Eastern Freightways North Brunswick NJ (Better Than Average)

Welcome aboard. I hope it works out for you.

I seem to recall Eastern hiring a couple owner ops back in 2004 or 2005 but they did not stay very long. I know there were alot of complaints from the senior drivers about losing the better, long haul trips to the owner ops at that time but I never got to talk to any of them.

I asked Lee to forward the particulars on the o/o program to me via e mail so I could post that info here. Time will tell whether he will fill me in or not.

I have contemplated getting my own truck for a while now but the numbers never pan out for me.

Who knows maybe I can learn something from you.

 

I was able to talk with Mitch this past Friday about the companies new lease program.

It seems Jmktrans is the first and "only" lease op hired so far. It is to be a trial run to see how it works out. If he does well then they will consider hiring more owner ops as time goes on. From what Mitch told me there is no set number of lease operators they are looking to hire at this time.

It is a brand new program and they are still working out all the little details. Currently there is a prohibition at fueling at NEMF terminals (something about NEMF needs a special permit to resell fuel to owner ops) so Jmktrans must fuel at outside truck stops right now. Unfortunately the fuel cards we are issued as company drivers are not turned on for any fuel stops in the northeast. I believe this is being fixed by ordering a special fuel card specifically for owner ops.

Lee has not gotten back to me on any of the pay details but perhaps Jmktrans will be able to offer some insight into the program when he gets a chance.

Hiring owner ops is a quick way for companies to add capacity without having to purchase new equipment or find new drivers. From what I heard in the office on Friday freight is picking up steadily.

If the freight volume is rising as much as they claim then we should all be pretty busy in the coming weeks.

 

Busy, Busy, Busy!

The past 4 weeks has seen an uptick in the available freight here. Kim and I are turning around 5000 miles per week now. Of course they are shorter runs than we are used to, only averaging around 750 miles per trip but we are able to drop them at a terminal and jump to the next load to keep busy. That is a definite plus.

The bad news is we have had to turn in "Shelby." Shelby is the name Kim gave to truck 9940. The truck will need some down time for repairs including a coolant leak coming through the air tanks and a defective engine brake. The EGR system had to be fixed last year which kept the truck down for about a month while the in house mechanics worked on it in their spare time. With a little over 662,000 miles on the odometer it was time to pass her on to a solo driver who will not run her as hard as we have. Hopefully she will be just as reliable for the next driver who gets her.

In the meantime we have been assigned to one of the blue (former Jevic) team trucks. Kim does not care for it (she prefers the auto shift) but will tough it out until we can get back into a double bunk auto shift. The 670 model we currently have has about 480,000 miles on it and has a broken cabinet behind the passenger seat. It looks like someone used the wardrobe shelf as a step and came through it. The dash seems to have a bit of a rattle in it but other than that the truck seems fine.

In other news, the shop in Pennsauken has the last group of auto shifts purchased in 2005. They should be rotated into the fleet any day now. One of the problems with parking new trucks for several years is the hoses and gaskets tend to dry rot over time. These trucks will have to be run for a while to get all the bugs worked out of them.

If you live in the Eastern part of the country and are unhappy with your current driving job check into Eastern, it may be a great fit.

 

As a solo driver I used to run several loads per day as well. Of course back then we got paid for EVERY stop plus a bonus on any load with more than 3 deliveries on it.

As for the Lesco loads I think the most I ever had to deliver from 1 trailer was 3 stops. Of course those pallets can get pretty heavy and dragging them to the back of the trailer will definitely give you a work out.

I am not familiar with the Berger loads. It must be a newer account for us.

So can you give us an update on how many trips per week and how many miles you are averaging?

Are they getting you home each weekend and if so for how long?

 

Its been about a month since my last update so I figured I had better let everyone know I am still around (lol).

The miles bouncing from Pa to Ga have been pretty steady. 700 to 800 mile trips allow us time to actually rest each night and stop for meals and showers on a regular basis. It takes 6 to 7 loads to make a decent pay check for us but at least its fairly consistent.

We were given a chance to go to California last Friday (the 21st) for a change and we accepted it. The load was released at 1330 with a delivery appointment scheduled for 1201 am Monday morning Pacific time. 2700 miles in 2.5 days? Piece of cake.

The bills showed a non hazmat load weighing a little over 44,000 lbs. We scaled at the terminal, slid the trailer tandem to get the weight legal, and then made a careful check of the trailer. During the check I found a missing registration, 1 bad tire, and low air pressure in several others (Sorry 70 to 80 psi ain't good enough for a cross country trip). I had the shop swap out the bad tire while I aired the other tires up to 100 psi each. We hit the road by 1430 Friday afternoon.

The route was pretty simple; I76 west to I80 west all the way to California. We ran into some fog going through Illinois the first night so we decided to shut down for a few hours and wait for day light. Its always nice to park the truck for a few hours each night to get some undisturbed rest.

Saturday found us traveling across Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming. We shut down in Rock Springs Wy around 6 am (our time) Sunday. The trip across was uneventful but we did get poor fuel mileage as we climbed the hills. Our fuel economy dropped from just under 6 mpg to about 4.5 due to the high winds and upgrades.

I was back up by 1030 am, grabbed some breakfast and got back on the road. We ran into some light mixed rain/sleet/snow while driving across Nevada. The end of May and the high country is still getting snow in some of the mountains. Oh well, it was just a dusting but did make a mess of our truck from all the highway spray. We mad pretty good time across Wyoming and half of Nevada so we decided to stop for fuel, lunch, and a shower while in Carlin. 1 hour later and we were back on the road.

We hit Donner pass just as it was beginning to get dark. 40 miles of curves and down grades will keep you on your toes especially in the dark with the lines on the road faded.

We made it to Oak Harbor Freight at 1030 Pacific time Sunday night just as the customer was opening up. They declined to accept the load until AFTER midnight saying they were too busy organizing their dock at that time.

Don't you just love it when you have a delivery appt only to find out the customer didn't really want it and would work the load later in the day? I know it bugs me.

Oh well, we drove down to the Forty Niner truckstop and had an early breakfast while waiting for the midnight hour. We drove back to the customer and checked in at 12 am on the dot. They signed for the load and told us to drop it in the yard.

Fortunately they did have a drop lot with a couple of our empties available so we hooked one and went to bed.

During the next couple of days we drove down to the LA area, visited several of our customers to do yard checks and had to get several tires and registrations updated for our equipment. While getting a trailer repaired at the T/A truck stop in Ontario California I saw several Carb cops making the rounds of the truck stop checking on idling trucks. I don't know if they were actually writing tickets but they were definitely cruising the lot.

We finally picked up a load from Chino Ca Wednesday afternoon destined for Elizabeth NJ. The load was scheduled to drop in Nj anytime before Tuesday morning so we had plenty of time.

The trip back to the east coast was pretty uneventful. Pretty country. Lots of open spaces. We made the 2800 mile trip back in a little under 3 days, dropped our load in Nj and then headed back to Pa for the rest of the weekend off.

Looks like we will be heading back to Georgia for a Tuesday morning delivery.

I can say 1 thing about California; Its a nice state with a beautiful climate thats nice to visit but I would not want to live there (or go there on a regular basis)!

 

Actual mileage traveled came out to 2790. But we did take the loop around Tulsa, St Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, and Wheeling which added extra "unpaid" miles.

Freight is better than it has been but is still below 2006/07 levels from what I am hearing and reading.

With California getting so strict with the idling, dpf filters, wind skirts for trailers, etc I think Eastern will be pulling out of California altogether. I am sure NEMF will continue servicing that area but will use outside vendors to move the freight cross country.

Management is probably going to hire a drayage company to load up the equipment we have stationed out there and either hire a couple of OTR companies to run the loads back or put them on the train. Of course the trains can be pretty rough with trailers and as I understand it do not offer much in the way of compensation for damages.

What does stink as of late is we have lost our weekend preplans to Georgia. We still have some teams out of Florida so they get top priority for the GA loads to get them home. I understand it but it still messes up our week for miles when that happens.

 

I just found out Eastern has purchased some flatbed trailers and has begun hiring some experienced flatbed drivers. This makes sense from a company standpoint especially when flatbed freight is now paying a higher rate than the normal dry van freight and there appears to be a shortage of available flats in the northeast area.

As I understand it they are looking for 6 drivers to start this new division. The operating area will be the northeast with weekends off.

I have spoken with a fella via the CB this past week that claims he has been hired for this new division and will be starting in the next 2 weeks. We talked for the better part of 30 miles while he picked my brain about the company.

According to "Carl" he was told the flatbed division will be based out of the Allentown Pa area. If that is true then the closest NEMF terminal would be in Lehighton Pa.

If you are an experienced flatbed driver living in the northeast Pa area and are looking for a new company check into Eastern.

Good Luck all!