Missing a Gear: Pulling the Hills of Western PA

Sitting this morning with no loads available yet. But I needed to catch up on a couple of days I wanted to share here, so here goes.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on my last day before time at home, and was assigned a nice load that would get me back to the yard with plenty of time left on my 14-hour clock. In fact, I figured I’d arrive back at 10:00pm, and was good on the clock until 12:30am. Ordinarily I’d have time to start a “next-day” load, but I was going home. And wow, instead of my usual 2 or 3am, I might even get home before midnight!

But first I had to get out of the yard. Crossing the scales before the guard shack, my trailer tandems were overweight by about 2400lbs. I went back, counted out 10 holes (figuring about 250lbs per hole), and slid them back. Done. Except now my drive wheels were overweight by about 1300lbs! So, I counted out six holes, and slid the tandems back forward. Should be good. But now the tandems were overweight again. It was close, so I slid them back one hole. After three tries, everything was good, and I still had plenty of time.

Until I rolled forward 20 yards to the guard shack. “I can’t let you out,” the guy told me. One of the refrigeration zones in my trailer was out of the acceptable temperature range, and I was instructed to turn around and run the trailer by the shop. When I got there, the mechanic came out, pressed a bunch of buttons on the control panel and read the diagnostic information. I was hopeful; it looked to me like he was just re-setting the thermostat. But then he turned around and said perhaps the worst word a driver can hear: “Reload.”

We went in the office. I was to take the trailer back and drop it on the line where I had picked it up so that a yard jockey could put it back in a dock to unload and reload onto a new trailer, and then come back to the office to get new paperwork. This is okay, I told myself; how long could it take to reload a trailer, anyway?

But the yard was on top of this one. The yard jockey caught up with me before I had dropped the trailer and told me not to put it back in the “ready” line, but pointing, told me to “put it in that door right there.” As I backed into my dock, he was quickly backing an empty trailer into the dock next to me. Done, for this part. But wait. As soon as I uncoupled from the trailer and was about to drive back to the office, I remembered that I’d forgotten to take my padlock off the trailer. They might be ready to unload, but now they couldn’t open the trailer. So I called. “Hey, I left my lock on the trailer and I’ve already uncoupled. Can someone let me into the warehouse to get it?” The office person answered, “Hold on a second,” and I could hear her talking on a different phone: “Yeah, the driver is RIGHT OUTSIDE with a key.” Apparently they’d figured out my stupidity before I did (which as a side note, is probably not difficult. But I digress…).

I finally got back to the office, picked up the new paperwork, and asked how long the reload would take. “They’re pretty motivated,” the lady said. “It’s the end of their shift, and they all want to go home.” She estimated no more than an hour. (I found out later that a reload usually takes *at least* a couple of hours.) I checked in with our dispatch and let them know that I’d be fine to deliver on time, and should still have enough time to return and go home. “Sure,” the dispatcher said. “If you can get out of the yard.” Fair point, because that still wasn’t looking great. But the warehouse guys came through. Everything was reloaded onto a new trailer in less than half an hour.

And I was finally on my way. As I hooked up to the new trailer, I noticed that the trailer tandems were set one hole off from where I’d finally settled the first trailer. Sure enough, they were 150lbs over when I rolled over the scales. By this point, I wasn’t taking any more time. I headed to my first stop, where I’d have several thousand pounds offloaded anyway.

That extra couple of hours on my 14-hour clock turned out to be necessary. I did make it back to the yard that night: I arrived at the gate with eight minutes left. I dropped the trailer, turned my truck into the shop to have a couple things looked at, and went home.

I arrived at 3:00am. Whew.

 

Thanks! I'd actually thought it was mis-titled - but only because I spend a lot more time in Ohio and West Virginia than I do in PA...! Ha! I'll keep that in mind.

 

Waiting at a shipper. Last time it took over five hours to load me. I was hoping it would be faster this time, but so far I've been waiting an hour just to get in a door. "Go to eleven," she said. "There's a trailer there now, but it'll be out in a few minutes."

Or a few hours...?

 

Well, that was interesting. After nearly an hour, I went back to the office to ask how long before the trailer in the door would be moved so I could get in. "You've been waiting how long? Let me go kick my yard guy's butt." And she did. A few minutes later the yard truck roared around, passed by me and retrieved a trailer at the other end of the building. But then he came back. I held my breath. And watched him retrieve the trailer in the door next to the one I was waiting on. A few minutes later, another driver - who had not, as near as I could tell, been waiting - dropped his trailer into that door. Since the shipper has drivers drop their trailers while they're being loaded, I watched this driver bobtail off to wait on his load. A minute after that, the yard jockey returned. "FINALLY," I thought. But no. He returned to the now-occupied door he'd just left a few minutes earlier, and started to retrieve the trailer JUST DROPPED by the other driver.

I am not making this up. By now, I had almost forgotten that I was waiting, caught up in the comedy unfolding before me.

Fortunately, though, the punchline never came. Before the yard jockey could pull away with this second-trailer-from-the-same-door, he grabbed his earpiece and listened. Then he unhooked, pulled over to the neighboring door - MY DOOR! - and moved the trailer.

So I'm in. Now all I need is to get loaded. Skeptical as to how long that might take.

 

Thanks, guys! I'm still around; it's just been busy and maybe since I'm getting into a regular routine (or, sort of regular, and sort of routine...), it feels like there hasn't been as much to mention here. But mostly, when I'm on for my six days, it's pretty much 14 hours on, sleep, shower (hopefully, depending on where I shut down), eat, and do it all over again. That's good, I guess, because I'm keeping the wheels turning and staying busy while I'm away from home. But it doesn't leave much time for anything else when I'm out, and when I'm home... well, that's the time I've got with family right now, so we make the most of it.

But there are a few things: there was a crazy trailer tandem incident solved by a couple of great mechanics at Obetz that I really want to write up here, and I've now been on for a few months, so I'd like to post some general thoughts on how it's going so far and what I think of SNI and this account in particular (spoiler alert: generally positive, but like any company, there are always some frustrations - how's that for vague?).

So thanks for asking - nice to know someone's actually seen this thread! I'll try to get back at it later this week...!