tanker life vs dry van life?

LOL ... no you can't!!

 

It's 1AM and I just woke up the wife I was laughing so loud. OK I'll settle down now.

 

I did van, dump and now tankers. Hauling food grade liquid for Hershey. The one thing I found out about the food grade tankers, the DOT doesnt bother us. If they do it is a quick check then on our way.

 

Smooth bore tanks are very interesting to pull. You get very good at smooth acceleration and smooth braking. These days I can come to a complete stop and someone in the sleeper doesn't even know we've stopped. You get used to dancing if you had to stop pretty quickly for something. You get used to being kicked in the back of the head if you buck the truck too hard starting off at a light, or if you get a little rough shifting your first couple of gears. Hazardous waste can be a pain because the DOT is always up your butt, but that's just life.

All in all, I would rather drive tanks for the rest of my time than anything else.

 

Ill take tankers any day,,the truck does all the work

 

Can't speak for the liquid guys, but I haul dry bulk and love it a whole lot more then dry van...

I get loaded (usually) in less then 15 minutes with limited to no waiting. When I pull into the customer they are always happy to see me because I have what they need! I rarely have to wait to unload, it all depends on how the customers silos are setup and if they ordered different grades to be delivered around the same time... But usually out of a customer location between forty-five minutes and an hour fifteen.

When I was dry van... I had to open doors, slide tandems that didn't' want to slide, mess with cleaning out trailers, etc... Tanker all I do is hook up my hose and turn a few valves while I'm on facebook or playing games on my phone .

 

In my case (spring water) it's 15 minutes to load, and, if things are going well on the delivery end, 20-30 minutes to unload. For me, it's hook up the hose, open the valve, and push a button to start the pump. That's it.

 

Yeah, the water trucks at these well sites say they load in 15-20ish minutes (depending on where they load) and can unload into the well truck in 10-15. I'm looking at moving into water, but not sure... The money is there, there isn't any dust to worry about, and there is always work (except winter time I guess, but the same thing with cement).

 

That's the way I was taught to drive any truck some 40 years ago. It's paid off very well for me.

 

The water I deliver is for a major bottler. They run 24/7/364, so even in the winter we are busy and steady. The thing with winter water hauling is having to use a torch to thaw out the valves and vents once it gets down to about 28 degrees. As for the speed in loading, my loading site pumps at about 800 gallons per minute, so with a 6,200 gallon tanker, the actual loading takes about 8 minutes. The other 8 or so minutes is paperwork, capping and uncapping, and manipulating the hoses.