Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Been one of those days,live unload in Mt Crawford took 3hrs,than get sent to Pepsi in Wytheville,for a live load,sit for 2grs,for them to tell me products not ready,dropped at dock will grab in morning heading to Indy.
Other than that life's great .

 

Put truck in the shop this morning here in WM since I was on a 34 and got fuel filters changed and check engine light turned out to be a software issue and needed an update. This computerization of trucks is ridiculous, software glitch can mess a truck up.

 

Amusements continue.

I was correct about Gatorade lacking a sense of urgency. Got there at 2:30pm, bumped the dock by 3:00pm. Dropped the trailer in the dock at 5:00pm and bobtailed to the truck stop. Picked the trailer up this morning, found out they didn't finish loading it until 9:30pm last night.

Made it to the receiver with plenty of time to spare before their delivery window closed. Which was a good thing, because they had one guy working the dock, and he came out just as I arrived and said he was going to lunch, and when he got back he'd unload the other Abilene truck in front of me and then he'd unload me. This was around half-past noon. And it was around this time that Edna informed me of my next load, which required me to be to my next shipper by 4:00pm. And it was 3 hours away.

Called HQ, told 'em I wasn't going to be able to make it to the shipper before they closed. Which meant that I wouldn't be able to get loaded until tomorrow morning. Which meant that I wouldn't be able to reach the receiver tomorrow by the time they closed. HQ told me they'd check on things and let me know what was what.

Time went by, guy came back from lunch, guy unloaded the other truck, other truck pulled out and went on his merry way, and I bumped the dock. Naturally, I didn't get any callback from HQ telling me what to do. So I called the receiver and explained the situation. Found out from their S&R manager that they didn't even know they had a load coming, and didn't know what it was, which means that it's nothing urgent and if I show up a day "late", they're not going to care. Left her my number just in case she turns up new info tomorrow indicating an urgent need for the freight I'll be hauling. (I can make it to the receiver tomorrow. I just can't make it there before they close for the day. But if it turns out to be urgent, she said she'd stay late.)

Then I called the shipper and explained the situation, and they're fine with me showing up tomorrow morning to get loaded. They invited me to spend the night on their unsecured yard in the industrial section of downtown Cincinnati, but I opted for a PFJ an hour away.

And then I called HQ and told 'em I'd done their jobs for 'em and gave them the adjusted pick-up and delivery times. All's well that ends well.

 

....and would be patiently waiting on renumeration from someone for doing their job.....

 

Got to Mann&Hummel yesterday afternoon and in and out in 20 minutes for a live unload, gotta be a record for me, lol! Parked at the Loves at the 104 for the night. Next load picked up at 1100 this morning in Pineville, NC and dropped in Sandston at 1700. Shipper had me loaded in 45 minutes. Fork driver came out with my paperwork and a Lease Op pulled in. Sat and watched as he proceeded to needlessly destroy his truck trying to turn around. Watched him ram his truck back and forth into the trees, when he finally got turned around he stopped to try and fix his driver side mirror that bent up and broke loose from the the trees he drove up against. All he had to do was back up and park off to the side and wait for me to pull out so he could use the three open dock spaces to spin around and pull straight up into the gravel drive between the trees and back straight in like I did. He had a 23 Volvo that looked like crap already like he has a habit of hitting and running stuff over. Why destroy a truck he pays for is beyond me….After dropping my load in Sandston I decided it would be better to get up 0330 like I normally prefer to to get to VA Beach and pick up a stihl load going to Hillsborough, NC. rather than sit in evening rush into and out of VA Beach/Hampton Roads area and possibly not get to the yard til midnight for a ten and run the risk of being late. Hopefully Stihl don’t ding us for load not picked up tonight.

 

Maybe they're like me, driving a company truck that used to be a lease-op truck.

Been a long time since I picked up at Stihl, but my recollection is that they're a pretty laid-back bunch.

 

Delivered a Hewlitt-Packard load to NJ this morning. Picked it up yesterday, parked at the nearest travel plaza on the NJ Turnpike, and arrived on time this morning.

Shortly after I got parked for the night yesterday, though, I got a pre-plan. Pick up a load of spices in Hunt Valley, MD and deliver them to Byhalia. Date of delivery is Monday, but it's a drop and I was told I can get it there sooner than Monday if I wanted.

Woke up this morning and saw that I had the "Soot level high, regen to prevent derate" message on my dash. No big deal, I've seen that lots of times. Usually goes away after an hour of driving. This time, however, the warning was accompanied by the "maintenance needed" indicator light. The one that looks like a crescent wrench and sits next to the "check engine" light. I call that one the check engine light you shouldn't ignore.

While I was sitting in the dock getting unloaded, I did a manual regen. Did not clear the alarm.

Drove to Elkton, MD, and got a shower there at the TA. Ran a manual regen while I was inside. Came back out, it was still running.

Drove to the shipper, bumped a dock, and ran a manual regen while getting loaded. Did not clear the alarm.

Started heading to Byhalia which, from the shipper, involved running east on I-70 and south on I-81. Called breakdown to inform them of my difficulties. I was expecting them to find a dealership in Hagerstown or Martinsburg, but they told me just to drive back to Richmond instead and put it in the company shop. Shoulda figured.

So now I'm home and waiting to see how long the truck will be down. If it's a quick fix, I can still make it to Byhalia by Monday. Otherwise, they'll have to split the load and give it to someone else.

 

Freights so slow in West Memphis,they had me deadhead to New Castle.Grabbing a loaded in morning for Jacksonville Sunday morning.

 

According to the shop, I have a bad EGR valve. Mind you, I just had the EGR valve replaced a month and a half ago when my truck broke down in the mountains of SoCal. So apparently it's an on-going thing.

Shop says they're waiting for a part. Won't be in until Monday at the earliest. So I have an unexpected weekend off.