Bulk tankers

I hauled fly ash for about 8 months in an end dump. Made me sick all the time with colds and stuff like that. We had respirators if you wanted one.

 

I don't know that company but I do know a little about Pilot. I would try to work towards Pilot if you can because they are almost considered a major. They keep their trucks up and the pay good. They are not the top payers but still better than most. You can look at their SafeStat and see they have drivers that care about what they are doing. Plus they have drivers that retire so they're doing something right.

I'm sure your drops will be ok with no hang-ups but I don't know about where you load. We had a nice set-up but when it rained we went from nice to hell real fast. Just wait until you start loading ethanol and the rack stops in the middle of your load. I'm sure Pilot loads like we did and does not load the ethanol proportional to the gallons of gasoline. They mix it up because of the temperature of the ethanol so you might get 75% of you ethanol in the first 500 gallons. Whatever it will be you have to stop and figure out how much ethanol was shot in then splash load the rest to make your blend right. They'll teach you all that and maybe you'll be lucky and you won't have to deal with it. You'll still be responsible for the product so I'm sure you'll have all kinds of rules about loading diesel then gasoline and so forth. Once you get trained you become a product delivery driver. So they say!

 

They load in East Chicago, Indiana. They are doing more Road Rangers then Pilots because we have more Road Rangers by us. These are all truck stops so mostly deisel fuel. I don't know how hard this will be. I mostly like the 4pm-4am schedule. I think I can run a little quicker during that time frame due to less traffic and probably less waiting at the racks. I like what I am doing now but they have strange dispatch times. We get 10 off from when we get in the yard. You can be dispatched at 8,9,12, 1,3,4 a lot of layovers for something posted as a local position. I finished at 3pm Monday and have to go back out at 1 am. As I get older, I worry about hours of sleep and operating a tractor trailer. I hope I will end up liking it. I see some negative on the board but the fuelers I talk to at stations and truck stops say I will never go back to van/reefer and they wish they would have started a lot sooner in their career.

 

Having humped a few gallons in my career.....watch for cross drops ( might b fired ) watch the strapping gage ( make sure it fits ) and the idiots walking up with a cigarette.....always use vapor recovery and never allow anyone to get on top and open the domes. ( Packy's r bad about asking 4 this ) If the load is C.O.D. get the payment before you drop. ( Duh ) ( you would be surprised )

Always try to bend the truck to shield the drop from the auto traffic. True enough some T-stops have curbs around the drop and it's out of the way but not always...

On gas, we were supposed to blend every compartment at the rack (75 / 15 / 10 ) or (85 / 15 ) but if we did...there was no way we could make all the drops or any money....SO! I had a senior driver show me the ropes and it went like this......print the load sheet and calc. how many gallons of what is supposed to be on board.......start loading it.......and put what's left in the last compartment....get to the drop and dump all the blenders first ( raffinate and ethanol ) and then dump the mix ( if any ) and finally dump the unleaded on top......that should mix it up enough.

And...we used personal load cards where I'm at...... you load the fuel...it's yours and your responsibility.......If you resign, destroy the cards and give the cuttings to the carrier. What? Phillips 66 called me about 6 mos after I left gas hauling and wanted to know where I went with 8800 gals of super the other night. Huh? I quit 6 months ago I said ! Well, your card loaded 8800 gals of super the other night........so a couple of calls later found my former carrier gave my card to a rookie for a fast start.
Yeah buddy !! I was glad to tell Phillips what was going on........

It was fast and cheap and I certainly learned how to bend my truck in funny shapes....hope that helps.

 

Is this stuff hard to learn? I might be better off staying where I am at. It all sounds pretty complicated and confusing.

 

No NO No. It will all come to you. Remember once you get your routine down you watch the product run off. No touching that product.

Chalupa is giving you good advice but some of those are tricks you learn once you know the job. You'll have written rules that you must follow like hooking vapor up. Diesel you don't have to but our policy is if it's there use it. You'll learn tricks that will help you in your job. Like if you have a load that has diesel and gasoline. You'll want to unload the diesel first so when you offload the gasoline it washes the hose out. You'll learn how to roll your hoses so you don't have to lift much. It's a great job IMHO.

Please don't let us scare you off because hauling gasoline is a skill and you'll get it. They won't just turn you out, they'll make sure you know all that is safe and you'll do fine. At our loading rack we had to go through three days of training and then demonstrate to the rack people we knew how to load safely. So you become qualified and there might be times when you're the only one around to load so they make sure you know what you're doing. That's why you'll become in demand. The companies know they are investing moiney and time into your training so if you need to switch companies they'll take you over anyone that's new. It's a challenge but well worth it.

 

Thanks for all of your input. I will be doing a ride along on Saturday with the driver to see what all is involved in the process. As I get older I am looking for more of a set schedule and routine. I ran yesterday and was happy to be getting back to the yard by 10:30 pm. At the yard they had me do a drop and hook and turn around and run back to Chicago to pick up a Tootsie Roll back haul.