Calex Express....My New Home!

Thanks Jon. I appreciate you taking the time to check into that for me. Maybe they will change their minds in the future.

 

The newer trucks are Volvo Ishift and they absolutely run circles around the Eaton UltraShift (UltraCrap if you ask me). I've been stuck in 230 for the past week now because the MillionDollar Kw is down for lack of taillights and while they don't drive me as absolutely bonkers as they used to, I still can't wait to get back into my usual ride. If I had a choice between and UltraShift and a Mack duplex I would take the duplex. No XY motors to worry about in the old hand fired gearboxes. I think Volvo did a pretty good job of working out the semantics of shifting gears over a wide variety of terrain and load weights and I was very impressed with the one that I drove several months ago. It helps that its mated to a Volvo engine so all the programming has a high degree of synchronicity being that it is written by the same engineers. But I still wouldn't trade the old 15 speed for one.

 

Well said!

 

Anytime. Let's hope they do change the policy. I've heard they lost hiring some well qualified safe drivers because of the pet policy. Makes no sense to me that they won't change the policy to accommodate a well qualified driver.

 

I'm home. Got here around 1pm. I am back in my newer ('11) truck with a new motor. It sounds a lot stronger and runs great. Everytime I stopped I tilted the hood to make sure there was no fluid leaks and that all the Volvo parts were still attached.

I spent Thursday moving my belongings from xx311 to xx332. My fridge was still where I left it along with my inverter. Nutjob me spent all day unloading the old truck, cleaning the new one and setting up house completely before I went and got my load. I'm just glad I left most of my things at home when I left Monday.

I picked up my load in McElhattan around 7pm Thursday night. I made it down to Breezewood and called it a night. I deliver Wednesday in Ft Lauderdale at 8am and will reload as soon as I get empty. Louie mentioned something about a Northwest load when I get back to Pittston on Friday, we'll see.

 

You'd be proud of me today John, I chained up for my first time and later in the day had to do it again. These well site locations in western PA are no joke. The 2nd location I went to I was the only one who chained up going in, a good 2 miles or so off the hard road with about 5 of the biggest hills I've ever seen, well the "supertruckers" moving the rig in didn't chain up, going in was fine it was the coming out empty they could not accomplish, so here I am the only guy in there with chains on, and from Florida none-the-less and I made it in and out just fine while they had to wait for a loader to come tug them out.

If the pet policy does ever change let me know, my wife and I were ready to come on a while back until JROTRA informed me of the recently done away with pet policy.

 

Chaining up now makes you an official truck driver....lol. I've chained up twice in 31 years. Once in 1985 just to be able to get out of a rest area in the middle of Wyoming, the second time was in 1998 in order to get over Snowqualmie Pass in Washington so I could get home for Christmas that year. This pet policy has come about because a couple drivers let their dogs use the inside of someone else's truck as a teething ring. Hopefully they'll change the policy soon.

 

With the location of these gas wells, chains are almost a given. As far as the PA roads are concerned, they weren't too bad, snow covered in spots but driveable. When this is all over I think I can honestly say it's been the worst experience of my life, but at the same time the best....if that makes any sense.

 

Makes perfectly good sense. At least when this is over for you it will be a positive mark for your next job app. I always try and explain to drivers they haven't trucked until they've experienced the back roads of PA.

 

That's for sure. Although tonight, I switched my loading place from Hazleton to Tamaqua (with the bosses permission) on my last load of the night. Heavy snow, high winds, and a flash freeze (temp went from 34 to 15 in about two hours) and I-81 along with the back road I use to get to the loading site were very treacherous. Rather than chance getting into a bad situation, I asked and was given permission to pick up in the safer location.