here comes another rant

Isnt that all the more reason to get your own authority?
But then of course a new/used dry van and a flat bed purchase would in order. Is it that much of a hassel to get your own loads from a shipper?
I like to drop and GO as quickly as I can, ive seen alot of Drivas that seem to be in "NO Hurry" at the delivery end or the pick up for that matter

 

Yeah but I lost all faith when we tried using them to get rail cars of soymeal from Valdosta,Ga to the dairy in Bell,Fl.

We ordered two cars a week when we signed a new soy contract. Looked great on paper and we had reserves if a day and trucks if it went catastrophic on late delivery.

Went great for six months(OK great is an exaggeration but it worked) until on a Wednesday after getting seriously low(supposed to be sitting on the siding Sunday PM) we finally got an answer that our cars were in Baltimore,MD ADM loaded two more cars for us and we grabbed a few load's in the hopper to get us through til Friday when they showed up but let us hold a car a few days to work down the silo when we were cleaning the other one $$$$$$$.

We decided next time around to just use trucks despite ADM pushing for the rail delivery.

 

I know this may seem obvious, but did you try a customer near your 20...

 

Just grab an empty from whatever company happens to have an empty and hammer down driver!


No.....Actually dont do that.

Back in the day, if we were at a customer and needed a dolly and didnt have any, we would grab an Old Dominion or Central Transport dolly, hook the set, take it back to the yard then run the dolly down the street to whoever it belonged to.

 

can't do that now, we did that a couple yrs back to run two 20's from the ramp to our yard, borrowed a dolly from YRC, they pitched a ##### for a month, tried to get us banned from the rail.

 

I picked up an EMPTY container in Dallas goin to Sarasota. Brokers exact words. "YOU'RE GONNA DROP THE EMPTY CONTAINER IN SARSOTA, FL AT THE PUBLIX WAREHOUSE." Ok. Load it, strap and chain it down, get the the paperwork on it. Paperwork said empty under contents. The container barely moved my suspension gauges. Took off to Florida. Pull up at Publix, go check in with shipping and recieving. Tell the guy I have his container he ordered. He says no I just want whats in it. You want nothing? So we go open it and its full of little plastic toy purses for kids. WTF!!!! So he tells me to back up to a dock. They unload me and send me on my way with a now empty container. This was a Tuesday. I spend all day Wed. trying to find a place to drop this container. Broker sends me to the Port of Tampa then turns me around at the gate. They wont take it there. I go to a truck stop and wait. Finally I call the broker to get an update and he says he cant find anywhere for me to drop it. I tell him he has until 5:00 to find a place or im gonna hook my chains around a lightpole in the parking lot and drag the d*mn thing off of my trailer. 4:45 he calls and tells me to be at the Port of Miami in the morning to drop. I finally drop call the broker to tell him and also tell him to lose my phone number and I'll lose his too.

 

I once made a quick $150 when I was at Stevens shagging 4 empties from a freight forwarder in El Paso to our drop yard before I went on time off. Nobody in dispatch knew they were there.

 

Z train here in okc runs from fort worth past okc north. they run at least 3 times a day. losing a car in the yard or a siding is not unheard of. the conductor is responsible for checking the car numbers however i drove those guys around for 18 months and many can not read the numbers off the car in proper order. the fun comes when they ordered a van to drive from okc to ark city looking for cars. it was amazing where we would find the darn things. sometimes they would be in areas that had dead tracks going to an old warehouse, or in old rail yards only used for storing stuff.

 

I like when your company buys some old trailers that aren't relabeled yet and they don't tell you that's the one your looking for. "All I see is old Grane trailers"... "yeah that's it" Oh sorry I left my mind reading underwear at home.