Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

How long is a trainee Time on a truck?

 

Yeah, me too. When I first went solo the truck they give me had damage to both bat wings. That alone was enough incentive for me to watch how close I get to them whenever I jack the truck in a tight maneuver.

 

Minimum 28 days/200 hrs line 3. Most trainees go a bit longer, but its usually pretty close to that.

 

I wonder how long it takes an experienced driver coming on to become a trainer?

 

When I started I was already driving a truck before, they put me on the trainers truck for 2 weeks then they let me lease right out the gate. I started training 2 months later. I've about quit training though, most but not all the students they're getting in now are not dedicated enough to be a good driver. There are exceptions as you can see from reading on here but not many. My last student was a 71 yr old man that really just needed to be driving a rocking chair not a big rig.. Good luck

 

Once upon a time they let teams train together. They realized, correctly, that it's not a great idea to put 3 people in one truck for 4 weeks.

 

The batwings on my truck were a mess when I got her. I actually had to learn how to line up with a trailer without knocking it all over because one batwing bends in, the other flares out.

 

Hello all.

I am about 90% sure I am going to be leaving my every day life as I know it to get my CDL and drive OTR via Central. I have a few questions:

- I've been reading a lot but I haven't been able to find a lot of information regarding living conditions in the dorms and hotel during orientation. What are these places really like?

- How are the medical/dental benefits and how does the company handle drivers having to handle these issues? Are there preferred dentists and doctors that handle CR drivers?

- When I make this jump I hop to blog on here and chronicle my experiences. I don't notice a whole lot of this going on here on this website by CR drivers. Does the company frown upon blogging?

 

What is the general opinion of Central ? I looked at their website, it sounds like a good place to start for a wannabe driver,but id like some other driver opinions first...

thanks,

 

For both McCauley and Nightwind8830...and anyone else for that matter, here are two threads you can go through on the training and such:

[h=1]Follow me through Central Refrigerated training[/h][h=1]Follow me through Central refrigeration training 2[/h]
Both will chronicle experiences through Central Training and some give the living conditions in the dorms. For the Hotel, I think they've changed hotels but not sure - for me, I live in UT so I drove in each day so had my own bed to sleep in.

My experience with Central has been positive...but most of your experience will depend on your attitude. Yeah, there is waiting involved no matter how hard you try not to. I didn't care too much for my first DM but my 2nd DM kept me busy. Then I went to the Farmland account and they kept me busy as well. All in all, my experience was good but I worked hard and made sure I communicated with my DM if anything odd came up and I made sure I was on time...always (unless mechanical or weather related...closed roads in winter). I'm sure others will chime in.