CR England drivers, any advice????

Here is an entire forum for CRE drivers:

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/cr-england/

 

I'm sorry, am I missing something or just misreading? Your husband is a truck driver? Are you both going to England? Why would he quit Kennesaw to go to England? You should be going to Kennesaw.... Sorry don't mean to be nosey, it's just weird that your husband is an experienced driver and that you are going to drive for England.

As far as their terminal in Salt Lake it is typical mega-carrier complex style. Complete with their own Pub-style restaurant on the premises!

My wife and I used to drive for JCT and JCT shared some yards with England so we always got to hang out with the England crowd. One thing we always felt was very weird was that there was no comradery of any kind of friendly driver interaction. It was always just drivers coming and going and never saying a word to each other. Don't know if this was a company policy or what. We had been with several larger companies and there was always a lot of talk between drivers and the typical "storytelling time" around the drivers lounge and drivers in general sharing their company experiences. We would always look forward to going into terminals for a short bit just to have some of that friendly driver interaction and we really enjoyed it. However at the England terminal it was null and void. I'll be fair when mentioning this in that it was specifically the Fontana terminal. So maybe it was just a Cali thing.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. Maybe talk with your husband a bit more and see if you can't do something together. I know for sure Kennesaw is a very good company for teams, running mostly coast to coast produce for Wally Worlds.

 

I went through the CRE training in Cedar Hill a few years back. It's fast-paced, mostly giving you enough info and driving to get you to pass the written and driving test.

(Hints: if you're doing Cedar Hill, when practice driving, swing out wide and watch your tandems on Tillman's Corner. It's a SHARP right. For the DPS Driving test, that last traffic light before you make the turn to go to the DPS office changes FAST. Treat the green light as a yellow!)

I had a good OTR trainer. He taught me a lot and we had a blast. He didn't want to let me go because we got along so well and we were getting a lot of freight moved. My second trainer (CAT trainer) was awesome as well. Neither of them work for the company anymore.

They will PUSH the lease program on you. And they will push it HARD. Decide before you go in if you want to lease or go company, and be prepared for some BS of you choose to go company. Stuff like "Oh, we won't have a company truck available for two weeks," blah blah. Company truck numbers start with a "5." Count how many company trucks are parked behind the shop with plastic on the seats.

After you go through all the training and you're getting your truck, if you plan to run solo for a bit, DO NOT sign up to be a CAT driver unless you plan to do it right out of the gate, on THEIR command. You can sign up later if you want to (at least you could then). That's where my glory days at CRE cane to wheel-hoppin' halt. I wanted to go solo for a while then maybe do the CAT program, so they had me sign up. Well, a few weeks later, they gave me a load that could not be done legally as a solo. Next thing you know, they want me to pick up a CAT student. Got there to pick him up, and HE FORGOT HOW TO DRIVE THE TRUCK!!! He'd been out of the truck 4 months to care for his sick wife and CRE brought him back to finish his training. I had to retrain him, but that caused us to have 2 late loads.

That's most of my experience with CRE.

 

just bring some guns to shoot down the people over there...

 

Cedar Hill is closer than Indiana. I was living in Valdosta, GA when I trained with them. I don't know if they're still training there or not though. The sign is still up.

 

Make sure to really weigh out all your options before you sign on that dotted line. Maybe does your hubby know of any friends that are owner operators who will take you with them and team until you have some experience?