Have you ever worked with road train ? double or triple trailers

Road train isn't that what its called in Austrilia?Get yourself a cdl manual and start studying for that endorsement if you haven't already and also even if you have your doubles endorsement I would study it so you get a general idea what its like.

 

Get a good quality headlamp that allows you to work hands free. The drop yard I go to is pitch black at night, closest lights are a block away.

 

Is it hard moving that dolly to unhook and hook?

 

Ha-ha. Thanks. I am still here. Just not posting as much. I wanted to finish the series at some point but it just kinda dropped off.

 

I never heard it called that. I just know whatever you do a person should try to be there best. I know guys been pulling doubles 20+ yrs and can not back a dolly hooked to the lead trailer to save there life. I also know a driver at Old Dominion that can back a set into dock doors at his terminal. That's the fun of pulling doubles. Unless you work at a place where u pull into the yard drop your set and someone else puts it away......how boring.

 

Learning how to back a con attached to your lead is essential. A con weighs about 1.8-2K lbs. Throw in some snow and you now have about 2000 new potential ways to injure yourself if you try to move it by hand. As for backing a set, I can do it enough to get me out of a bind. Had to back a rocky set out of a fuel station because some moron decided to park his truck there to take his shower.

 

Always heaviest trailer first. Always. 1500# is the difference per trailer. Corners are your biggest issue. Pulling into driveways or ramps/uneven sections will flop you. Go slow. Yeah I've seen sets on their sides in a parking lot,go figure. Most line tractors have a pintle hook on the rear to maunuver dollys. Pay close attention to your h/u. Your air system is very important when you have 5 sets of glad hands. Last thing when you wiggle and you will wiggle don't fight the wheel. If you get to a terminal and your missing your last box,it's somewhere between terminal a and terminal b.

 

Driving a set or triples is relatively easy (assuming you have a steady hand and don't jerk the wheel). The biggest thing is a proper pretrip and all your connections. My carrier had 156 disconnects last year where a driver lost one or more trailers in the yard or somewhere along the highway.

And yeah, heaviest will always be upfront, regardless what they tell you on here. You will know the true meaning of tough driving when you pull a loaded pup with a empty 48 ft liftgate trailer in the back.

Know your laws for the state(s) you will expect to drive through. You can run rocky doubles and triples from Utah all the way to the border of Idaho/Washington. As soon as you cross that river and onto the scale, you better not be pulling either of those combinations.

Final advice is you need to know where the hell you are going. If you get lost with triples inside a city, you will quickly wish you didn't. It's not like pulling a single where you can back yourself out of a bind. I learned that the hard way.

 

I'm 5'3" and not a big gal. I can mostly do it alone. Add snow, ice, broken pavement or an incline and I might need the hubby to give an extra shove.

They're heavy enough, lol.

Gotta pretrip the bejeebus out of them, though. They're the most common single point of failure.

 

I pulled double pups and what got me in trouble was going around corners like the combination was 1 extra-long trailer. A set of doubles is longer than a 53 foot dry van. I swung too far wide for maneuvers than I needed. With pups, ignore the second trailer, it's going EXACTLY when the first trailer goes. Drive it like you are only pulling the first one (for cornering & turning purposes).

Also if the trailer have roll up doors, bring seals or carabiner clips to keep the door handles from opening up due to bumps in the road. Use the hasp that you would put a padlock on to keep the door latch in place.