System Transport, orientation

Okay so my truck is actually a 2013 T800 withabout 566000 miles on it.

I love it.

I had had to take it into the shop the night before Thanksgiving down to the Kenworth dealer because the terminal doesn't work on paccar engines for some reason, if it had a Cummins in it they would have fixed it anyway the Kenworth dealership in Spokane got me in on the night before Thanksgiving and they had the DEF pump recalibrated and the DEF harness replaced by the next morning for me and they left my truck out front in away I went. the whole staff everybody that I dealt with it that dealership was just wonderful they were a lot of fun and they treated me like a king I absolutely could not believe it.

My first load is a load of aluminum sheet from Spokane it was preloaded I didn't even have to strap it or tarp it, and I'm taking one drop outside Minneapolis one drop just outside Chicago.

Most likely I'll be taking a load of EMJ up into Canada after this one.

The weather today was pretty crazy I was in that storm and of course snow and freezing rain in Montana, spending the night at Beach.

 

Wow only about 300 miles today.

3rd day in a row of driving on black ice and snow storms.

I'm over in Valley City North Dakota, just crazy weather. Most of the day it was like 28 to 30 degrees snowing like a son of a gun with a crosswind, so you have to stop about every 30 or 40 miles to knock the ice off the windshield wipers just absolutely insane.

There's been just amazingly light traffic the last 3 days I mean Thanksgiving day I could understand but yesterday and today too. It's like did I miss a road closed sign or something and then you see a car or truck go by.

They got those crazy snow plows over here where they got the plow truck and then it pulls a trailer with like 20 foot long plows on each side of it. I haven't seen one with all the plows out yet but I bet they could do the entire freeway wI think one pass. The trailer also front to rear has a tank for salt.

It's been slicker than hot snot on a brass door knob all last 3 Days, ever since Missoula. I'm really glad I've got a pretty heavy load I'm running about 74,000 or so. Most of the times that I've stopped for a break or lunch or to fuel up I've had to put in the power divider in the rear Locker just to get moving again it's just insanity.

 

Well my first load back in the truck was excellent. It was just under 1,800 miles so that's sweet.
My load originated at my home terminal in Spokane, Washington. It was preloaded and I didn't even have to tarp it which is nice. It was pretty heavy, I was running just over 76 thousand pounds which is really good for traction this time of year.
As soon as I crossed into Montana road conditions started deteriorating a little bit and then once I got just past Missoula it was pretty much ice all the way from there to Minnesota, about halfway between Moorhead and Minneapolis when the roads finally cleared up a little bit I'm not kidding I was literally I was driving on ice for three and a half days.
For about two days starting in eastern Montana I think it was the air temperature was right around 28 to 30 degrees and it was snowing with a pretty good cross wind from the north and the snow was really wet so it would hit your windshield and it would gum up on the windshield wipers and then the wind chill at 60 miles an hour was just enough to refreeze it so it would build up underneath the windshield wiper blades and pretty soon your wiper blades have an inch or so of ice underneath them between the the wiper blade and the windshield and that's not very effective so you'd have to stop every 40 miles or so and knock the ice off your windshield wiper blades.
That really slowed me down and I had a couple of days I only made about 300 miles a day but one really good day I had a 600-mile day that's nice that's what I like to do I like to do 600 miles a day.
Very light traffic all the way over here due to the holiday. There's a couple times I was kind of wondering if maybe the road has been closed and I didn't get the memo or something.
My deliveries went pretty smoothly And I got everything delivered on time so that was good.
My first delivery was up in Blaine, Minnesota, part of Minneapolis. That went real smooth no problems or moments of note there.
My second delivery was down in Bolingbrook, Illinois just next to Joliet. It went pretty smoothly; there is one guy in the warehouse was trying to give me a hard time but I didn't let him. I just adopted a conciliatory tone and diffused his hostility very quickly and we got along just fine after that
And then the the final delivery was in Chicago and when I say in Chicago I don't mean on the outskirts or right on the interstate. This time I had to drive on surface streets for a few miles and it was, well, it certainly wasn't dull.
I was pretty tired last night after a couple days of wrestling with tarps and stuff but it's nice to be back at it and I'll be back in shape in a week or two and everything will be wonderful.
Actually everything's wonderful right now. It's so nice to be back on the road. I'm really enjoying this truck that I'm in, for its age it's in fantastic shape. It's a 2013 with almost five hundred eighty thousand miles on it and it's it's strong, doesn't have any mechanical problems, the body is in really good shape, the Interiors in surprisingly good shape for its age. It's a great truck,
I'll certainly miss the manual transmission once they pull this one out from under me. I don't really dislike the new automated Transmissions that they put in these trucks.
The first two tractors I drove for Swift had automated transmissions in them and I drove them for what 8 months or something like that.
Honestly I would have really liked to have one in that City traffic yesterday and then it was almost forty miles of stop and go from Chicago to Gary Indiana and an automated transmission would have been nice in that too so yeah it'll be okay it's all good.

 

It's going really well.

Since this time last year, (I drove for System last Nov, Dec, and Jan, ) there's been a very noticeable improvement in morale of the shop and warehouse crews at the Spokane terminal.

I also see a very positive improvement in "customer service" at this terminal and also at the JJW terminal in Longview; it's been very good service with a smile.

I'm getting a lot of miles, my manager is excellent, the truck is running really well, I'm very happy to be back in a blue truck pulling open decks.

I'm on my way to Edmonton by way of Bismarck.

 

It's going really well. I'm getting a good mix of long runs for excellent miles and a few shorter runs to mix it up.

I've had 3 runs into Canada, (Edmonton, Calgary and Galloway.)

No complaints, much to be happy about.

 

Not trying to be evasive, but cpm varies by division. Some divisions run less miles, so their cpm might be a little better than, say, OTR.

Your best bet would be to contact a recruiter. I just don't want to give out inaccurate information.

Accessory pay is fair. Tarp pay, stop pay, over dimensional pay, border crossing pay, etc.

Health insurance costs vary a lot, based on which plan you choose, single or family, etc.

System Transport | $5K Sign-On Bonus