Live: On the ground from Aberdeen, Maryland

McLane has billboards around NE PA advertising $6K sign on bonus for experienced class A drivers. I guess it's hard to keep people happy stuffing a 48' and a sleeper Cascadia into every 7-11 and other gas station in the NE.

 

We have a brand new McLane grocery division wear house down here. When it opened a lot of guys from my colors division went over there and they where making over 100k a year. But ran you into the dirt for the money.

 

Some of them places those Mclane drivers have to deliver to just makes me cringe, especially the 7-11, where the truck takes up the whole parking lot. I've also seen them make deliveries to WaWa as well.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think they're contracted to make deliveries for WaWa. I know that WaWa has a private fleet, but then I see the drivers wearing Mclane uniforms. Don't know how that works out, but driving for WaWa seems a lot easier to make deliveries to than 7-11, since most of WaWa's parking lots are truck friendly.

 

Some of these mini convenience stores just aren't made for big rigs, unless they're delivered by straight trucks or pups.

The private fleet guys, or companies specifically contracted to make deliveries to just one customer, seem to have it a little easier, as far as making deliveries, such as WaWa and Mickey D's. Although some of the places Dunkin Donut drivers have to make deliveries to seem just as bad as Mclane delivering to 7-11.

 

All Grocery (*Dry goods, dry foods, paper products etc) need both sleeper trucks and day cabs. Plus a dock to cross load the individual day cabs going to 10 stores from a single load of say... potato chips from Hanover.

I don't know why I used Potato Chips as a example, most these days little vendors in small vans show up by the dozen to keep a grocery store in bakery and chips. They work so hard for the money, you think they own everything.

I recall a warehouse on eastern Ave in Baltimore probably gone today to history, but this one took in spices, grocery and anything not requiring temperature control and resold to insitutions and taverns, things of that kind.

Anyhow if you stood in the center of this place, surrounded by product on the floor; not pallets or slip sheet... (More on this later) with 20 docks on this side and rail docks on that side now used for inbound sleeper truck deliveries.. it will take you several days and nights working outwards to reach one of the 4 walls of this place going through tens of thousands of product.

Yet the small office in the corner keeping by hand and two clerks knew exactly where everything was and is going. If you needed something, you gave them a few minutes to go over the paperwork bulging from the cabinets and overflowing desks and you will have it.

Trucking as replaced rail very well. If not better. The actual rails themselves are still there along with the switch to a now removed yards and way freight line that once accessed the local streets of the city in the cobblestone which itself is buried by pavement today.

There was a time prior to the mid 60's before pallets were invented everything was hand stack. As a teenager in them days you could and did make very good money working for the places (And no child labor laws then to annoy anyone...) in your spare time.

I imagine at some point robots will be loading trailers once you program them and can unload same if you spend some money to fit one. It's not too difficult when you have a 48 foot loaded like one and the extra 5 feet of floor and volume to fit a robot unloader. Sometimes my laptop with it's wireless goes crazy when I pass a semi loaded with product themselves loaded with little radio friends broadcasting numbers that told the right computers in range what the boxes contained. You think that information would be useful to someone with the right gadgets too.

 

I was working as a messenger in the NYC area mid-80's. Walked into the Purchase, NY Pizza Hut to grab some lunch, and something struck me; the kitchen was being run by older men in suits and ties with brand new aprons tied over them. They were likely from Pepsico HQ down the road, using the kitchen there to test product prep. There were items coming off the oven that weren't on the menu yet. They were standing around trays of food and discussing them very seriously. The regular employees looked uncomfortable. :^)

 

McLane does wawas. The wawa private trucks are predominantly milk. A few other things- but it's mostly milk.

Some days I get stuck hitting a wawa before they get their McLane order put away and it's ROUGH!!!

 

I didn't know WaWa made their own milk? I buy their raspberry ice tea all the time. It seems everybody is making their own milk nowadays. Even Walmart, which was news to me, until it was posted on Mikes trip to the dairy thread. I guess they all wanna eliminate Dean Foods. I hope @AWolf34 is doing OK, havn't heard from him lately.