Driving a Logging truck

Boardhauler · Oct 30, 2015

Best trucking job in the world. Count your blessings that you got a chance to experience it.

Rugerfan · Dec 2, 2015

I did it for a little while. Definitely interesting that's for sure. Gotta love a loader operator yelling at you to hurry up and back up to him even though it's darker than hell outside and you can't see #### lol

Jubal3 · Dec 2, 2015

It's definitely for a special breed.

1st of all, you have to be really good at negotiating totally unmarked roads at night. Frankly this, above all else is what killed it for me.

Second, you have to be something of an adrenaline junky, because the roads you drive over and the speeds you need to go ON those roads, are something that the average OTR driver will NEVE|R experience.

Finally, and this was the real killer for me, you have to be willing to put in 11-12 hours a day AFTER a 1-2 hour commute for MAYBE 60k a year excluding the two month layoff in mud season. That means you work like a dog, in EXTREMELY dangerous situations for 48k a year with a 2-3 three month layoff every year where you collect unemployment.

I'm sorry, that doesn't add up for me.

You're talking roughly 14-hour days when you include a commute for MAYBE 50k, but you're home weekends.

The math doesn't work out. Especially not when you include the fact that my company couldn't BUY disability insurance because of the work done. If that doesn't clue you in to the dangerousness of this work, you're too stupid to breathe.

OTR can be scary, but you're unlikely to go over a cliff or have a load drop on your head. None of those things can be said driving a logging truck.

It's a highly dangerous field paying mid-level wages. If thats what you want to do, my hat is off to you. It's an important job. But HELL no, it's not something I would ever sign up for.

I have nothing but respect for the guys that do this. But having done it for a while, it's the WORST job in trucking in my book. I've watched guys I know DIE on this job and others become seriously disabled just from the roads and the back problems they create FROM THE ROADS THEY HAVE TO DRIVE ON.

If none of that dissuades you, by all means have at it with logging trucks.

Rugerfan · Dec 2, 2015

It will make you a better driver there's no doubt. The thing that I didn't like was the no marked roads and hoping you're in the right spot. Plus the boss's son was the truck boss and he is my age but just a dick. He loves to show he is in charge.

Ransom2007 · Aug 25, 2017

Jubal3 said: ↑

No, I am NOT, EVER naming the company it's a tiny company and no, you are not likely to get a job here. They don't even advertise.

Making the thread because there is bupkis here on Log-truck driving, which SHOULD be it's own sub-forum. (Mods, I hope you're listening).

OK, so Full disclosure, I did 6 months OTR, then got a job driving fuel truck, but it's going to be a bit til my truck is ready and I was asked to drive logging truck for a week or two before I start my regular gig,

Day 1 was awful. Sat with a guy who should never train ANYONE. Nice enough guy, but wow he missed virtually everything important.

Logging is different from flat-bedding, but knowing how to use chains and binders is useful. We use wire strapping with chains on the end. Basically throw a 3' chain attatched to a wire over the top of the load. Not a big deal, but it's a technique to get it right.

You don't have a "trailer." What you have is a tandem rear-end that, like your front end stakes, pivots with the truck. This means that your back axles basically follow your steers. You can make a turn with these babys pulling 50' logs that you could NEVER make in a standard trailer.

The roads are sheer Hell. Really rough, even in the BEST of weather, and up in the PNW mountains, winter lasts from early Nov to late May. They are rough and will beat the Hell out of you, even in an air-ride.

The run from the logging road to your cut (where you actually get loaded) is 5-10 MPH, 15 if you're gutsy. It's basically a VERY rough cut "kinda" graded road that bounces you all over and includes 12% grades over road that will shake your teeth out.

You back up to a loader, who lifts off your rear-end, you pull up, he sets it down and you back up into the pintle-latch, set up your air and electrical lines, get the Hell out of the way and he loads you.

These trucks have very good internal scales, and you'll be using the CB to tell him how much you can take.

We're rated to 82000, 91,000 on the reservation. How you load depends on where the load is going. You get paid by the ton, so obviously you want to load as much as you think you can get away with.

The loads average between $50 and $150 depending on the product and the mill location.

Basically you can make $1500 a week if you run hard, REALLY fast, and know your way around the roads.

Average pay is closer to 11-1200 per week. As always in trucking, how hard, fast and skilled you are will determine your pay.

Upsides: You're home every day, you have every weekend off. If you're into really challenging your driving skills, this beats the Hell out of any OTR experience I can imagine. This is HARD driving, requires serious attention and concentration.

Downsides. This is REALLY dangerous work. These roads are treacherous even dry. Even bobtailing, your truck slides all over the places on gravel, winding, poorly maintained logging roads. Loaded isn't a lot different. The truck acts like it's on ice, pretty much even in summer. In poorer weather, it gets even more squirelly. When your loading, at least your first load, it's pitch black and the only lighting is from your back working lights and the floods of the loader. If you get stupid and get under those logs, you are at risk of dying in an instant, because they DO fall from the loader. I've seen that happen. A 1000 pound tree falling on you? You're gonna die.

My Experience: (all 2 days of it) OK, Full Disclosure, I hate this job. There is nothing about it that doesn't suck. I'm doing this because I'm the new guy at the company, my fuel truck isn't ready and they are desperate for help. I was asked to help out for a week or so and agreed to it because I want to be the guy that says "Hell Yes!" not the guy that won't do a job that's "beneath" him.

Sleep at 6pm, wake up at 2AM, clock in at 4AM in BFE an hour from anywhere, drive 1.5 hours to the loader. Get loaded, drive like a maniac to the Mill, cause you get paid by the load. You need to make 3 loads a day to make that $1500, 4 on a crap run (quality of the wood you're getting loaded with, which you have no control over). Do it again another 2-4 times.
Most guys make 3 loads a day, sometimes (If you're first in line (which they rotate) you get 4.

Logging roads are like a maze. Because it's not just YOUR company that's logging there. There's 20 others. And they all make their own roads. Forget signs, GPS, Road Atlas, this is all about learning the roads in, to borrow a phrase: "Twisty passages, all alike."

First day solo, I got lost, twice. First time was no big deal, a 10-minute delay. Found the cut, got loaded, NP. Then I set out for the mill. I asked the boss about the road TO that mill, got some bad information and spent an hour and a half of wasted time till I got the load to where it needed to be delivered. This cost me a load, and subsequently, 1/2 the pay for the day.

Now guys LOVE this job. Physically, it's trivial, other than the bad roads. Seriously, NOTHING in logging remotely compares to tarping a load in icey conditions, or even throwing 60-lb chains. The driving is REALLY challenging. My company uses Petes with 15 gears and YES, you will use all of them. Early AM in the mountains IS beautiful. I LOVE seeing the stars up high, with no ambient light and no pollution.

Totally different kind of driving than OTR, or even local, daily. High thrill factor (as in scaring the Hell out of you)
High pay. $1500 a week is #### good money as a company driver. Home every night and weekends off. I can see the appeal. My nephew has been doing this for 17 years. I WISH I was 1/2 the driver he is. Because he's a #### good driver. Really impressive to ride with the guy, which I did for a day as a lark.

Oh, and you'll never do a pre-trip or post-trip because the mechanics do that for you every day when you park. Fluids replenished, truck fueled, all you need to do is drive. Also no logs, because we're under the 150-mile local limit.

That's all I got. The pros will have oodles to say on this if they respond. I'm a rookie. Just doing this for a week or so. But logging trucks SHOULD have their own forum. Because we deal with stuff NOONE else deals with. It's a specialized field.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post, a lot of good information. I am in the process of buying a 2011 Mack Pinnacle CXU613 and hauling logs,in South Carolina. This truck has DPF so i'm a little concern with the idle time while waiting to be loaded. But If I maintenance the truck properly and not take any short cuts, i should be good. In my area its $150 per load and the guys that hustle are getting 4 - 6 loads a day. Some guys are picking up the first load by 6 or 7am and have 4 loads in the bag by 2pm. So, I'm shooting for 6 loads a day unless weather or traffic is an issue.

Thanks again for your post, it gave me another boost to go for it.

Kenworth 4life · Aug 25, 2017

I use to drive log truck and loved it, even in the winter! It was nothing to drop out of the mountains with 120-130000 lbs on, hit the golden road and hammer down! Would I go back? No effin way it's low pay turned me off! Sometimes you could spend all day to deliver one load! Others you could get 3 load, chains in the winter! Yup you'll definitely appreciate hottop when you are done.

x1Heavy · Aug 25, 2017

Well, logging was the one thing I did not get to do in my life time (Unless you counted the overweight containers of whole cut tress going to ship for export in the then new 45 foot boxes... out of logging shipper)

I rather look at the dangers of logging, being on a pile of gravel 3000 feet above nothing and a prayer at a 12% grade in a truck that is overloaded. I get.. excited. (Sometimes that's not good. LOL) I actually want to be in that situation. Van otr is so boring (No offense) in comparison.

We have some logging in our area, there are some large mills south of us in Arkansas that have been around a while. Occasionally about once a year a logging truck will go 5 mph faster than posted around one particular curve and lay it down, you can tell by the stamped holes left by the nuts of the steers from flopping over into the pavement on the side punched into the pavement at the curve's end.

They get to go places we don't go with normal OTR trucks. And bully for them I say.

There is a couple videos floating around of Ozarks logging hauls that have a little bit of touch and go if I can find them again.

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