hopefully joining intermodal soon

Hi 4noreason,

Welcome to Intermodal.

Within this beast.. you will deal with -

- ###### Chassis
- Lift on/lift off's
- Long wait time at rails (LONG!)
- Ignorant spotters & crane operators
- Wrong location Chassis's or bad order red tagged chassis
- ###### Chassis (oh did i say this again ).
- D.O.T Magnet
- Rails (this business is all about the rails. You must know the RAILS. You will visit many railyards.)

Other then that.. it's really not that bad man. You'll have GOOD days and VERY BAD days. Patience is very much needed. No patience, you're in the wroooooooong place.

 

I'm with semi retired, there's some chassis I can't move the tandem, brakes won't hold so it just roll while you roll. Or the handle is broken. Once I had a loose pin, that was fun

 

4noreason,

there's many companies out there for intermodal in the chicago area, just be careful with which one you choose.

 

Let me make myself clear. I'm not discussing brakes being messed up or the chassis being damaged. I'm talking purely about how easy or difficult it is to slide the tandems on a chassis vs a regular road trailer van and reefer. I've never had to hammer pins on a chassis before because they kept getting stuck like I've had to on van trailers before...one time it was over an hour of me admittedly being ****** off not wanting to call road service banging away at the pins that would not budge like I was a failed John Henry before I got worn out and called road service. I've never had to use pliers to hold the handle in place so it wouldn't slide back in locking the pins not allowing me to move the tandems on a chassis like I have on a road trailer before. I never pulled the handle out and then start moving the tandems and then the handle fall back in place with the pins locking before I could move the tandems to where they needed to be in a chassis like I've had on a road trailer before. Some days at work when I pull the handle hop back in the truck and easily slide the tandems I literally take a second and think ******* this is easy compared to what I use to have to deal with. At different shippers and receivers when I get live load or live unload they sometimes say slide the tandems "if you can" because they are use to dealing with OTR guys more and how much of a pain it is for them to slide the tandems at times. I've had to help plenty of drivers slide tandems on there road trailers where as I never had any drivers help me slide mine because I never needed the help.

 

Don't do it, stay a company driver.

 

How long have you been with JB? [emoji4] I remember many a time with the older chassis, like the 10XXXX series, they could be a real pain in the arse sliding the tandems (and don't get me started on the black 12XXXX series. I won't even pull one of those if I can avoid it). JB has been updating/upgrading the chassis and container pools the last few years and the newer chassis are a breeze to slide the tandems compared to the old ones they have since taken out of service. But I'm already seeing some 14XXXX series starting to show their age.

 

Lots of jb have skid flats, other that that the dumb glad hand setup they have are prone to leaking. They also leak at the connection at the sliders.