Swift In The Pacific Northwest

My husband trained at Lewiston. He would recommend it to anyone. He liked the instructors and doesn't have a bad thing to say about them. Now the Lewiston terminal is small but the personal is good. Can't tell you how the showers and such are.

Hubby runs heavy haul out of Sumner. Bigger terminal. Nice showers and free coffee He likes his DM and the planners for the most part. (weekend crew he likes a bit less)

The other terminal is Troutdale OR. Another small terminal. Don't know about the personal there, but the terminal itself is not impressive. It seems rundown and unkempt in my opinion.

Hope this helped.

 

in the pacific northwest, you gotta always be on the lookout for BIGFOOT. =)

 

Roadtrain,
I did 2 years w/Swift out of Sumner. Been on a local job since last Feb.

1st, Sumner is primarily a heavy haul terminal. About 60% of the fleet is dedicated to Costco, making regional runs to OR, ID and random parts of WA state. I wrote up a fairly detailed review called Swift HH, Sumner WA about a year back or so. It's a pretty good read, so run a search for it in the Swift section.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/swift/95077-heavy-haul-sumner-wa.html

Found it for ya.

As an HH driver, you'll mostly make your living on the sliding pay scale since almost all the runs are less than 300 miles. You'll also get an extra .01/mile over your standard pay rate. A decent driver in HH can still get 2000 mile weeks. This will result in decent checks.

Management at the terminal is fairly good. The DM's when I left were fairly random. Some good, some bad. Even then, remember they are human with good and bad days, just like us. Don't trust them, make sure they DO what they said they would. Keep on them till they confirm the "task" (whatever it is) is done. There was a lady (Norma) who would cheerful dive into shark infested waters for her drivers...

Safety department is on the ball. They will cheerfully crawl into your colon with a microscope when you screw up. They will also smack around a DM with a loaded baseball bat when they screw up. Firm, but fair.

The rigs were pretty well maintained as long as you the driver turned it in for repairs. At the time I'd left, management had cut staff, hours, and parts supply in a foolish attempt to save money. This meant longer downtime for the rigs.

The yard and fuel pumps are well maintained. We had a 24hr yard goat keeping the yard neat. Plenty of manuever room, and parking since 4 axle trailers don't turn on a dime. It does get a bit crowded around Christmas, etc.

Hope that helps. Drop me a line if I can assist, but remember, I've been out for a year.

 

I live between seattle and tacoma by the seatac airport. If I run with swift, will they let me keep my truck at the sumner terminal when I do hometime? If not, what is the closest terminal to seattle or tacoma that I could keep it during home time? Lewiston?

 

They will let you keep your truck at the terminal. Good luck finding parking for your car! (Parking is hard to come by)

 

They might even let you bobtail the rig home. This is DM dependent. My 1st DM would let me B/T to the house (16 miles) for anything. He considered it my personal vehicle. I'd go home for a 10 if I was at home terminal.

My 2nd DM wouldn't let me B/T out of the yard 2 miles for burger.

 

OTR w/Sumner is very possible. FYI: your primary dispatch will be from Troutdale. Hope you like Volvos.

When I was open HH (no dedicated runs, or daycab) I averaged 2200 miles in 5.5 - 6 days with a 34 at home. Reminder, WA ID and OR are low speed states 55mph-65mph. This would be 2-3 loads daily. On short run days, I'd pickup a local delivery to add to the paycheck.

Local job note: am up for a promotion which will raise my pay to $28/hr. Pray for me!!!!