Delivering fuel

For me, going from propane and then "one lung" tankers and chemicals, the change to multi-grade multi-compartmented tankers with all the blends and different types of fuel.. it was a big change and rather difficult.. not to mention that I was hauling gas up in Northern Wisconsin and the UP.. winter was a major drag!! You gotta keep your "poop in a group" till it becomes second nature.. Then come the drops.. some are a pain to get into and it seems that the invention of gas stations that have turned into mini walmarts, liquor stores and entertainment venues.. dealing with the moronic general public.. having some idiot walking up to you with a lit cigarette in their mouths or an idiot do their best to run over your hoses with gas rushing through them is just a small part of the stories.

 

Sometimes the railroad hubs need fuelers & also airports. Don't see those ads too often. The railroad hubs keep on the run delivering tanker loads of diesel to the trains. My buddy delivers gas to Shell stations and loves the job; before that he was OTR reefer.

 

i ve hauled gas for about 15 yrs. it has been good to me.money has been decent .load yourself & unload yourself. terminal operators are a pain sometimes with their rules . you really have to keep your mind on what you are doing .know what & how much you are loading in each compartment then getting it in the right hole at the station ( diesel in a gas tank is frowned upon!) i walked around in a haze for about 6 mo then 1 day it all came together! the big thing is i come home at the end of the day,not sleep in a truck.

 

I've interviewed and done a pre hire physical and drug test to deliver fuel in the last week. Trying to decide between hauling fuel or ABF, as I've interviewed with them as well. Reading posts by gashauler is the reason I applied to haul fuel... Stable, decent pay, and you have a set schedule. Something ABF wouldn't offer me for many years, although the pay and benefits are better. Good luck in your decision, I'm in the same process!

 

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I hope you read all the posts especially about the downfalls. There's not many but some believe there're a deal breaker. Working on any shift that includes nights and weekends do not appeal to some. I didn't care because I was coming off the road and being home every night was great for my family. I also started at a great company that made the job a lot easier. There are some companies that are not so great and drivers do hate them. But on the majority I have found more drivers like what they are doing than not. Good luck.

 

Hauling Gas and Diesel is a great business and I would certainly recommend it with some caveats. You will never realize how many dumb mistakes you will make until you actually get into it. It was a nightmareand a wake up call at first with me but after awhile, I settled down and it became second nature. But the business will always keep you honest. Your great dangers and achilles heals are scullying out which prompted a lock out at the racks I frequented and of course, cross dropping which will get you
fired in a heartbeat. Scullying which is over filling a compartment is handled differently depending on the rack. It's easy to get mixed up and put the wrong loading arm on the wrong compartment and before you know it, you got a red light. And no more loading can be possible. You end up with whats called a short load. This is frowned upon even more so now because of the gas/ethanol proportions, in many states. Not a good idea to get on the wrong side of the terminal manager.
I worked for Mission, Coastal and Dupre in the SA/Austin, TX region, so it was a vibrant market with lots to do. The quiet times IMHO were Jan-Feb, and of course you can be paid by the load or paid hourly. I did both. YMMV That's personal preference.
Good luck to you, once you get going and keep mistakes to a minimum, I'm sure you will enjoy the work.
Oh by the way, depending on where you will be working FYI I switched from days to nights...the reason? I found that on the day shift, the racks would get clogged up more so than if I worked nights. So with traffic being not as bad in addition, it's something to consider that nights may offer better opportunities to get more loads completed. And more money of course.

 

We called it doming out. But I completely understand about the mix. Our ethanol injection was not proportional to the gallons. They told us it was that way because the ethanol temp. had an influence on the net gallons with the gasoline. They would inject maybe 20% for the first 100 galons then adjust. I really don't know the whole story but I do know that we had to make the load right to meet the requirements of 10% so we would print out what was loaded and go from there. It was a real pain because you could not return the product to the tank farm since it could not go into the transmix tank. The ethanol being a non petroleum product really put the screws to us. Texaco tried to blend the ethanol in the above ground tanks but had a very bad experience with that. In fact when you see a dome over the large tank farm most likely it's a texaco product. I know in Vegas that's the way it was. They had to pump all the stations dry and then flush all the lines because their product turned to a milky thick mess. The drivers tried to tell them but sometimes the higher ups know better??? I would hate to see what that cost.