Central?

Yeah when the Skunk went belly-up and got bought out, some wording in the lease made Central eat a whole fleet of Freightliners.... ALL OF THEM. I guess Jerry thought the lease went with the trucks or something, but there was a good legal battle over it.

 

Does Central have the VN780's? I thought they had the W900's for o/o's and the Freightliner Columbia and Volvo VN670's for solo drivers.

Hunter

 

You can lease a Volvo 780. or used to anyway.

 

Not positive but was told that Central is going to Petes poss 387s..
came from inside the main building in West Valley

 

They had 780s for lease last year, but by the end of summer they were gone. I'd heard from the gossip line it's because they were too heavy, and because they had a lot of problems with them.

Company drivers have 670s, unless you end up in a w900 (which is rare).

The lease program has mostly KW T2000s and W900s, although they said they were getting in more 670s for lease this year. They also have been talking about the new Pete's, and there was one on display outside of the SLC terminal, but I don't know if they're in yet.

I've heard a lot of things about what trucks we're going to get, but I think in the end only time will tell.

 

Thats all on the point, but the Freightliners are becoming a rare site.

We were told by the head of the Fontana CA. terminal today that they should get new Pete's, KW's & Volvo's in about 3 weeks to a month.

Lucky for the class of trainees (Me) they said that if we stay with the Fontana terminal that we would more then likely end up in a brand new tractor when we upgrade to solo drivers. Fontana has some of the oldest trucks in the companies fleet.

 

I hope you stay. How old is your oldest truck?

King

 

We have some of those Freightliners that they got stuck with a few years back, other then those its almost all Volvo's that are in the 03 to 06 year range.

 

The problem is there isn't a "fleet" for a specific yard. There's also no guarantee you'll end up upgrading in the yard you went to training in, unless you ask your trainer and get lucky to end up there. The trucks are round robin, if a person who got a truck out of Salt Lake quits in Fontana, the truck stays there until they can seat someone in it. It doesn't make sense for them to move an empty truck back to a specific truck.

A lot of new drivers, fresh out of training, get old trucks. Usually it's because the drivers that had those trucks get enough experience to quit and go elsewhere, or they decide their old truck has too many problems and ask for a new truck. When I upgraded, there were 4 other people, the newest truck was an 06 with 240,000 miles. It's just the luck of the draw.

When the new trucks come out, the drivers that have been with Central the longest will be asking for the newest trucks. If someone who's been there 4 years asks for a new truck, they're probably going to be higher on the list for a brand new one than someone fresh out of training.

 

Last I was told by my fleet manager, was that the 300 new Volvos they are getting to finish there contract with them will go to teams first, then long standing employees, not the new drivers.
The oldest trucks we have in the company are the ones with numbers starting with a 2, so 21, 22, 23, 24.
All of those are 05 trucks, and all must be traided by the end of the year. Next year we trade the 06 volvos, which start with 6, so 61, 62, 63, ect.

Very few of the freightliners are company trucks, the vast majority of them are owner ops, they were the company drivers that were in the trucks when it was time to sell them, the company offered to sell them to the drivers for between 20 and 25k each.

No final word yet on what truck they are getting for company drivers after they finish with the volvo contract.