Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

Update: instructor said I was doing so good so he let me drive from the yard to rookie road after lunch. That was awesome. My nerves were relaxed until he said hop on and take us there Lol. But had no issues. Went great.

 

Feel your pain with having to crank the trailers... We did a lease, but have the company spec Cascadia ($40 less per week)... Airbag dumps are nice, but we don't have any.

 

ya volvo i can dump the air and it comes with thew new qualcom. i like paper logs but if im forced id rather have the new one.

 

Thanks for lumping us all in to one big category. Btw, before I was on Kraft I did live unloads just as often as a l/o as I did as a company driver, so your data is a bit off.

And finally, this Pete has susp drop, which I've used about 3 times. I won't miss it when I'm back in my cascadia. A little manual labor never hurt anyone.

 

Well today has been a crap shoot. Ive been sitting at this dannon plant in OH since 0730 for an 0800 appt and the earliest ETA they have on getting me loaded 0001... this is the load that is my ticket home... so im trying to swallow the pill the best I can. Would be silly to pitch a fit and get put on another load... then get planned home.

unloader

 

Speaking of ticket home, this is the second month in a row where I'm a week from when I'm supposed to roll in to Fontana and I'm getting sent from Denver to Dodge City (last month was Liberal...) and getting sent east to deliver in TN Tuesday....

 

Dang. I hope that doesn't turn out to be a sequel of last months events. My DM has been really communicative with me on getting home as we've been talking about it since Monday. Due to be in SLC (where my car is parked) on Monday, maybe Tuesday if Dannon can't get me loaded anytime in the next decade haha.

All in all, after its all said and done my first five weeks solo pretty much went down without many issues and I even found time to visit my sister, who I haven't seen in two years. I try not to kill you guys with my "positive paul" posts, but #### I really am enjoying this new gig.

unloader

 

Well I've got a follow up from this meat load picking up pharmasuticals from NC to Dallas TX, which will leave me 1375 miles out at 130am Thursday morning. If they can get a load from Dallas to Fontana I could rush it in pretty quickly and drop.

Looking slightly better than last month but it all depends on what follows up from Texas

 

I'm in a Volvo, and this is true.

Re-powered a guy in Iowa a few days ago who was 360lbs too heavy. On his way to CRSWVC. They snatched me up for the dirty work, telling me "you got a Volvo, it's lighter than the ProStar the other driver is in". Wrong. So we meet up, swap loads, and I head to the scales, and I'm even heavier than the original driver was. So after passing my chains off to the other guy (he followed me to the scale), and creatively losing some fuel, I scale at 79,980. This is with 1/2 fuel, 1/2 reefer fuel, and 3/4 DEF. So using my noodle, I guesstimate that I can limp on to CRSWVC, refueling tractor only as I burn off 50-60 gallons. So moral of the story, I'm limited to loads of 42.5, not 43.2 on the trl which presently sits at CRSWVC waiting for the next sucker. And yes, I do have to watch my steers carefully as I'm often close to the limit there, even when I tinker with the sliding 5th.

Lessons learned....

 

Ok, vent time (this is getting to be a regular thing the past fortnight)

Picking up a load of Kraft dry goods at a 3rd party warehouse I've never been to in Chicago. I notice on my way out its not 42k like the qc said, but 43k. No big deal. Later (on the road) I notice that was without pallets, so it's 45.7k. That's tight, but I'm 34070 mt with full fuel, so I should be able to get by.

As you know, there's really not a plethora of scales in Chicago, you pretty much have to get a ways out from the loop to scale (I know there's one kind of close to the loop, but idk exactly where, and the weight looked ok at 43k). I go just in to Indiana and hit a cat scale. 3/8th fuel, 80160 gross. That's not the best of it though. With the tandems one hole from the front I have 36720 on the drives.

1. With my truck I'd've known that before I left because I know my weights at different suspension pressures, but I'm on a loaner.
2. How do you screw up the balance that bad? I'm just at a loss.

Dispatch told me the facility was closed tonight until Tuesday when I asked about picking it up later (was supposed to be preloaded) so idk what they want me to do with this thing, but I drove 66 miles in Chicago holiday rush hour traffic just to find out my load is unrunnable.

Can I just go home now? It's everything bad all at once. Every time I say this, something else happens.