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

At home for the weekend, hearing freights bad up in Richmond.

 

By Boars Head closing their Jarratt plant, I imagine Richmond is "bad".

 

Boar's Head discontinues product, closes facility linked to listeria outbreak 'indefinitely'

 

Looks like the Petersburg plant is still open.

 

It doesn’t surprise me… I ran for a Walmart dedicated account by the house and never had any time or trailers ever washed out and they had spilled milk, busted eggs, etc. on the floor and they just reloaded the trailer out to the store

 

Things have been running reasonably briskly since my last update.

* Delivered a trailer full of those blue icepacks to a grocery warehouse in Statesville, NC. Had to pay lumpers. Don't understand why grocery warehouses seem to still use lumpers.
* Picked up a load of empty 7-up cans in Cheraw, SC, and delivered them in Holly Springs, MS.
* Picked up a load of metal fixtures of some kind, dropped them on the Richmond yard to be delivered to Hill-Phoenix as soon as they had an available door.
* Picked up a trailer full of applesauce in Front Royal and delivered it to Cleveland.
* Picked up a load of "plumber's goods" in Groveport and delivered them to Prince George, VA.
* Currently on the Danville --> Joliet Ikea load. Will be delivering tomorrow.
* Already preloaded with a Gatorade load, picking up in Indy and delivering in Hanover, PA. They offered me a Boar's Head load instead, but I felt it prudent to avoid Boar's Head for now.

 

You should see the trailers for the outfit I work for. No one gets them washed out and almost every single one is nasty as hell. I was scolded for asking. Took a picture and sent it to the terminal manager. Got it washed. Not even allowed to get the trucks washed on the road. They have a guy who comes to the terminal. He does a crappy job. Whatever. The inside is clean. I make my money and I go home.

 

Empty trailer I picked up at Ikea had an inspection sticker that expired back in June. The left rear outer tire had two nails in it, and the right rear inner tire was completely bald, no tread depth at all anywhere on the tire. In addition, it had some kind of square, wavy tack/join embedded in it and was completely flat. Called Breakdown, they sent me to the Loves in Channahon, IL. Whereupon I was informed that, while they would be able to fix the tires, they wouldn't be able to perform a DOT inspection on the trailer until Monday. As I did not feel like sitting around until Monday, I asked Breakdown to send me to the Petro in Wilmington, IL.

The Petro did the inspection, and discovered that there was a 3rd tire that needed to be replaced, that I had missed during my pre-trip. Took Breakdown 2 hours to approve the inspection and the tire replacement, and another hour to actually complete the work.

This is the 2nd trailer in 7 days I've picked up with an expired inspection sticker. The trailer I picked up in Front Royal had a sticker that had expired in February.

 

Epidemic of lazy drivers in this industry who continue to drop trailers like this and companies just don’t care either..