Diary of a New Tanker Driver - Comcar CTL

A tank lags more just to help you so cut it a little sooner or you'll end up never being able to catch your tail

 

I've been doing tanker for a small company for 8 months now. What in the world did you have to lift that was 75lbs. The heaviest thing we move around are hoses. When backing watch your tires/fenders! The drift is harder to catch when backing than hauling a dry van. And don't drop the hose ends to the ground. Most companies use cast aluminum or brass couplers and they will Crack and break. Unless your hauling chemical or food grade they won't normally use stainless connectors on the hoses. Be careful! Unless you are driving straight down a highway the load and center of gravity is constantly shifting. Accelerate and decelerate nice and smooth when you have a load in the tank or it will beat you up surging and sloshing around. One nice thing about tankers is the tandems are all the way at the rear of the trailer so you can get real tight to buildings,signs,cars to swing wide and not have to worry about the tail end swinging out and doing damage. I know you weren't asking for advice but I figured I'd add a few tips for you.

 

See my next post.

 

Well, today I completed the first day of training, and let me say it was not what I expected. It was much more involved, complicated, and cumbersome than I expected.

I met the trainer at 0400, and he seems to be a good guy. He was patient, not exactly strict but made sure I knew what the deal was. He does local runs. We bobtailed to pick up the trailer about an hour away (I did the driving). He drove to the site, where we put on all our hazmat gear and he unloaded sulfuric acid. He had to turn so many dials and knobs that my head was spinning, wondering how in the world I was ever going to remember this. Oh, and the e-logs didn't seem too easy, either. Finally, all the paperwork he filled out was something to behold.

It took us about an hour or so to unload, and then I drove back the 45 minutes or so to get reloaded, which took about 45 minutes. I finally had my first experience driving a loaded tanker, and it wasn't as bad as I expected. But still, it was something definitely different and you have to respect what you're hauling. We dumped more sulfuric acid into a retention pond (gravity unload and full hazmat gear again) and then headed back to dump the trailer for the night, and then bobtailed back to the yard. Day done after 13 hours.

My trainer said that as a system driver, I would be doing more driving and that I would have the product unloaded for me most of the time. I have to be honest and say I signed up to be a truck driver for the driving part; I cannot say I necessarily enjoyed the rest of it, although it's only my first day. In the end, I may be better suited to dry van, we'll see.

As for CTL, they do seem to be a very good company from my limited, very limited, time. They pay well to start and my trainer said he was happy there.

 

GolfPro, my training was similar with hazmat/tankers. Lots of local stuff and this had me questioning my decision to go with hazmat/tankers. Once training was over and I hit the road running long haul it was a whole new world and I knew then I had made the right decision. Hang in there!

 

Thanks, Chinatown. I realize the first day is the first day, and I need to do this for my family. I'm tired of not making enough money to adequately support them, which is the reason I went with tankers in the first place. One of the things that hit me, though, was the realization that I would be away from my wife and two kids for 10-14 days at a time regularly. In my previous job, I did travel somewhat, going away for a week every two or three, but of course I would come home for at least a week.

That's another thing that had me questioning this, and again in the end, I may be better off with a local or regional job. But that's speculation. I know military people are away from their families for months at a time; a lot of people have to make sacrifices.

Well, it's 0339 as I write this and time to leave for day two.

 

Get qualified with CTL, then there's plenty of local tanker jobs that will hire you.
McKenzie Tank Lines
Florida Rock & Tank
lesser known tanker outfits around you in SC & GA

 

I know it seems overwhelming now but it gets easier once you've done a week or so.
Take notes on each procedure, step by step for pumping off, airing off and gravity drops.
It'll all become second nature to ya

 

You are just overwhelmed. It happened to all of us once. Look, don't view it as a huge meal you have to eat, just view it one bite at a time. It's a process. Again, we were all there once, even China wasn't born a trucker.

 

Thanks for the input. It helps.

Well, I completed three days of training with my first trainer, and tomorrow I head back at 0400 to my home terminal in Savannah to begin with another. I was placed last week at an out of town terminal because Savannah didn't have any last week.

Yes, I am somewhat down, but am trying to keep what Chinaman, ethos, chaplainkerry, and others have said to heart. I frankly didn't sign up to be a chemical hazmat worker, which I spent about half the day doing last week, breathing in God-knows-what fumes. Completely foreign to me and it felt like I was dropped off on a different planet. Are all local jobs like this? I've been encouraged by the posts that say OTR will be different, so I hope that's the case here.

My trainer was interesting. I would classify him as a Patriot-type of guy, but he seemed normal for the most part. His route, according to him, normally takes him about 11 1/2 hours a day to complete, and he works 6 days a week. Do the math: That's 69 hours, running right up against the clock. He had, let's say, a "creative" way of doing something in order to not go over his 70. All in all, he is a good driver/worker and really knows his stuff.

I'm going local this week, so at least I get to come home each night and sleep in my own bed. Yes, again I realize OTR will be different and home time will be rare, but what added up last week for me was the totality of such a foreign environment along with being away from home. In my previous golf job, I often was away from home but was totally in my element. I trust that once this becomes familiar and comfortable, that will be the case here.

Finally, it didn't help that my wife called Thursday night and informed me our bank account was down to $800 - all the money we had left in the world. So I called my golf job (I still do writing and editing for them in my free time) and thank God, my boss/friend gave me a healthy advance on Friday or else my wife and I would be completely destitute. I've never been in that situation before and I didn't sleep hardly at all Thursday night. I/we made some very poor decisions the past 3 years since she lost her job and we burned through all $150,000 in our 401k. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I know. Nothing anyone else says here will be worse than what I've already said to myself. So add that fact and the stress level I faced last week was off the charts.

I can't say it's much better as I write this Sunday evening.