through some sort of government program.

WGC, thanks for posting that simple formula for calculating axle weights. I sure could've used that when I got out here on my own. I spent many a nights banging my head against the side of the trailer trying to get it figured out.

I had a similar repower "reception" by a grad student. Not sure what phase he was in, and I'll explain why here in a minute. I had a load of some sort of plasticizing chemical from BASF that was in 55 gallon drums. There was 45,000 and change in the trailer. My Pete with an APU and DPF, I was 1,200 over gross with just 1/4 tank of fuel. It was to deliver in Edison, NJ. There was too much time on the load, so my DM got me a repower in Greencastle, PA. I arrive at the TA there around 0600 after driving all night from Knoxville, TN. I knock on the driver's door and step back. He opens the door. I say "Good morning!". He just stares at me with this disgusted look on his face while extending his right arm out to me, in which he's holding his bills. I take his bills, give him mine, he slams his door, starts his truck and pulls out from under his trailer. I dolly down, disconnect, and move from under my load, then hook up to his trailer and take off back down I81 to the Pilot in Hagerstown, MD. His load is a Hershey load headed to Laredo. I can't say I blame him for being upset, but you don't have to be rude about it. I asked for a repower, this is true. But who I repower and what their situation is is beyond my control.

I'll be in Laredo tomorrow evening, drop this trailer at the drop yard, and grab a load heading to Ontario, CA. I need to be home for an appointment on Friday April 2.

 

Knew B, I had a very similar situation right after I started training. The first trainer and I delivered to Victorville and were told to pick up a trailer from a driver who had an empty trailer and just started a 34 hour reset.

Needless to say when we met the driver he was as upset as he could be. He flat out refused to unhook his trailer. He was like a spoiled child not getting his way. Completely unprofessional in my opinion.

A few phone calls later and we had a different trailer.

 

The Saturday morning crew received some of my disgust this morning too. I asked them if they even look before changing a load, or repowering a load, or do they just click and grab the closest truck so they can go home at noon? Was not met with a good response, me questioning them. Still waiting on my repower, and dallas won't even give me an ETA. probably fell threw the many cracks on the weekends.

Cabin Fever....get out and walk....ya I know it is hard, sitting, with no information, and knowing nothing will happen until Monday.

Now I dislike repowers with a passion... but at times they are needed. I just would like to see a little more time spent on planning and less time spent on truck shuffling because dispatch did not look and see that the driver was short on hours. Or that it requires a team to make the run. Maybe I expect too much, but I do know other companies do not depend on relays/repowers as much as Stevens does.

They also have drop yards and local drivers for loads that are running ahead of schedule.

As a grad Student, it does seem that they give the loads with a lot of time on the load to them.

Todays meat load only adjusted 400# per hole, and just made legal weight in the first hole. tyson had loaded all 20 pallets in the nose of the trailer. 33700 on the drives.

anyone know how much a gallon of diesel weighs?

 

I don't know exactly but I always figured it at 7lb per gallon

 

The density of No. 2 diesel fuel is 850 grams/liter = 1.874 pounds/liter = 7.15 pounds per US gallon. Regular gasoline is considerably less dense: 6.0 to 6.3 pounds per gallon.