gas hauler advice

A friend of mine rolled that truck. He broke the internals loose and messed up the wheel valves in the accident allowing the gas to run from one compartment to another, lol. I know what you meant though but they had it right this time. I can send you pics of the truck from the yard. I still work for this company out of the same terminal.

 

I never used the product tags - They came around after I had been hauling gasoline for a while. I was concerned that they could be tampered with or change in transit. I make a chart/diagram of the truck/trailer and enter the gallons and type of product in each compartment on the diagram. And then check the chart for the station (usually, as reproduced by me), and check the tags/lids on the tanks/covers.

MOST IMPORTANT: After opening the valve to empty a compartment, immediately check to make sure you are dropping the correct product into the correct tank. At this point, there is no more chance for you to screw up.

 

Whatever works and you're sure. You ever load out of Vinvale???

 

I have never been lucky enough to pull a trailer with compartment indicators on them. Even my brand new Heil. I just have to have a good memory. LOL Plus, most of our racks in Ohio break the bill down by compartment so you can always check back if you forget what compartment you put a product in...

And most likely a 5 hole trailer?? How do they do things out west? We have 4 holes here mostly. Our company exclusively.

My advise... take your time and check, double check and re-check again to make sure. I personally think there are no reasons what-so-ever for cross drops. Some small spills happen, but be ready at all times for a big one. You just never know. We had a driver a few weeks ago dropping at a remote fill and on the other side of the truck the cap had blown off the main pipe and was spewing gas out as fast as our guy was dropping. Always be aware of everything all around your truck. Some guys start their hose and go sit in the truck doing paperwork... I don't. I get my paperwork done before I show up so I only have to write my stick readings down and I can stay at my drops in case of anything happening you can be right there, ready to act.

You should like it. I won't want to do anything else. The company I am with now I just hit 6 months (was laid off from my last company when I was hurt then had to go OTR last summer). So after 6 months I now have a week paid vacation. I also got a raise. I work 5 12 hour or less days. I get paid by the load. Averaging $250 a day. In six months after I hit a year I get another raise and 2 weeks paid vacation. I am driving a brand new truck pulling a brand new trailer.

Gas hauling is a pretty sweet gig.

 

Yeah, we all have horror stories ... so here is one that went down but really didn't do alot of damage ... it could have been alot worse than it was.

About 20 years ago I was sent to a asphalt plant, told to put a whole load of fuel into a brand new 10,000 gallon above ground tank. It was to be a pump off using the truck pump. I got to where I needed to be and sure enough ... the darn thing was brand spankin' new, big and shiny, fresh coat of paint, had about a 4 foot tall cinder block dike surrounding it, gravel floor.

Anyway, I stick the tank (mainly because I don't take anyone's word for nothin) and sure enough, that tank is bone dry and ready for fillin'. I hook one line from the compartment to the intake on the pump ... and the other hose from the pump to the intake fitting for the tank ... start the flow and kick in the pump and hay ... everything looks good ... no leaks, pump workin fine ... a cake walk. I had about 6,000 gallons in the tank when I decided to sit on the dike and finish the paperwork and I turned around and looked inside the dike and there is fuel oil about 3 inched deep and rising by the second. I take a quick look at my truck, the lines are fine ... the fittings where they attach to the intake line on the tank are fine ... the tank isn't full, nothing coming out the top ... but the bottom of the tank ... oh s### ... there is a 4 inch drain plug (screw) in the middle of the tank on the bottom and fuel is pouring out in a 4 inch stream. Apparently ... the mechanics for the plant who set this tank up did a wonderful job of everything except for the drain valve ... they cross-threaded the screw in plate ... and the only thing we could figure out was that the vibrations caused by the tanks first filling, loosened the plug and it dropped out the bottom.

I shut everything down as quick as possible ... and ran (literally ran) to the office and told them the situation ... the foreman ran back to the tank with me and by this time the fuel is over half way up the walls of the containment dike and because the cinder blocks had only been in place for about a week and a half, the concrete between the blocks hadn't fully dried and attained it's maximun strength. There were pin holes in the concrete that looked like little sprinklers spewing fuel outside the dike and the forward section on the dike was starting to bow out ... clearly it was in the beginning stages of complete collapse. I looked at the foreman and he seemed as worried as I was, he called the office on a walkie talkie and then an alarm went off that you could hear all over the plant ... from out of nowhere here comes a bulldozer and he starts scraping up soil and pushing it against the side of the dike to keep it from collapsing outward and helping to quell the sprinklers between the blocks.

Duing all this the mechanic that set the tank up arrives on the scene and jumps inside the dike and finds the 4 inch plug laying directly underneath where the fuel was coming out. It's no use now, most of the fuel is in the dike by now and not in the tank ... but he gives it a final "hail Mary" attempt to replace the plug by laying on his back, underneath the fuel oil ... and trying to push the plug in place and screw it back in. When he came up for air he looked like one of those birds who died on the beaches during the Exxon Valdese disaster.

What to do ... we got a whole dike full of 6,000 gallons of fuel oil. Once the plug is in place and screwed down as tight as possible ... I pumped the last compartment into the tank and it held just fine. Then they decided that they couldn't use the fuel in the dike for trucks but ... they had a fuel fired blast furnace without filters that they used to heat up the asphalt and they wanted the stuff in the dike transfered to the tank for the blast furnace. Soooooooo we knocked some small holes in the bottom of a 5 gallon plastic bucket and reversed the lines on the pump running the line that origionally went from the compartment to the pump ... and slung it to the top of my tank and started filling the first compartment with the fuel in the dike. We found that we could put a 4 inch L inside the bucket and not pick up any gravel while pumping out the dike as long as the holes were small enough. I needed about 20 more feet of hose to reach the dome lid on the back compartment and the company sent it over in a utility truck ... after that it was simply a process of haulin' it over to the tank for the blast furnace and pumping it into that tank.

Like I said, it could have been alot worse than it was, but thank goodness they had a bulldozer to keep that stuff contained long enough for us to figure out what to do

 

It's pretty much the same out west. That's the good part about hauling gasoline you can go anywhere and do the job. We have super tankers in NV, OR, and WA. They hold up to 12,450 gallons with a drop axle right behind the trucks fuel tank. The compartments go like this 3200, 1550, up on the truck then the trailer is 3250,1650,and 2800. The truck is 85' long with a drawbar about 20'. The drawbar carrys all the fittings and has a box mounted at the rear for whatever. I have extra fittings, spill packs, caps, gaskets, or any other parts we run into everyday. CA, and AZ are still at 80,000lbs so they run the smaller trucks.

We have no pump because it takes away in weight. The company only keeps the trucks for 5 years then sells them, the trailers they keep for 10. We run KW's with Cats, Detroit, and Cummins and they all have big HP. The trucks and the trailers have all the safety devices there are and of course you need a key to reset the scully if you have retain. Some terminals the supervisor does that but where I was the key was with the truck keys.

Our nightmare was with the loading terminal. It was third party but we had dedicated lanes for us because we moved so much product. But the computer systems were crap. Their system had to talk to our system and then back and it was done on old phone lines. You could load in 20 minutes if everything went right but when it didn't you had to figure out what you needed. It was tough when ethanol was used. Ethanol was not injected the same throughout the load so you had to get what was loaded and splash the rest to make 10%. You could be there an hour or more and that's a pain when you have 6 loads.

We worked 4 10 hour days and anything over was OT. So most of us would take an extra load for a 12 hour day and then work an extra day of OT. So you'd have 60 hours in 5 days which 20 hours were time and a half. When I left I was at $23.50 an hour which was a few years ago. I hear that the drivers are now up to $27.50.

I loved it but I like money better with no work so I took what we call the golden hand shake. Early retirement with the same benefits. In 10 years with the company I had only one incident. Right after I started I was working nights and I dropped 3200 gallons of leaded reg. into the premium tank. All the company did to me was extend my probation time and I eneded up doing 8 months of probation. No problem.

 

i am in no way trying to be facetious or condescending, but as for advice:

Make sure your will is in order. If you want a DNR(do not recesitate order) order, have that taken care of as well.


Now, some may say that i don't know what i'm talking about as i have never hauled or driven a tanker vehicle. And you'd be right. But there is a reason why i've never driven a tanker vehicle and never will............

 

I haul gas here in ME. I learned the first and best thing for me is FIND A Routine and stick with it. Double and triple check your connections and USE your cones I had some dumb bi uh I wont fininsh it drive over my drop hose and vapor recovery line just a few days ago A cone the size of the TItanic would not have stopped her. Sad part was is that she was fueling her car and watched me the whole time

 

The trailers I pull must be considered "super tankers" then. Ours hold 12,200 gallons in 3350, 1500, 2500, 1500 and 3350 compartments. All of our fittings are in a box between the tandems and drop axle and the connector to hook hoses together are in the internal box.


Best advice is double/triple/ quadruple check everything. Check it as many times as you feel necessary to make sure it's the right product to the right tank.

I have also found some spray talc came in handy while getting stick readings in the rain. A quick spray of powder will make the line really easy to see.