Anyone at Paschall Truck Lines currently?

Whilst I respect your request to honor your confirmation bias, I do run into quite a few PTL trucks and might say from strictly an observation point, that they don’t seem quite on par with the likes of, say, TMC - when it comes to training quality - if it were feasible to judge all books by their covers.

Good luck in your training.

 

I rolled with them for 2 weeks out of school in 2012,and the trainer never took time to teach me anything.Ran like team.Asked for different trainer,denied,so quit.

 

I started with PTL Oct 2015 and stayed with them till end of 2016. Ask away and if I can answer I will.

 

Yes I went through their training program. It was 3 day orientatiin then head out with a trainer for a few weeks. After trainer you had to show you could back up in between 2 trailers in their yard a few times. After that you head out with another driver with 6months or less driving experience for 40,000 miles which took me around 2 months. I think I went solo in early Feb 2016.

My overall impression at first was very little communication from your fleet manager or anyone else you may talk to but I look back at it as they want to see how you do. As a solo driver I enjoyed it as long as I didn’t have to go to a terminal which would normally be 1-2 days sitting there waiting for them to fix something(only 2 terminals then Murray and West Memphis). This was my first trucking job so I didn’t know what to expect. I probably averaged 2000 miles a week for my first few months and I rem having a some less than 2000 a few times. But after being there 1 year it seemed I always averaged 2500-2750.

I was never forced to drive if I thought it was to bad to drive and if I ever called maintenance for any issue they always said head to a shop and have them give us a call to approve it. I’d say 50% of the time I got home on the day I requested so plan accordingly for home time. If you have to be home on a certain date ask to be home a few days early. I started out at .33 cents a mile and ended at .37 when I left. They used to pay .02 less west of the Mississippi but that has changed or is about to change to same pay all miles. Half the fleet were newer Freightliners and other half older Internationals which both has a mix of manual and autos. They bought some new trailers while I was there but still had a good amount of pretty old/refurbished trailers so make sure and pre-trip pretty well cause I usually found an issue with one of my trailers weekly.

If you pick up your loads on time and deliver on time, don’t over idle to much they leave you alone. Overall I enjoyed working at PTL.

 

I got paid every Thursday morning by electronic transfer for my work done the previous week of Monday thru Sunday. They do skimp on detention pay. I rem I had a few Kroger unloads of 8+ hours and got paid nothing.

I think they want you to stay out 3 weeks minimum. 7 days out 1 off.