Follow me through Central Refrigerated training

Well today I wish I had a big bowl of popcorn, big gulp, and a disco ball we watched so many movies and they all were from the 70's. We learned about shifting, truck stops, bad weather driving, and a few others I'm sorry to say that they all blended in to each other. After a morning full of videos we found out that all 3 of the fellow students who had not passed the permit test passed with flying colors.
After lunch we went on a field trip to watch some of the students a week ahead of us getting tested on their backing, and were told we will be doing that in the morning, I'm so excited. We then went on a tour of building number 2. It was not that big of a deal to those of us who have been living there, but it was nice for the Utah students to see. I did find that they have nice hats in the store for only $10. I got one which I am glad I did because it is going to be hot in the yard. After building 2 we went to see the "war room" this was impressive it looked like something out of 24.
After our field trip we went back to class and went over cupling and uncuppling the tractor and trailer and pre-trip inspections. We were also visited by the recruiting department and they gave awards out to the people with the highest scores on the DMV permit test. The top 3 got a free lunch at the caffiteria and the top guy also got a certificate and a free hat.
We finished up the day with some more HOS, mainly the 8hr sleeper thing, did our log books and were given quite a bit of home work to do. That being said I still have a bit more to do so I better get to it.

 

Day 7
Wow I have been super busy so I will try to recap. Today is Sunday and we have the day off. We had to go from building two to the Ramada, a nice change, but I am kind of disappointed that I did not get to go to church, because the transfer was at 10am.
On day 5 (Friday) we got to get in the trucks. We did a pretrip inspection and then worked on straight line backing, basically we drove forward about 80 feet then backed up 160ft keeping the truck between cones, then forward 80ft, and repeat. We had about 5-6 students per truck and took turns. We all got to go about 3 times until lunch. After lunch we did left off-sets, basically pull forward, and back into an alley about 20 to the left of the truck, not too hard. We all did well on this.
Day 6 was in the yard again and we again did a pretrip, unhooked, and hooked. Then we worked on parallel parking and ally docking. Although ally docking looked very hard when we were shown how to do it, I think it was the easiest maneuver we learned. In my opinion parallel was the hardest, because the majority of the time you are working blind, but the instructors assure us that we might have to do it once or twice in our life, so I am not too concerned.
I like that all the things we do in the yard have a formula to them. Offsets for example. Pull forward, hard right until you see your 2nd landing gear, turn all the way right until you see your 2nd landing gear, straighten out, pull forward if needed, back up. And it is just that simple.
Also make sure you wear pant, some guy in our class wore shorts with no sun screen and he could not walk the next day. Just a tip, unless you like walking like a cowboy because you cannot bend your knees.
Great to hear from you Big Rigg, glad to hear thet your trainer is working out well for you. Are you getting all your back up in?

 

This has been very helpful Big Rigg. Thanks alot! I applied to CRS and got the email from them to have them call a recruiter. Now I am just waiting for a call back. Im so excited!

 

thanks for this info, very helpful know what company i will go with now

 

Day 8
We were in the truck again today, but we actually got to drive. It was great. We went on what they call “Rookie Road” which when asked what it was we were told, “It’s were gears are ground.” And that was true. We all ground the heck out of our truck. We split up in groups of 4 to a truck with an instructor. We drove a 12 mile loop which consisted of 2 lane road, k rails, a few left-hand turns and a 6mi run on the freeway. It was great to pull on to the on ramp and run it through all the gears after being stuck on idle only in the yard. We each got to go once in the morning and once in the afternoon. As we kept going up and down the gears it took us about 45min each loop. The instructor drove out to rookie road, but chose a student to drive back to central and another to drive out after lunch. It was fun to get on the road with a little traffic.
Day 9
After learning to shift yesterday they thought we were ready to make some turns and drive in a bit of traffic. We drove around the commercial/industrial areas around the airport. It helped me a lot to be on the road and to know what we needed to do. In other words the instructor was not telling us to upshift and down shift at random points like on rookie road, just turn here or there. Today was a great learning experience as he took us through tight spots we did not think we could go, but just by listening to his advice we were able to, I feel a lot more comfortable about driving these big rigs.
Also I met BraggTN today, and he is planning on posting all 8 days of training from GA in the next day or to so keep an eye out.

 

will do.Thanks for the thread

 

I went to the CRS Terminal in Conley, GA on July 11th. First day did DOT physical, wellnes physical and background check. The wellness thing is no joke! If you haven't been exercising, you might want to start. LOL Seriously, it is not that hard but by the time you tote 75lbs in a milk crate 50' or whatever it is...I was huffin and puffing and then they check your pulse after you do each exercise. We had 3 people the first day sent home. 1 failed the wellnes, 1 the vision for the dot phys and the other had a conviction that came up while a minor. I'm telling you now, let them no EVERY thing no matter how long ago or insignificant you might think it is. If you're honest, they're willing to work with you. I'm in Salt Lake now and will be doing the road test on Saturday. I got the pleasure of meeting PSUMOOSE so everything he has been posting is what we're doing also. One more piece of advice, just b/c you passed the permit test, doesn't mean you get to stop studying. Pretrips cover a lot of info and you don't want to get this far just to get booted because you stopped studying. This is an awesome program and it is what you make of it. I will post as I can seeing as I don't have my laptop with me. Every employee here has had nothing but positive things to say about CRS.

 

Today we did our pre-trip inspections. My whole group passed except for one person. From the sound of it he was the only one in the whole class to fail. Like big rig said they teach it in a very systematic way that almost anyone can get if they pay attention. After lunch we went out and drove in downtown Salt Lake City and, wow what bad drivers we 4 wheelers are, and how crazy pedestrians are. In my 45minutes of driving I got cut off at least 10 times had a woman run out in front of me, and had a biker ride out in front of me without even looking. Needless to say my palms were a bit sweaty at the end of it, but like a roller coaster that scares the bajeezas out of you, I can't wait to do it again.