From School to Superior Carriers

Since I don't see any threads in here about Superior Carriers I will start one to document my experiences. I just completed a Sage CDL School 2 weeks ago and had a successful driving test this afternoon. There is still some paperwork and test results to come back but I feel confident that I will be training with them starting sometime late next week. I met my trainer and he seems like a great guy. I will be paid $100 per day during training. Training lasts 4 weeks then off to a company school. Then 4 weeks local work.

For my driving test today my trainer and I bobtailed about 30 miles and picked up an empty tank from a company then brought it back to the terminal. It felt more like training than a test. I thought that was cool. I was expecting something like the cdl road test with a guy marking things on a clip board as I drove.

Below is a breakdown of pay and benefits as posted by a long time Driver in the company who posts by the name Cyanide. They are exactly what was given to me but its easier to copy paste his post than type all this myself.

I will keep this thread updated as I go through training with Superior Carriers.

 

Just got my phone call from the terminal manager welcoming me aboard. I start Monday 12/3. He told me I will stay local this week. I had thought I would already be working but my last place of employment was slow getting the necessary paperwork back to them so a decision could be made by the corporate training committee. Looking forward to feeling that surge for the first time Monday. Probably do mostly observing and learning the various systems on a tanker at first.

 

Mine was a sage school also. I am in North Carolina. For people just out of school they require a few things.

1. Go to an approved school. Call your local terminal manager and make sure your school is on their list.

2. Finish at the top of you school so study and make good grades. They wanted a copy of my transcripts. Also get you hazmat and tanker endorsements by the time you finish school. It takes a couple of weeks. I actually had to wait an extra week to get started until the fingerprinting background check came back.

3. Get a recommendation from the terminal manager.

Good luck and if thats you in your avatar I look forward to seeing you out on the road.

 

Day 1 Training

Met my trainer (Ed) at the terminal/tank wash at 8:00 AM. We went over a lot of paperwork and the computer system in the truck. Hooked up to an empty tank and pulled it into the shop for them to drain all the antifreeze out of it so it could be steamed to warm it up for a load tomorrow that requires a specific tank temperature. Ed showed me many of the valves, gauges, pumps and fittings on the tank while we waited for the antifreeze to drain. We then pulled it over to the tank wash and they hooked it up to the steam.

Next we hooked up a clean empty tank and pretripped it to pick up a load of transformer oil. This included climbing on top of it to tighten down the manhole hatches. That was a bit unnerving because we are having 30-40 MPH wind gusts today with a cold front moving in. Once that was all finished we drove about 25 miles to a chemical plant and they loaded us with about 5,000 gallons of oil. They had scales at the plant and we weighed in at around 75K gross. Then I got to experience surge in a smooth bore tank for the first time. Interesting sensation that pushes you both forward and backward depending on which end of the tank it is hitting.

Once we got back to the terminal we took a break for lunch. After lunch I got to drive around the terminal lot for a couple of hours. He would have me set up and back into holes between trailers from several different angles both driver side and blind side. I also worked on shifting up and down from 2nd to 5th with an emphases on being smooth to minimize the surge. It was an interesting and productive day overall. Tomorrow we are going to deliver the load we picked up today about 90 miles away.

 

Got to the terminal around 8:30AM, pretripped the truck, filled it up with fuel and headed to a Prospect Energy plant to drop our load of transformer oil around 9:00 AM. I learned a lot just watching my trainer drive the truck. He double clutches but the second one is real shallow. This technique allows him to ride the clutch a little and be real smooth on the gear changes to minimize the surge. We got to the plant around 11:45 with a noon appointment. They were running a bit behind and it was 1:00 before we could start unloading. They were pumping the product into another tanker truck. We didn't have to do anything but open the dome lid and valves in the back. Finished up around 3:00 PM. This would be one of the times I would like the way this company pays as he got to bill the company for the time we sat.

I got to drive the empty truck back to the terminal. Really smoothed out when I started clutching like I observed earlier. Had one hairy moment. We were on a narrow 2 lane road, 55 mph speed limit. There was a curve to the left. Three trucks were coming at me from the opposite direction and they blocked my vision of my lane as the road curved to the left. Van was stopped waiting to turn left. I was glad I was only running around 45-50 because there wasn't much room to stop once I saw him. I know I will remember that situation the rest of my driving career because it really is a dangerous one. Got back to the yard around 6:00 PM so I got to drive in some rush hour traffic as well.

Tomorrow we are going back to the same plant with another load and are starting early around 7 AM.