When backing into a TIGHT dock...

have you been to rich products in fresno,ca? the docks are tight and you have to hold up traffic while you back in while cars are zooming all around you, and there is a big steel beam 35 feet in front of you that you have to avoid while trying to set up. The beam has been hit many times as you can see pieces of bumpers lying on the ground. Then you have to disconnect from the trailer so that the tractor isn't sticking out in the street. The iceing on the cake is the cop on the motorcycle who likes to write $350.00 tickets for holding up traffic while you are trying to get in the dock. sound like fun?

 

Gotta love those traffic cops. If we didn't, who would?

 

Rich Products sounds like Middendorf Meat in downtown St Louis. Right off of Broadway. Theres a fence lining the property with an opening to let you in, but you cant pull in and set up, the parking lot is not big enough so you back across all 4 lanes of Broadway, nevermind the people gunning for ya, and try to hit a dock. And usually the only open one is in the far right corner on the otherside of a nice spread out Pete, so you crank it in around the fence, then hit the dock blindside. Good times. I really do not like St. Louis.

 

Seems like you have to get out the Astroglide and lube down those rub rails.

There is a place in Armstrong, BC. A farm equipment dealer. Their dock is at the ide of the building, almost even with the street. Across is a lumber yard and their fence. You have to pull onto a kitty corner street in front of the fire department in order to blind side around a hard S corner and jack knife into the dock. All the while the idiot 4 wheelers are trying to take your front bumper off and not paying attention to where you are going. I love the looks I get, even though I have the hazards on, the warning strobes going, and some of the employees trying to direct traffic. Oh yeah, right in front are very sharp farm implements that would LOVE to tear into a tire or two if you are not careful. Not the hardest spot I've had to get into though.

 

Pishaw!

The dock we had at the last place I worked were old. Made for the old 35 foot trailer with roll up doors.

In order to get a trailer in all 3 docks, the open trailers doors absolutely had to rub. You got used to how they pushed the other doors in. In 3 years at that place I saw plenty of the skins for the insulated trailer doors get peeled off.

 

I remember back in the late 90's running around the Boston area picking seafood...then you headed to a "consolidator" who emptied all of the trucks on the docks and re-loaded them according to the orders. They were down a narrow alley in Boston...and believe me...getting into a dock slot was the PITS. Their dock could handle about 7 or 8 trucks at a time. And if you were late getting there...good luck finding room to back in. Even without the clusterf*%#* it was a ROYAL PAIN trying NOT to scrape a fender off of a brick wall and 3-4 inches to spare when swing your nose around to straighten out and slide back to the dock. THAT'S when you LOVE those 235" wheelbases. God forbid you had a long w/b large-car with a spread axle trailer!

 

yeah every #### day i do this

 

LTL P&D. every #### Day