Got approved by Crete today.

Good luck Cadillacdude. I hope they understand your dilemma, and I'm sure they will. I also hope they pull that guy out of the trainers seat. Let us know how it goes.

 

thanks for all these posts guys. it's hard to find anything on shaffer on here which i guess is a good thing but all your posts on orientation and stuff is great. i'm waiting to hear back from the safety portion now. my recruiter said i should hear by friday. i've been taking a weekend cdl course and should get the license in 2 more weeks. i'm getting nervous a bit cuz we haven't even started parallel parking and my alley dock leaves a little to be desired. shaffer definatly sounds like the best company out of the few i talked with so i hope i make it through. they have had to call me about a lot of stuff to verify but think iit's all straight. thanks again guys

 

dont worry about the parking. when i did my road test, it was all in city traffic, took a ride across knosville in afternoon interstate traffic. the interstate portion was probably 10 miles, and the in town was probably 10 miles. it took about an hour.

dont sweat the parking. i didnt have to even park the tractor after my road test. i pulled it into the lot and the driver had to take off on a shag run. they know you will get plenty of practice in docking when your OTR. and let me tell you, it does get a thousand times better once your out there doing it on your own. it will become so easy to you, it will piss you off that you had a hard time with it to begin with.

i will say that after the fit that Bud in Fort Collins pitched, if you have noticed, the Shaffer trucks are getting new logos and the name has changed. they used to have the trailer decal on them and the door said Shaffer Trucking New Kingston PA. now thye say Shaffer Trucking a division of Crete Carrier Corp lincoln NE. what happened was a Crete driver showed up with a Shaffer trailer to pick up a load of Bud in Fort Collins and Bud raised hell over it not being a Shaffer tractor. now the division name has been changed.

most of the temp control freight is live load. every now and then you will get a drop hook (Hershey's Chocolate is always drop/hook) sometimes it can take up to 4 hours waiting to get loaded. we planned our arrival according to hours used that day vs how many left after getting loaded vs how long to make the delivery. if you plan it right, you can take a good nap while waiting to get loaded. you are going to wait, no matter what division you pull for, or what company you work for. i had a load of Chocolate that went from Hershey PA to somewhere in middle illinois. had 3 days to get there. easy trip. beautiful drive across I80 in PA. sunny and in the mid 70s. arrived at 1am at the consignee, they opened at 7am, so that was 6 hours sleeping there, had to wake up to back the truck in, then got to sleep for 3 more hours, then it was off to the next shipper for a load.

with me riding with a trainer and in the late states of training, we were able to beat the system of the 14 hour clock. he only hda to be on duty for 50% of my driving as we were now considered super solo. so in a case like that, he would drive the 30 or 50 miles to the next pickup and he would log that drive time. then i would start my day after we were loaded and ready to run 11 or how ever many hours to make the delivery. you have to be careful with the logs, you will get spot audited. i did. i got a letter from safety saying i had been audited for a week and was given a perfect score. what they do is pick a truck, pull the qualcomm GPS data and compare it to the log entries in your log book. they better add up to where you said you were at each status change. they will find out of your fudging your locations. log it like you drive it, and you will never have a problem.

some drivers pull both Crete and Shaffer, but i would suggest staying with Shaffer only. you might get one HAZMAT load a year, and that is pushing it with Shaffer. they require the HAZMAT, but the chances of having to actually use it are almost zero.

 

I have them holding my application for 60 days while I see how my dispatcher does. So far my miles are up some, still not as much as I would like, but pay checks are over 700 again and I have not seen that for a while.
I can deal with home every other weekend and 700 or so take home a week. But I am paying out the rear for health insurance and Crete's looks allot better than what I have and it is allot cheaper.

 

i'm heading to shaffer on monday. thanks for the posts again. just wondering how all is going for ya out there cadillac. also was wondering about coupling and uncoupling. we had to read about it for tests at school but never actually did it. am i supposed to know that or will the trainer get more involved in that??

 

You should know, but your trainer will show you.

It is pretty basic. Back to where you want to drop the trailer.
If you see a concrete band in the parking lot you should try and get the trailer legs on the concrete. This will save the parking lot, especially in the summer and with a heavy trailer. Asphalt will give in the heat or with enough weight. And the legs will sink.

I prefer to set the trailer brakes first when I get in the hole, again this is more important with a heavy trailer. Then put a little reverse pressure on the trailer. This will loosen the jaws of the 5th wheel lock, so you will have less chance of it not wanting to release. This does not happen every time, but it is kind of a pain when it does. Since you have to get back into the truck and back toward the trailer after you had already been out.

Make sure all brakes are set.
Get out of truck and lower landing gear. Lower it till the pads just touch the ground, then give a half turn. If your truck has an air dump for the drives do not do the half turn.
Pull all lines
Pull 5th wheel release handle.
Get back into truck.
If you have an air dump for drives switch it now.
Push in your tractor brake button.
Place in 1st gear and pull out slow.
If you dumped your bags put switch back to normal position.

For hooking.

Back up centered to trailer.
Stop when your 5th wheel is just to where it can make contact with the trailer.
Get out of truck and look to see if you are even with the king pin, and to see if the trailer is the correct height.
If the trailer is not going to make good contact with the 5th wheel you need to lower the trailer. If you do not the king pin can go over the 5th wheel and you have a real pain to fix and can damage your tractor if you back too far.

If the trailer is the correct height and the king pin is centered you can back under the trailer. Go slow and watch. If it looks like the trailer is getting too close to the tractor STOP and look. The tractor will stop and you should hear the jaws lock when you are in.
Place truck in 1st gear and do a tug test to make sure you are locked. You do not need to jerk the heck out of it. This is bad for the landing gear.
Also, if when you start under the trailer, if it looks too low you an dump your air bags (if you have a dump) and when under the trailer (before it locks) you can air them back up. This will pick the trailer up some.

Set tractor brake.
Get out of truck and go under the trailer. Look at your 5th wheel release handle, make sure it is in all the way. Then look at the king pin in the back of the 5th wheel and insure it is locked and not foul hooked. I cannot explain this well, but if you look and see it you should recognize it.

Then hook all lines and raise landing gear.
Inspect well. Make sure you check the tandom pins to make sure they are in completely when you check. Many drivers at shippers/ recievers that you will drop and hook with will not lock the tandoms when they slide them back. Really you should look before you hook for this. Since it can slide when you are hooking up sometimes.

Ok, I guess this was taking things way to far, and I am sorry.
I guess I should have stated the basics and then talked about issues after. I apologize for that.

 

thanks chrome dome. we read chapters on it just never physically did it. we tried one day and the release arm wouldn't release and the instructor said the heck with it. i know i'll get plenty of practice if i get through prequal next week.

 

hey cadillac, just wondering what ever happened with your deal? i don't think you posted anything or i missed it. also since you are in chattanooga you might answer another question. i'm leaving monday to head down to marrieta for pre qual, as y'all call it, . i just happened to get my letter of approval to get my haz mat endorsement. our dmv is not open up here on monday and was thinking about leaving early monday and stopping in chattanooga to get it put on my license. I know i don't have to officially have it but thought i'd do it anyway. is the DMV busy down there? In nashville you have to put aside at least 5 hours , here where i live is quicker but again they are not open on monday and i have to be at the hotel monday night. hope you got your stuff worked out. i'm really hoping i get an ok guy as a trainer

 

Yup, if the arm will not release you need to back the tractor up a few inches. Really you will not even move 1 inch most times, but it will get the pressure off of the jaws and allow it to release.
The instructor should have used that as a teaching experience.
Another good thread started on this in the truckers advice section last night.