Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Yeah. Either one/two pups or a single 48ft trailer in the front or back (there were days where there was no lift gate freight and I just pulled two or three regular trailers to my route). Here were my typical setups.

 

Laws vary by state. But in Montana; if it starts snowing, you have to drop a trailer.

Now my old dispatchers used to really push us into tripling to our destination. For one, it got more freight moved, and for the other, pushing triples looked good on their spreadsheets. More trailer miles per power unit or whatever.

They usually would play the dumb question games. "It's snowing, but is it sticking? It's sticking but is it clearing up right away? It's sticking on the left side but is the right side ok?".

Then we had what we called shag and drag. So let's say it's snowing but it's only sticking in the mountain passes. You drop your back box in the chain-up area and double over the pass. Then you either drop one or both trailers when you get to the other side and single/bobtail back and recover your back box. I've never done this before but other drivers have told me that this entire process can turn a 25 minute mountain pass crossing into a 3 hour ordeal if you count all the trips back and forth and all the time you have to spend breaking and rehooking your road train.

They once asked me to do it before I went over Homestake Pass right outside of Butte and I told them to kick sand. I dropped my rear box in Rocker and somebody else had to go get it. I later found out that my dispatcher was written up for sending me out of Missoula with that many trailers when heavy snowfall was already forecasted.

 

That was the other thing. Butte was only 50 miles from my home terminal in Three Forks. Our corporate lodging card did not work in Butte since we don't have any accounts in a city that close to a barn.

But alot of drivers started leaving trailers in Rocker (which is right outside of Butte) and doubled into Three Forks. The.company paid for all the time you took shagging and dragging your road train. It ain't worth it for $50 or $60 it paid for 3 hours of frustration and keeping you on a snow covered mountain pass that is inherently more dangerous.

Breaking a set on the side of a snow covered road is not fun. I've never lost a converter dolly to a point where I couldn't recover it quickly and easily. But if it is dark enough, it definitely would make an extremely formidable and dangerous piece of equipment to be sitting in the roadway by itself if it decided to roll about its own way.