AR Transport?

Any of you new drivers making good money ?

 

Jeffersonville, In has some of the highest paid Regional Drivers in the company. Its in a greatt location between a bunch of terminals that have freight coming back in that direction.

A&R is not struggling for drivers. We have 765 drivers which is an all time high. we're building for growth. We're the largest bulk plastic carrier in the industry and nationwide we're asked to do more business than we can handle daily.

Good luck and hope you get on.

 

Jus had an interview in Philadelphia hope its a good move

 

Let me get this correct. At A/R the driver is loading the product from a railcar? This would include climbing up tractor's trailer, opening domes and fluffing the bag filters (and of course closing domes when done), using the tractor's blower to pressurize the railcar, slinging hose from blower to railcar and railcar bottom outlet to the trailer, blowing off the product into the tractor's trailer, using the "scale" on the trailer for your weight approximation, then going to "real" scale and hoping you aren't too much under 80,000 lbs.

Doing this in "weather" sucks, the pressure gages on the railcars rarely work, hopefully the railcar's domes aren't leaking too bad, hopefully the railcar is spotted for easy access to blower and bottom outlet fittings. Hopefully you aren't crawling in mud and railroad ballast to connect the hose to the railcar's bottom outlet. It is also nice if you are loading a product that doesn't get airborne very easily - powders that "blind" or plug the bag filters suck and eventually end up shooting the bags skyward with a big puff of dust.

Really, it all depends on the railyard and the product. The bad news - railyards that are driver loads do minimal/no maintenance. I spent a few months loading bentonite at a pigsty of a railyard. I was either wallowing in mud or sucking dust.

I got good at it. Scale in, load, scale out in an hour or a couple minutes less with dead on weight. But, no matter how good I got, I couldn't avoid the filth of the RR yard, slinging the hoses, climbing up and down the trailer, the occasional flying bag filter, and hammering on the sides of the railcar to make sure no product was left in the compartments. I was usually loading the trailer 3x a day.

That my friend, is the reality of driver loading at a railyard.

 

I live in NW Indiana and have been talking with recruiting a bit. The lady told me regional work is availble in my area. I am wondering what the regional area is like, is it more of a dedicated type haul or do you run 6 or 7 states. She said 2 or 3 nights a week at home plus weekends. What type of miles would a regional driver expect in my area? Also wondering about money of course...with the loaded/empty pay scale. What kind of money could a guy expect to make and what's the ratio of loaded vs empty miles?

Thanks in advance I know its a bunch of questions...any info would be appreciated.

 

fueltankhank broke the pay down you just have to go back and look in this thread

 

I would like to get a update from some of the drivers at a&r on how things or going since the buy out? are they better / worse or no change. is the miles good I see they just raised there pay?

 

This is true I worked in a yard in the TC pumping fuel from truck to rc and back it was a blast was on track to clear 80 untill the company freaked out 20hr plus ot by thursday morning 12 hr shifts

 

10speed55 maybe I can help answer your questions. I've been with A&R almost 2 yrs so I've seen both the company both before and after the buyout and will say its a night and day difference. I hired on at the worst time probably in the company's history. At that time the maintenance program had been scalped to the minimum and repairs were only done if the unit couldn't operate. For example a hose fitting that was out of round wasn't repaired or replaced. That causes the driver to struggle getting the cap of and the hose hooked to the trailer or silo. That is seldom seen now. That's just one example of many that I've seen. And not just with equipment but also in dispatching (at least for system drivers). As far as pay goes, it would scare most truck drivers to see what our miles are, that's why the pay is structured the way it is. My best week mileage wise on e-log was 4100 miles and still grossed less than my best pay which was only 2900 miles driven. That's because of hook pay, detention pay, and doing some good short freight which paid good for the amount of time consumed. Also since the new ownership I don't have near the problems with detention pay. At the moment I can't think of anything that's worse than it used to be....hope that helps.

 

I'm a new driver so I wasn't here before the buyout but I can't complain pay is good pretty #### good actually and with running system I never sit. Most times before I am even at my delivery point I have another load sent to me so I know where I'm headed next to be able to trip plan better. You work for your money no doubt there but you do hauling bulk in general. Never had an issuse with getting dentenion even when a customer doesn't want to sign the sheet.

I wish they would do better with maintance being its under staffed and totally cut out of some terminals but word is they are working on that now.