Magnum ltd - fargo, nd

So I've reached my 1 year milestone with Magnum. Long story short, I'm very happy with this company. My truck is about to roll over 300k and I've had minimal issues with it since I had it. My DM knows me by first name. I'm treated with respect and I'm always home on time or, more often than not, a day earlier than requested. The pay is good. Not the greatest, I could always work for more money elsewhere, but it's good.

To top it all off, I got a message from my DM congratulating me and said that my pay was raised from .52 to .58 cpm, which was unexpected. To say that joining Magnum was a good decision for me is an understatement. Here's hoping i get to spend some good years with this company.

 

Sitting here at the Love's in Napoleon, Ohio of all places, waiting for Joey to find me a load out of here. A lot warmer here. I know 35 degrees sounds pretty chilly but considering that yesterday morning in Grand Forks it was -7 with a wind chill of 25 below..it feels like a heatwave here.

 

Magnum is a decent company. I was there for almost 6 months on the LTL side, I left when I found that I was not getting paid for my 2 drop and hooks every night. I kinda miss it , that s ok, now I do not have to drive in the snow. I was running Willmar MN to Fargo every night, only 380 miles. They still have the position posted wanting a driver.

 

I'd love to see the LTL side. I don't want to be OTR for all my life, but there's a lack of quality outfits where I live. About the only LTL carriers near me are XPO and Yellow, which...no.

 

Look at drivemagnum.com they list all LTL Linehaul jobs as $90,000 a year. but I do not know any one that even gets close to that. No drop and hook pay on an ABA dispatch. 10.00 to fuel once a night. Most of the older drivers roll down the landing gear to about 4 inches above the ground and drop the trailer. Their excuse is that female drivers are not strong enough to roll up the landing gear.

 

I know quite a few who actually do 90 plus and several that are making north of 100k. It depends largely on the runs out of your terminal, though. I've run out of Sioux Falls and Duluth. The Duluth guys make two runs to coon rapids, and I know one of them that I still talk to regularly is in the lower 80's.

Sioux Falls has some really long runs. The Rki and Egv meets are 620 mile turns. Dsm and lax are a tad under 600. Those are good moneymakers. But the best are the doubles runs. The guys going to fargo with sets are all around 100k with doubles pay and wait time. And the guys running the 680 mile run between Rapid City and Sioux Falls with doubles are at or above the 120k mark. There is money to be made on the Ltl side if you max out your clock.

That's not to say that you can't make more money at other companies. Old Dominion, FedEx freight, and ABF, SAIA etc all have higher pay rates. But the money can still be pretty good at Magnum. I'm a four time offender at magnum. Worked for them twice out of the Duluth terminal, once out of Sioux Falls, and even did 15 months OTR with them at one point. For me the pay was good enough, and I like the fact that all across the Magnum system every time I have worked there I was treated like an adult. If I ever get the urge to jump back in a truck again, chances are I'll be calling up Magnum again.

I will say too. If you leave Magnum and give your two weeks notice and were a reasonably good driver while employed with them, they will rehire you. I'm living proof after sitting though orientation 4 times. Also, when you leave with proper notice, you will be paid all unused vacation time. Magnum might not be everyone's cup of tea, but in a shady industry they are one of the honest companies and just for that I would say they are worth at least considering.

 

Just had an APU service done a month ago and it craps the bed today. APU will start up, run for about 3 minutes, then shut down with a warning light and ALT. It didn't sound like the unit was engaging the alternator and the ALT light would confirm that. Opened the flap and poked around with a flashlight and nothing seemed immediately obvious. The belt is there, crankcase is full of oil, nothing seems broken or missing. Gonna call afterhours maintenance and see what Randy wants to do. I have my truck running with the tractor brakes released to mitigate the idle timer so my batteries don't go flat and more importantly i have heat. Picking up a Campbell's soup load tomorrow going to Minnesota, so I'll see what Randy thinks the gameplan will be.

 

When I was running to Coon Rapids, I would have to wait for my return load on the first run, so that voided the second run completely. 220 miles for the night was not enough. Magnum works for a lot of people, but I was not one of them. Merry Christmas to those who drive there.

 

Mine went out before thanksgiving just got it fixed today in C R. Was told to just idle till I got to a company shop

 

My problem is that it's just warm enough here that the idle timer kicks in, releasing the tractor brakes only delay it. Still shuts off after 25 minutes or so. I don't know if it's just a Freightliner thing or if it applies to all trucks in the fleet.

It's gonna be a long night though. It's too cold not to idle but i can't for very long because of aforementioned issues.