Lady truckers and CDL training

We had 5 females out of 24 in my class and 4 of those 5 ended up being hired onto Carolina which in those days ran pretty hard what with the ford 9000 on them plus a gigantic dolly cart strapped to the front end as a constant remindr of the work you still hae It was a treat in my early months to see all of them running steady and carefully up and down 83 south of York.

 

To Plow in Maryland usually means state highways dept. They maintained a Army of equiptment and men who will attack a storm with some precision for as long that foot of snow can be made to go bye bye in three days on most routes.

The storm of 93' put 41 inches onto our back yard in 24 hours flat. Then the winds howled three days. Turned that into a 50 foot to 60 plus feet drifted nightmare that absolutely made sure nothing moved. Our chimney was the only item not covered over the active fireplace. Two story homes on our street were covered. There was a sharp ravine type valley or draw between our ridge and the next one over. That one contained approximately 100 feet of snow all the way down. It presented a oppertunity to walk from ridge to ridge without hitting a upgrade or down. But none of us were that stupid. They would not find your body for months.

One front end loader worked with about 40 dump trucks dedicated to it on a two lane state route. It needed 4 days (Storm plus 9 days) to achieve the 10 mile plow to the east-west state route and Storm plus 14 before it reached the interstate 70, another 14 miles. The result was a 14 foot wide pavement that was never dry and a strip of blue sky above about 40 to 60 p;us feet above you on both walls.

If it had collapsed due to the noise of my glass packs I guess I would have been ok in the car but not so sure because that was not crush proof racing glass on that car in those days, just a straight stock factory tempered glass that probably would not have resisted the 30 or so ton coming down should one of the walls failed over me. That made for a interesting drive.

In Trucking that sort of snow wall higher than your vehicle becomes routine in the Medford Area of Oregon during winter where large airport runway clearing monsters stack snow 20 feet walls then blew the rest over the top. Beautiful machines, but I spent enough time laid over in Redding CA TA waiting for 5 to be reopened again. Just days of laying around in the bunk overstocked on sleep, over hydrated on sweet tea and constant meals of steak and eggs and steak and something else and more steak. Just waiting to GOOOOO. =)

Interstate 70 when I hopped on to it was 4 feet of packed. I don't know about you but all those trucks managed to pack down what was a essentially a completely closed interstate until 4 feet of packed snow surface remained above the blacktop itself to run on. Those michelins I had on that ford paid for themselves that day and earned my undying loyality with those very hard tread compounds.

 

ODFL
Estes
ABF
Saia
Rist
.....
walk into the terminal with your current MVR,permit(or CDL) and resume and ask to speak with the TM.

BINGO,you have a job

 

I'd make Old Dominion the goal then.

 

I remember an instructor saying manual in a car/truck is different than the big trucks. But my problem was clutch control. Best of luck