From School to Superior Carriers

9/7

Its been a wonderful 4 days at home but this week finds me with a truck with some major problems. I will be in a loaner truck. I knew my truck had some problems and actually asked to be dead headed home Thursday after I dropped off my load in Williansport Md.

On top of that we had a roll over on one of our paint loads last week. Fortunately the driver is fine and walked away from the wreck with minor physical injuries. Something like this is bound to mess with you mentally.

http://www.wvva.com/global/video/fl...chPageAdTag=News&activePane=info&rnd=81880747

I have to take an empty tanker and get what paint is left in the tanker tomorrow. Its at some wrecker drop yard in West Virginia.

 

Been running mostly local in a "spare truck" and just got back into my truck yesterday. I will catch the thread up tonight.

 

9/8-9/10

Spent Wednesday this week driving up to Princeton WV with an empty paint tank. I was supposed to meet a hazmat crew at a wrecker drop yard to get the rest of the paint that they couldn't get at roadside.

It was a rather uneventful start to my day. I headed out about 4:30 AM to meet them by 8. I had rather clear and easy directions. Unfortunately they were wrong. I was told to "go under the interstate and turn left at the next stop sign after exiting I-77. I read them back to my dispatcher twice to make sure I wrote them correctly. They should have said DO NOT GO BACK UNDER THE INTERSTATE. The stop sign was at the exit ramp.

1/4 mile from the interstate bridge is a low clearance bridge. Fortunately there was a dump truck behind me and he stopped traffic on the 2 lane road while I backed the 1/4 mile out of there. He also found out where I was going from some of the locals in the cars he stopped.

I made it there right on time. The driver who rolled is lucky to be alive. The truck jackknifed up against the tank giving him a small space. Everything else was crushed.

They loaded the rest of the paint and I took it back to the plant, dropped the trailer and was home by 5:00

Thursday and Friday I ran Winder Ga- Brown Summit dedicated loads. They are around 550 miles round trip so that finished up the week pretty well.

Not a great week money wise but that happens when the truck breaks down. I had a blown head gasket and 2 injectors needing replacement. The head blew while they were working on it so that was good timing.

Below are pictures of the rollover

 

9/13-9/17

I got Sat and Sun off and started this week delivering the Winder load I picked up Friday over to Brown Summit. I then grabbed a clean tank and loaded some transformer oil at Brentag in Greensboro.

This load was delivering at 8 AM Tuesday just north of Baltimore. I was still in the beat up spare truck so since I had plenty of time on the load i went back to the terminal before heading out with it. To my delight my truck was ready and I moved all my stuff back into it, dropped and hooked the tank and headed out with it. I wound up driving around the block with it because it had no power and was making knocking noises. All the mechanics were at lunch so I moved everything back into the beat up spare and drop hooked again.

This time I made it to Ruther Glenn and shut down for the night. I found the electrical substation I was to drop my tank at on Bing Maps and it looked pretty easy to get into. That turned out to not be the case once I got there. I wound up having to back off the street into the gate and do an S shaped back onto a spill tarp they had laid out on the ground. On both sides of the tarp were live high voltage lines. The only way to do it was to jack the tractor off the gravel road onto wet grass. They had a fork lift so I figured they could pull me out if the tractor got stuck. Fortunately the ground was hard enough and I was on my way by 9:00.

I called Baltimore/Paulsboro dispatch and they were trying to get me loaded home since I was in a loaner truck. They sent me one loading at Noon the next day (Wed) delivering in Greensboro Thursday. Whoopeee...400 miles and 8 hours of layover pay sitting at the Paulsboro terminal.

My home dispatcher got involved and I was soon on my way back to High Point with an empty trailer. I made it back with 15 minutes to spare on my 14.

Wednesday I worked a High Point Terminal "half day" shagging tanks for 11.5 hours.

Thursday I moved back into my truck and am 2/3 of the way through a 1500 mile dedicated run to N Chicago and back. I will drop this tank into Brown Summit Saturday afternoon. Good week.

I am taking Mon and Tue off next week. Below is a picture of the containment tarp at the electrical substation where I dropped that tank on Tuesday.

 

I am not familiar with that terminal. Kurbski has posted here before and worked for Carry for a short time out of Jacksonville. You might try PMing him. Superior has a terminal in Axis Ala just north of Mobile that I haven't heard anyone complain about. As far as the company they are similar since Carry is the food grade side. Insurance etc is the same.

I am currently paying $55 a week for the whole family. 80/20 $500 deductable. SPCR also got a raise recently and I have seen it in my last couple of checks. We are at .43 loaded, .35 empty and $13.77 per hour. I am not sure about Carry.

 

9/20-9/25

I took a couple of vacation days on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was a local day. All I did was swap out paint tanks and bring a load back to the yard. Then they had me spot a tank at Dystar up in Reidsville and grab an empty at P&G. It was an easy 8 hours of local work.

Thursday I left at 5 AM with an empty tank to load in N Chicago at 6:00 AM Friday. That load delivers Monday at 6:00 AM in Brown Summit NC. I got home around 3:00 PM after taking around a 12 hour break Friday night. Watched a couple of movies in the truck and decided to not set an alarm. This dedicated out and back load pays around $660. With the vacation pay and local work this will be an average week.

I was offered a load to Riverside Ca for next week but I turned it down. One of my swimmers I used to coach is getting married Oct 9. I probably wouldn't be back by then. His dad is a pediatric dentist and has given my son free dental care for 16 years. I promised to be at the wedding and am not willing to break that promise.

I will run another N Chicago dedicated run leaving Tuesday and getting back Thursday. Hopefully they will need me to do some local work Monday or can get me out for the weekend with a system load delivering Monday 10/4.

 

9/27-10/1

Its been slow. All I did Monday was drop over at P&G. I was off by 8:30 AM. Tuesday I left around 9:00 AM with an empty dry Bulk tank.

My appointment was for noon. They screwed around with me to the point that it took 3.5 hours to do a drop and hook. Waited 2.5 hours before I could start, then after pulling the loaded trailer out of the garage had to wait another 45 minutes while they hosed it out so I could spot the MT.

That put me into rush hour traffic leaving Chicago. I guess I should be thankful for the hourly pay for traffic delay and loading delay. I got back to the terminal after dropping the trailer at P&G around 8:30 PM Thursday. I am off Friday and Saturday and will leave Sunday for a Monday morning delivery at a coal mine.

I am actually thankful for some miles Sunday to add to this weeks check. The 3 day N Chicago run will about $700 so 450 loaded miles Sunday puts my check up to only a little below my average for the year. I hate coal mines though. Hopefully it will be dry.