Hooking doubles with dolly attached to lead

Had a guy at FedEx who could back up the entire train, even put the rear trailer in the dock and both sides were plum with the stops, now he is at OD, he says safety doesn't want him doing it, i think it's because others will try it and fail with some damage, and that's what they are really worried about, gotta admit though, guys got skills.

 

Safety doesn't want us doing it cause you can easily pinch an airline or jam up and twist your pintle. Way more crap will go wrong than right when you first learn to back a con or even a set.
Usual corporate safety Nazis though. Company policy over driver skill level first.

 

That's the way the majority of us do it. Usually a 15 degree offset angle so you can see the side of your con and line up the side of the tire with the side of the trailer .

 

Or off sides.

 

I'm pretty #### decent at it. I had a situation recently where I had to drop my rear trailer so the spotter could throw it in a door for the dock, then he'd pull it around to the other side of the building. There'd be just enough room to slip between the building and the trailer, then I'd have to get under the trailer with the building on one side and the terminal workers' cars on the other. No pressure!

In my head, I always said if I could do it in 5 minutes or less, I was saving time. Got it in 2-3 minutes every night. A lot of pull-ups were necessary due to the setup and having to work the trailer and dolly onto my driver's side, but it was quick once that was accomplished.

 

Good thing to learn when going to rail yards or possibly a larger terminal if you have to build your set

 

I do it every night. My son is a yard jockey at my terminal and he started practicing it at 19yrs old after watching me do it. He's 21yrs old now and can do it better than 90% of our drivers.

 

I practice every morning by backing my dolly into my parking spot, so I’m not in anyone’s way. My problem is that I can never seem to get setup to where it’s a straight back. I always seem to end up at an angle, then I get it as close as I can before I have to jackknife it to get it pointing the right way, then get out and walk it back by hand.