Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

Day Four

This morning, we had a classroom lesson about winter driving. Then RL took us out to the warehouse to show us how to chain up. Afterward, Tim gave us a trailer loading lesson (how to balance the cargo, arrange the pallets, etc). The last thing we did before lunch was hook up to the trailers we'd be using for our runs.

One of the guys left after lunch with Tim to do a run to Florida. Another guy and I are doing a multi-stop local run with RL delivering furniture. We had time to get our first (and biggest) stop off this afternoon, so we're in a good position when we start up again tomorrow.

I showed Tim my three logging exercises. I have to redo the very last page of exercise three, but other than that, I'm good to go. I spent a few hours last night just on exercise three. Tonight I'm going to relax... I'll save the HazMat reading/test for the weekend.

So I got more practice driving in beautiful, hilly North Carolina. Still getting used to the hills and the heavy load, but I did better today (I think).

I'm going to spend as much time as I can practicing in the yard this weekend. I really need to couple/uncouple the trailer and practice docking. I had to bobtail over to our trailer and back it up... and I got so flustered and turned around. I'm not used to backing a rig like it's a car... which is another reason I need to practice. I just want to feel really comfortable with the whole process of hooking and unhooking trailers before I leave here.

 

No, this is the general orientation to be a driver for the company. The flatbed division (I think) is trained in Montana. I know you have to have six months' experience before you can apply to flatbed, so I haven't looked into it yet.

This thread: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...s-about-watkins-shepard-flatbed-division.html contains the sum total of my knowledge of flatbedding for W&S.

 

The Zebra pens were the only fine point ones with black ink that the local Walmart had. When I get the chance to stop by an office supply store, I'll see what else is out there. I'll keep Papermate in mind. Thanks!

 

Day Five

We had a bit of a late start today. He asked us to uncouple it and then park it in the next space over while he found another tractor we could use. It died about eight times just moving it over one space. Very frustrating. A driver came over to help me because he thought I kept killing the engine because I didn't know what I was doing. Nice of him to come over and help though. If I had been really struggling with something, I would have been very glad of the advice. RL's truck kept dying at an idle before the air pressure would even build up enough for the governor to kick out. had to find another truck for us to use for the day. Some other driver was kind enough to let us abuse his rig for the day. We made all seven of our stops (some of them had very tricky parking/maneuvering. Going to take a page out of American-Trucker's book and make sure I look at a Google Maps aerial picture of each location when I do my trip planning so that I'll know how to maneuver and approach the dock). We made all of our stops and then had a late lunch at a truck stop before we headed back to the terminal.

RL's truck has been fixed, so he made sure each of us had a key so we could practice in the yard over the weekend. He also gave us a trailer number (if we wanted to practice backing/docking also). I need to practice those and also just coupling/uncoupling and backing bobtail.

So I'm going to get as much yard practice as I can over the weekend and hopefully finish the other two tests in the binder. I also need to do laundry tonight or I'm going to be rocking a pair of sweatpants tomorrow. I also need to memorize my speed matches because next week we are going to be driving in the mountains.

 

Deleted. Accidentally posted twice.

 

Thanks! I figure the most important thing I can do for now is get the speed matches memorized.