IRT

Trucks are Peterbilt 579s. The vast majority are midroof with a few high rise condos. Almost all trucks are automatics, only seen a couple sticks. No clue how those came about. Rumor is new trucks ordered are 50/50 auto and manual.

Trucks have 1500 watt inverters, dorm style fridge and TV mounts (24" flat-screen fits perfectly). No APUs or standalone bunk heaters, gotta idle if you don't want to melt or freeze. Most trucks are the larger 70" (80"?, I know they are way roomier than my old Cascadia) Sleeper with plenty of storage cabinets. There are some trucks with a smaller sleeper and those have a cooler style flip top fridge. Those small sleeper trucks usually have pumps or PTOs installed.

No cameras at all on the trucks for those of you who care about them. I think the newer trucks have collision mitigation style doo dads on them. My 2017 has none of that.

Older trucks have Cummins X15 which pull like a freight train. I've been really impressed with how 80K can get up some mountains with that engine. The newer Petes have much quieter Paccar engines. The Cummins is a noisy old beast.

 

I've only ever pulled juice out of California. Some of it was grape juice that was destined to be turned into wine though. A Visalia based driver can expect to see ALOT of Oregon and Washington as there are dedicated customers up that way.

 

Soda bottling plant syrup unloads right next to the corrosive Phosphoric acid...there are a number of food additive haz mats.

 

Thanks for the update

 

That Spokane load is a drop/hook, dont know if they told you that, so you can run it there ahead of schedule if you like. 97 from Weed is a scenic run, but I would dread it if there was snow on the roads.

Never ran from Spokane to PA. All my WA loads went to Florida.

 

I haven't found cancelations to be common, but it does happen. Better to find out now than when you get to the shipper and the guys on the loading rack are wondering why all these trucks have just showed up.

If the receiver tanks are full or they have production delays they may have asked to delay deliveries. Again that is preferable to arriving there loaded then having to sit there for a day or two until they can unload you.

I have to say I wasn't impressed with food grade my first couple of months. I was used to running 3500+ miles every week doing dry van and reefer and that just isn't going to happen here on a regular basis. The miles have crept up and with the slight bump in CPM I'm thinking to at least give it a year and then reevaluate. If you don't already have your passport and can get one and travel to Canada the border crossing pay is a decent chunk of change and can really pad out your paycheck especially if you can get 2 or 3 crossings in a pay cycle.

 

You were able to run 3500+ miles a week doing dry van and reefer? Is that common for them because I always thought they did less than that. I'm only asking because I've never done van OTR and have been thinking about it lately. These recruiters promise you tons of miles, but you never know if they're lying.

 

Yes that was with Abilene 2 years ago. They do dry van and reefer so always kept moving. I had quite a few 4000 mile weeks too but you had to be running out west to hit that, not going to happen in NE traffic.