I'm a... part time trucker? If there is such a thing

Awesome post, thanks for the story definatly made me smile. I have to ask , do u use elogs when u drive. ? If u do, do u hate them just as much as the rest of us ? Lol

 

What lane you want where you going from your Pa.

Trainers and their ghosts spoke to me on that line. You are a trucker even if you think you play one now and then.

The industry has gotten... how do I say this... anyone can play. You would have to be really horrible to fail, gimme that 6000 dollars. Or sign a year of your life. (17th century indentured comes to mind, but you do it free will negating the 13th amendment)

Trucking has gotten to push button drive. I still hang on to my old iron. You really needed some connection with them. Sitting in a push button palace being spoon fed everything with just three gauges instead of 30 or whatever took something out of me. Almost a neutering.

I guess robots will roll (And they do..) I'll still hang on to the old iron.

You have a CDL A you drive a truck when you need to. Thats quite enough as far as I am concerned. It would be interesting to hear a dispatcher try to use simple talk to you not aware of your lofty position within the company structure. //teasing. I have to tease now and then. There were some good dispatchers I keep in mind and they were #### good.

Other than that, grab a chair. One of these days you might want to come out of there and run the 48 and canada. I think that would be the biggest blessing in life to be able to range and travel that far out. I could never just be raised in one city and stay there on the block all my life. Not with the generations dying off to be replaced with a different .. set of residents and change in situation. Nothing against them. I can probably pick out a person from that area as easily as they pick me out deep in the south.

Enjoy your time. You don't need a ... fairy god mother to say you are now a Trucker. you are already one when your Pa was making you choose what lane to stay in. Just needed the spurs to deal with today's licensing and technology horrors that have become apparent since those wonderful days.

HEY! Mind that gear, shift it *PUNCH* yer in it. Get it up there... (Most people today would think that's abuse. its not for me.) But I did a little training and the few I put out did ok. My own wife though was the best student. She had some discovered limitations but she did well like a Marine should.

 

I had a spiritual warfare for a while about ELD's It would just say.. Stop here at the 11th hour. Not where i feel like end of day (Or days for that matter) and then stop. I don't know how many times Ive gone into say Petro in Knoxville out of Denver and just put one foot in front of the other to the counter. Coffee is already sitting there waiting, order please?

"Mph, food. I don't care. plate here please. thank you."

Worry about the billing later. Come out of there like a human. But it was a good run. Satisfying to the soul I guess. (The waitresses were not flappable or easily disturbed by strange humans asking for something wonderful gals...)

ELDs would force me to run... precise. I do not do precise. But I will build in some safegaurds for it. If it's time for me to take 10 hours sleep time, I'll spend three at the tables in sky city and then get my regular 7 hours sleep. Easy.

I am working on getting back into it. IF you asked me some years ago if I could, I would have laughed. The one doctor after surgery said after the one joint is in that a few got back to work in the mill or trucking whatever. You should give it a try, preferably after I get the other one.

Some folks have had replacement parts. Then its possible to salvage something of life away from the Government Dole.

That I think is motivating. But I have to be careful. It would be too easy to terrorize the tender new ones to the industry.

 

For whats its worth FFE gave us a automatic with 16 miles on the clock, we had a big 515 or so detriot mated to it, rockwell meritor I think the auto was. Paddle shift PthroughD with M (To stay in gear or paddle shift which I get to later)

When I squawked about it they told me watch my spouse she will drive well with it. Fuel will take care of itself. 2000 century. 345 gallon tanks two.

Took me weeks not to reach for the timing to shift with the engine working hard upgrade or down on jacobs. Winter came soon enough and she pretty much proved herself on ice. Which warmed me slightly. I guess the work load was greatly reduced to a point and it was not too difficult. She did accept certain hard treatment to avoid being hit or avoid hitting others intentional or not. Which I liked. I like trucks with big boots but a tolerance for that.

They ran the hell out of us in the rocky winter. And some east coast. Wife did good. I would confess that particular year out of 210,000 miles on that thing two alternators, a couple of other tidbits a inverter install and bricked auto twice.

Now the bricking.

We were a team that never stopped never shut down and fixing to move. The truck manual says we must stop, shut off engine 30 minutes every 7 days. HA.... not just HA but HAH....

Bricks. TOW time. The first time revealed two problems. FFE did not understand what it meant never to stop, causing a tow with that transmission. The other was the Veep having to go to Fort Worth to collect us with a very HOT JIT load for Iowa that must be there hell or high water. You cannot (Maybe do..) understand how people are seriously interested in that box being there at the time it must be there not late ever. Well they stuck another driver on it after they towed us back onto Lancaster. The Veep notice laundry not done. He stormed. We dont stop. We have ten days clothes all weather all year no worries except we never stopped.

He issued a order to dispatch to every time we burn our 70 out in 5 ot 6 days each (140 total of 168 weekly hours, we get 12 to 30 hours to stop and stay away from anything related to work where the truck is. So we can have a meal laundry and so forth.

That made it possible to run even harder. Burn out the hours.

But here is the thing. I came out of a manual 9 with the same engine and can get around 1600 miles expected plus a estimated 2100 if I am very careful with manual on that fuel. The auto gave me the same 1600 and sort of welshed on the 2100 poaching a little reefer once or twice for safety when we skipped a fuel stop for schedule reasons cross country. Don't have the 30 minutes to waste fueling the second time after the Holbrook or Memphis.

I have learned that autos evolved. I am horrified at some of the things they think they can do. One says it needs space satellites to know when to shift to save fuel. Any truck hitting a upgrade pulls RPM down and down the tree you go. Over the mountain and far away. No need for satellite spaceman to shift for you. Thats just a example.

Robot trucks are rolling quietly here and there. And like a slow infection they getting into everything. (UGH... and am I sure I wanna get back in trucking? HA...)

The engine computer in my time was basic. Told you the code and the trouble. Find it online and know whats what. Sprout "Fix this part..." to dealer shop boss and get a bad face in return. He huffs and puffs his feathers and plumage to tell us we need to diagnose...

no diagnose. You fix this part. You can check the work and know if I am wrong or right. Cost me a few more in this and that out of spite. But I keep a eye on them. They don't like that.

Gone are the days where I bust a heater core and sit by a iron shop stove feeding wood and sipping coffee with a little extra in it (Brandy) while Mr Fix it from back in the 20's shuffles around the cab fixing this that or other teaching me about history from grandpa's time... mind that stove more wood....

Two complete opposites. One life and winter time to be happy and the other a cold hospital like dealer bay fighting computer wars. Spinning money. Ugh.

Thats why I drive a old vehicle. I do keep a small OBD2 computer for it so I can understand what the boo boo is when cylinder number 5 smokes too much from misfiring to soot. That means I need to feed her some fuel treatment and give her a run up one of our ridges. 3 miles would do it for a good while. even though the 350 is a tired engine, but they build that one seems like forever. Easy fix. *Shrugs.

I might just keep the thing.

 

So, what are you asking, without reading these novels you guys write. You want more part-time stuff? rarely exists in the trucking world, does your "part-time" make you less qualified in any way? No, just be happy you don't have to do this all the time. The only part time trucking I did, was like seasonal stuff, where you go 25 hours a day for a couple weeks, but longer distance outfits can't do part time, the rest of the world doesn't work that way.

 

The fun part went over the board a certain number of years in. I remember almost perfectly what I would call a flawless run from Seabrook NH to Baltimore 9:50 on paper via GWB and DMB etc pulled brakes in the old Plaza by the FMH Tunnel downtown Baltimore about 1991 at 4:40 in evening. Sodas. Washington DC for Landover distribution. A bit of lumping the next morning, 48500 in cans by cases off pallets onto small wood.

There would be other perfect runs I suppose in the rest of my time but not the kind with dispatch asking you going to make it as they stress over the satellite arrival.