Central Refrigeration Service, Inc. - West Valley, Ut.

well so far so good, the terminal here in SLC smells like dirty butt, LOL... But the people are nice and I just was hired into the company...I am starting school tomorrow so it is just a matter of time before I am out on the road....

 

" Not that one with the used up single axle trucks and trailers I hope!" The Blue Turtles are always hiring

advance school of driving, frieghtliner condo classics and 53 footers, just a 2 week cdl mill. have an orientation date set with werner.

 

I have had my CDL for about 16 years now, but I never drove a Tractor after school, only straight trucks (dump, flatbed, mixer ect.)
I have finally decided to take the leap to the road and I will be going to the Medina school for a week refresher starting June 18th.
Then to GA for orentation.

I am very worried about time with a trainer, hopefully I will get lucky and get one that I can work easily with.

I do have a few questions for current Central drivers.
1. is there a fridge and microwave in the trucks? Or will I have to supply my own?

2. How hard is it to get loads to Western NY? I live in Jamestown, so it is not too far from the 90.

3. A big question I have is where they have drop yards and Terminals around the country? I have been looking for a full list if anyone can give one I would appreciate it.

Any answers will be appreciated. Thanks

 

1: No and No

2: Very Hard is my guess, they like running all the west coast drivers on the east coast and east coast drivers on the west coast.

3: Drop yards are everywhere, I don't think anyone has a complete list. Terminals are in Fontana CA, West Valley City UT, Conley GA, Irvine? TX, Some place by Denver.....

Should be pretty easy to get a truck too, there was a bunch of clean outs in West Valley City last week!

 

You shouldn't have a problem going to upstate or western. They've had me running alot from the midwest and over to NY and MI the last few weeks. Sad Panda is right. They run you away from the area you live. I stay in AR and I'm out of the Irving terminal and only see TX and Ar when I go home. I know were using Thermo King for some drop Locations. Seen alot of those latley. On the microwave and power inverter you will have to buy your own. I got a 2500 watt 4000 peak inverter and it runs anything I want. They do allow them. Hope this helps. I've been off a week so time to get back to work. Good luck.

 

Thank you very much for the info.
I guess my shopping list will be starting to grow allready. But I cannot see spending allot of money in truck stops when I can buy food for a few meals a day at Wallyworld.

 

hello all,

I am writing to you all from a truck stop in ogden utah, I have been out with a trainer since monday and we have been running real hard this last week, we left from west valley city to gaffney north carolina and back in 4 days and then from WVC to american falls idaho and back yesturday and then up to ogden so my trainer could go home for a family reunion...

My trainer is a nice guy and pretty patient, but there hasn't been much for him to be impatient about... I picked up how to shift his 13 speed the first hour and have been running 11 hour shifts with him since I got into the truck...

He said I was 1 of 3 trainees he has been able to run full team from the start in the last 7 years of him training and 1 of them had previous OTR experiance, so he is pretty happy with me...

I have bumped 2 docks so far, and each of them were done well, but were pretty easy docks so I am hoping for some harder backing experiance before I go solo,

And to anyone that has a trainer that is not teaching you or is a dirtbag, just talk to safety, and they will not allow you to be treated badly or be put into a situation that is uncomfortable to you... My first trainer I was supposed to leave with on last thursday was a complete dirtbag, his whole truck was dirty and filled with junk!!! he was a trucker pack rat and i was gonna be his 1st. student!!! Well I went and grabbed all my stuff, put it into the truck and opened the curtain and almost crapped myself as his entire bottom bunk was filled from top to bottom, side to side and front to back with bags, microwave, fans etc... and all of the closets were filled as well...He wanted us to move all his crap from his bunk to the front every night!! And his A/C in the back didn't work and when I asked him about it, he told me " there are windows you can open up there!!! LOL... So I told him this will not be the way I will start truck driving and I got out of his truck and immediately went to my recruiter, who is a super model, but we won't get into that... : DROOL: she is so darn pretty it's crazy!!!!!!!!


Safety said that they would never expect anyone to deal with that an immediately got onto the phone and found me a trainer with the same pre requisites as me, 30's, smoker, CLEAN, and with some experiance training students...

I got a great trainer now, even though he is running me alot harder then I expected to run, it is just giving me more experiance and he is teaching me the qualcom, and the ins and outs of hour conservation on logs... I couldn't expect any more...More toi come soon...
So far, central has exceeded my every expectation...

 

Well. I am allmost done with my refresher in Medina.
I will be heading to GA on Wednesday for the orentation. And I hopefully will get a good trainer fast from there.
I am back up to speed on a tractor after just a few days, and I got it back faster than I thought I would.

 

The problem is you have to have half an idea of what's going on to be able to tell if your trainer is good or not. The awful ones, and the dirty, trashy ones are easy to spot; but the medicore ones don't usually show their true colours until you're nearly done, or you don't find out they're medicre until you're done training.

My trainer was like that. He was a nice enough guy, but I spent endless texts to my boyfriend complaining about the annoying things he did. He;d have us log 100% legal, and then he'd waste 4 or more hours of my driving day with extra stops, claiming they're because I need to have access to food, etc. Sure, stopping to get something to eat is nice, but when I can be back in the truck in under 15, and it takes him 45, that's not because of me. I could go into a hundred other things that drove me crazy, and were poor training, but I won't.

I didn't find out how poor of a trainer I really had until I met up with a couple of experienced drivers, who asked me about my training. Apparently we missed quite a bit, like how to properly check tires for air pressure, or how to pretrip the reefer. I'm still finding stuff out that I should have learned in training, but my trainer never bothered to teach.

Sure, you can get a new trainer with no hassle, but it's not always obvious that your trainer is lacking. Sometimes, by the time you find out, if you're not done with training, you're nearly there and you don't want the hassle of getting a new trainer for 4 or 6 or 8 days more.

 

hi my husband and i have worked for central now going on 5 years hope you enjoy it as much as we have