HeartLand Express Unaccountability

Aren't most loads for reefer drivers live? I did it for a while didn't get a lot of drop n hooks! Switched to dry van more drop n hooks and no babysitting the loads! Some drivers seem to love reefer Why? I sit enough driving dry van I like drop n hook no waiting on getting to the docks but not 100% anywhere

 

yes most reefer loads are live. i do miss the drop and hook day's of dry van. But i would say i love reefer. Why? Because of where the loads pick up. shipper's in reefer tend to be the best. At least in my experience. Also reefer give's you more options.

 

I solved the live loading parasitic problem at the grocery and cold storage two ways. First by for example joining Ronnie Dowdy here in Arkansas a long time ago where he has drop hook accounts. Go into say Waco WM DC and drop and hook and gone 15 minutes while dozens wait around the hills for the dock or even to be granted entry to the property. This was one of the biggest boost to my annual income which was on track to breaching 45K one year with who knows how much more if marriage did not come along the way it did.. (I was fired two weeks prior to marriage, losing much time on the phone "Syncing" everything to Arkansas from Maryland. It was a interesting future going from unemployed to I Do then employed running dry bulk cement for a while. Mind bending after honeymoon and fun) You can drive or you can do courting to get married etc. But never both. But frankly I did not give a ####, you only get one marriage first in life. I forgave that employer for the classic ultimatum. Stop trying to get married and get going making miles. Life is not all about miles, although three logbooks worth is plenty.

The final solution for me to the parasitic live loading, unloading troubles is McKesson. Drop hook your choice of loads or sometimes reasonably assigned loads to run safely by morning light. Get reloaded in 40 minutes cardboard bales back to Memphis and done. You are limited by your stamina and prey behavior with these million dollar loads.

 

FFE introduced wife and I to McKesson Loads in Interchanging off a Single in Jessup Md who was a little bit late we think. And Memphis needed those medicines asap. I guess it would have been 2000. Fall of. Late fall. It was our both first million dollar value load. Up until that day Ive hauled some agricultural barrels with farm fluids inside of them worth up to half a million to a Coop via ATS dry van back in the 90's

We joined a fleet that did nothing but McKesson early summer of 2001. FFE at that time was consistantly running us 5 to 7K miles a week maxed out but nothing on payroll $0.00 for three total paychecks in that amount behind. (Paperwork catching up, interchanges etc etc etc etc. We kept a record of everything done and had to comcheck through the DM which I suspected they enjoyed us doing the HR work for them.) We parted ways and joined the Little Rock Based Fleet and hauled for McKesson strictly Memphis.

Introduce 9-11 that morning we were in Detriot. Sat for about 4 hours during the attacks with about 20 other trucks on a major elevated cloverleaf south of there sort of. When we felt that there was a pause in the attacks we moved to deliver into the DC there on the south side of Detriot.

Come to learn that they were loading us for Linfield CT to the max volume of our Great Dane Reefer until the doors barely closed. Then we needed fuel and so on. Stoney Ridge Ohio TA took care of that at like 6 or 7 dollars a gallon for 310 or so plus reefer fuel. Company did not argue the fuel bill. We were due in Linfield CT 9-13. Crossed GWB at 9:32 PM 9-12.

I don't know the value of that load. And it was probably the one load that weight mattered on the CAT. All I can say is that I am blessed in my ignorance of how many millions it must have been that box going to NYC for all those people.

Anyway, wife took a decision that due to her new obesity enough was enough, go home and fix that problem for her it was necessary. For me I reverted to yard jockeying trailers from McKesson to Little Rock to stage for west coast teams, occasionally taking Apples from Yakima down to Safeway NW Atlanta overnights (12 hour drive but logs said 10) as a sort of vacation run when there were enough medicine loads staged, and back in the AM to Memphis)

I have not disclosed that fleet and not revealed much of anything about the property itself. But health issues was going to decide that I was to stop OTR very early 2002. And it was about 9 months after before a team of doctors and I realized just how sick and non DOT I was. And so the surgeries started.