Hopper, Dump O/O's & Drivers

After thinking about it - I'd better post some info on that Lamb Meal in case someone else is unlucky enough to go there, or thinking about running the load as a backhaul. Maybe it'll save someone time and grief, or at least prepare them for what's about to happen......

WARNING - if anyone's hauling Lamb Meal out of Gulf Coast Aglog in Houston, TX - be forewarned about them. The last time 7MTF and I loaded out of there was back in Feb, and it was a job in itself getting in and out of there in 1 piece. Doesn't pay but about $1.20/mi to the truck, and it's a nightmare. I was assured it was a different, larger building, and they use a more accurate scale site. I'll get to that part.

Their idea of loading a truck is to dump 20 scoops (according to them, they weigh between 2500 and 3000 pounds per scoop = 50,000 or 60,000 pounds, split) into your trailer. I told them I only wanted 48,000 to keep legal and give them 1,000 pounds lee-way to get the balance right. In February, I stopped them at my gauges max, and ended up at 85,000 pounds. This trip, I pulled forward when my gauges looked good, and was asked to back up so he could put another 2 scoops in the front hopper (which I declined). I still wound up at 81,300 pounds - even cutting them off when the gauges were "good".

First trip to the scales showed my tandems at 36k, came back and told him I needed to lose a ton+ off the back. He guess-timates it, and I shed 1,400 pounds on the re-scale. At that point it was 7pm (I'd been at this for 4+ hours) and I said the heck with it, I'm outta here. So I had to make the return trip dodging all the scales from TX to upper IN again. I was under gross, but still 600 pounds heavy on the tandems - so no luck. With a bunch of shoveling in 85 deg heat, I could only get that down to 34,360 on the tandems - still not close enough for scoring. However, the guy that speaks English and shows up to run the paperwork to the scales insisted that I should've let the loader do it the way he wanted to - which I informed him would've had me somewhere around 85,000 pounds - AGAIN - just like back in February.

Other notes - address is blocked with a container truck parked - building has a 4x6' FOR LEASE sign stuck out front. Now the main office apparently doesn't know any of that, or what the building looks like - so when I first pulled up and called them about it - they told me that wasn't it. I turned around by backing INTO THEIR DRIVEWAY, and went back down the street. Only to find out with another phone call and 2 more transfers that it was the building.

It's an S-shaped back that starts blind side (or sight-side U shaped back if you're into that sort of thing and turned around from their directions) from the street, up about 2 feet incline to get you to lock in your divider and really tear up those cheap drive tires. They've barricaded one side of the driveway with concrete contruction zone barriers, and there's a curb in the driveway on the other side just built for nothing I could tell.

Once you've gotten than accomplished, then all you have to do is back into a 16' wide truck door at 90 degrees on a corner slap against a wall without enough room to square the truck so you can see what you're doing. There's also a natural gas manifold on the wall you can't see real well as you're backing into a dark building without lighting on. Juan (the loader operator) will be standing inside in a shadow somewhere waving his hands to help guide you. If you want to open your windows to cut the glare and see what you're doing, there will also be 26 flies waiting to get the hell out of this nasty place by hitch-hiking in your truck.

Once you're done OVER LOADING, you get to run down city streets, and I-10 for a few minutes, to get to the public scale. In my case, you will pass by a shiny new pickup truck with "Commercial Vehicle Enforcement" on the side of it, and the officer inside eyeing you. Pull onto the scales, and see just how bad they've overloaded your trailer. Hopefully you can guess where to shed the weight, and how much the product weighs - because they won't have a clue. Then all you have to do is go back and repeat the backing process to correct the overweight, and return to the scale.

I didn't mention yet that they require a washout, or that their hairy, wet product sticks to the inside of the hopper like glue - and clogs up an auger pit requiring you to take turns feeding the pit, and then beating your trailer until the wheels fall off. About the time you get it flowing out of the trailer, the pit clogs up, and you have to clear it - then get it started flowing from the trailer again. Once you're pretty much done, you can climb into the hoppers and use a broom to knock loose the 3 or 4 inches thick mess stuck vertically to the walls, because no washout anywhere will deal with that mess in their drains. I wound up covered in the crap, sweaty with the crap blowing at me like tar and feathers, and it only took me about 3 hours of sweaty work to get it out of my trailer. By hour #2, the driver behind me came up to help (good guy), so we could both get out of there sometime today.

In hindsight, it would've really added to things if that CVE officer would've stopped and weighed me. Then I would've gotten a ticket for running over gross weight, overweight on axles, and anything else he could think of. All while making the princely sum of $1.18/mi - which I destroyed by running all over the backwoods to avoid every weigh station in about 5 states, and then having to pay for a washout, and then picking it out of every crevice in the doors before I could re-load a real product.

I have a couple pictures of the joint stored on my phone, and I'll post them within the next day or so as time permits. My laptop lacks bluetooth, and the card/adapter thing is a pain. But hopefully, this pamphlet explains it pretty darn well.

Hope everyone had a decent week, or at least found a better pastime than this! Stay safe out there!

 

Well,i was going to 'fuss' about my warm load of ddg,but after reading about your lamb meal load HWY,i think i'll just thank my lucky stars and bid everyone a 'goodnight'. Sorry to hear about your turbo WH.

 

Wanted to drop a thanks to WH for the info on getting started in this industry.

I hear a lot of you guys telling me I'm crazy for wanting to get into the hopper business - I'd rather be crazy out in the country then go crazy in the city...

Hopefully when I get things rollin I'll get a chance to meet some of you at the elevators down the road - you all sound like pretty good easy going guys.

Be safe.....

 

HwyPilot,

Now I see what you go through on a daily basis,I think I'll stick to my refer runs.
They sometimes take 4 hours to unload,but I catch up on my paperwork!

crusin

 

How did everybody's harvest go/going? For me, its just about over. We didnt even work this weekend. Which is fine, I was just about dead dog tired. Lines weren't too bad, plenty of loads. Although I did get sent to Colwich late Thurs and most of Friday! Otherwise it went pretty well, and was mostly uneventful. My logbook is broken and cant be fixed lol.

 

I have been wondering where you have been Kansas. Everything going okay?

 

I was up at Hutchinson last Tuesday after unloading in Yoder and seen a lot of hoppers running around and some just sitting at the truck stop with nothing to do I guess. Had lunch their at the T/S wasn't too bad. I looked for WH, Kansas, Highside or Cluck Cluck to buy my lunch but no one showed up. lol