Climate Express

Lots of boonies today for me. Loading in Hiawatha, KS to deliver at Diamond Pet Foods in Meta, MO tonight. Luckily, I've been there a few times when I was at Schuster cause it is not the the most comforting trip in the dark the first time there lol. 15-20 miles down MO-B from US-54 and you'll stumble across a town of 200 people and a pet food plant.

 

They have really nice looking trucks too, I’ve heard that’s a really good gig those guys have.

 

At Schuster or does Diamond Pet Foods have a private fleet?

If you're talking about Schuster, I loved it there. The most true OTR, reefer company I've seen. It's not for everyone, but I liked it because you were liable to be headed anywhere in the country at any time of day on any given day. I checked off 46 of 48 states in my first 6 months with them. Open routing and fueling as well. Was nice to be able to do things like run US-30 to US89 to Logan, UT and see the canyon and bear lake. In one of my stints out, I saw Seattle, Los Angeles, Long Island, and Miami in a span of 6 weeks.

The downsides to that is there are a decent amount of overnight runs and you're expected to be running out the clock and moving when the roads are open. Of course, they don't say "you MUST run across Montana and Idaho in the winter weather and chain up to get it there", but paychecks are gonna be hurting if people aren't willing to.

And it's reefer, of course, so people have to be willing to tolerate the reefer lifestyle.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though since they a lot of their freight is Tyson. There is the occasional shafting where you sit awake all day to pick up a 200 mile load at midnight and deliver it at 0400. And there are some long runs with way too much time. 2300 mile coast to coast loads are cool until you realize it's 6 days til delivery and you're paid cpm.

 

You know it’s funny you mention this and thank you for the info btw, I was looking at Schuster before I came over to FCC. They were advertising a regional position out of KC area. I’ve picked up at the ice cream plant in LeMars one time and was talking to a Schuster driver he seemed really happy with them, and he said the same thing you said you can really get out and stretch your legs. I was originally meaning Diamond Pet. They have black W9’s with black trailers. I used to go to Meta a lot when I was running a hopper and those guys are very tight lipped about where they go and what they do. Or maybe it was just the one dude I cornered talking to. He definitely wasn’t giving up and information.
“So where do you guys all go?”
“Ohh we get around”
“Pretty decent company to work for?”
“Yep, great”.
Ok good talk!

 

That makes more sense lol. Schuster doesn't have ugly trucks, but I didn't think a maroon international qualified as 'pretty trucks' lol.

I haven't seen the Diamond trucks, or at least I didn't recognize it if I did. If I had to guess, their drivers are all from Jefferson City or those little Ozark towns and just want to protect their work load from potential new hires. Probably one of the few companies in that area and the drivers aren't wanting any change

 

Hopefully you made it through those storms alright. Rained pretty hard for hours in MO and IL. Ended up picking up a preloaded trailer from Climate going to Columbus and I saw 4 different jackknifed trucks in the STL area. I understand wind and rain, but was an unusually high number for midnight lol. US50 from Westphalia to Union was not the most pleasant in the rain. Those dang roads are 10 years overdue for some new striping

Maybe they'll get you a good reload out of PFS in the morning

 

Must've been a bad week for whoever caused this message lol

 

I'm sitting at the Pilot in Mt Vernon for my 34. I pick up in Centralia Monday morning headed for Ft Worth.