My Day By Day Experience At Eastern Freightways Flatbed Division

Day 20

Up and out by 6:00. Got to the 1st receiver in Torrington, CT at 6:45 and he said they didn't start receiving till 7:00. Plenty of time to unstrap and remove the 2nd tarp to access their part of the load. Today turned into a waiting game. Waited about 2 hours to get unloaded here as they were busy and definitely short staffed. Drove to the 2nd stop in Washington Depot, Ct . A few tight turns right in town but I snuck it in. Realized I didn't have service and my tablet wouldn't send an e-mail. After getting unloaded I headed west until I got service and pulled over. Next stop, Wallingford, CT to get a load of Slinkies. Got there around 11:45. Called to the scale at 14:40. Longest I've ever waited. I don't know how you live load guys do it. LOL Loaded and strapped by 16:15. Used most of my clock by this time. Had 3 hours left. Load is headed to New Salem, PA a nice 8 hour ride and I made it a little over 2 hours before I shut down. Traffic was crazy. Will get an early start tomorrow to finish off the remaining 6 hours, get unloaded and head to Aliquippa, PA.

 

Day 21-23

What a crazy week last week..... Got an Early start like I wanted to 4:00 was the earliest I could Pre-trip and head out. Ended up coming over 80 and down 99 in Eastern, PA GPS says take US 22. I take a quick look at the map. Yea that looks like it makes sense. Definitely shorter. How bad could a US rt be? LOL yeaaa. Hills and more hills then a few more. I definitely lost time. Oh well it was a sight seeing tour and got to practice some downhills loaded with 50k. Finally got off that horrific route and ended up going to the receiver through the back way. Narrow and curvy. I remembered being there once before and coming in the other direction. Got unloaded and headed for Aliquippa. Heard stories about the gps sending you down this weird road on the other side of the tracks from the shipper. Yup exactly what it did. Stopped and went down the road a little to figure out how to get in. Google earthed it and found the road leading through a 1 way tunnel. Running short on my clock I had scanned the area for the last 45 minutes for a place to shut down near by. Saw a rest area that I had passed with several spot. So fixed the tarping job and headed there to shut down. 5 minutes later a tornado watch was issued. We had a heavy rain storm but that was about it.

Next day headed out to Norfolk, VA around 3:00 I believe. Was a good ride until the #### gps sent me up and over US 40 to I-68. I learned something valuable that day. I will never go over 40 again.. HaHa I thought 22 was bad. 40 was a 15mph crawl for what seemed like an hour. and of course what goes up must come down.. 68 was better but not by much. After all that 68 put me back on I-70 which I should have stayed on in the first place. Lost a lot of time there. Got to Norfolk around 13:00 drop and hook to a rescheduled load headed to Lewes, DE. 3:00 delivery which I could make if I shut down in Norfolk and leave at 1:00. But then I short myself on getting home Friday so I decided to cross the Chesapeake and run up 13. Looking for somewhere to shutdown close to the end of my clock. Rest areas are shut down at night. Gated. Hmmm Nowhere on the side of the road either. It's getting close 15 minutes left on my clock and I see 1 of many Royal Farms that I have passed along the way. This one in New Church, VA had truck parking for about 15 trucks and it was only half full. Perfect!!

So while sitting there my tablet goes off. Pre-plan cancelled, New pre-plan, new pre-plan.. What is someone screwing with me? I had a pre-plan to go from Lewes, DE to Baltimore to home. It would have been close but I think I would have made it. Now this new pre-plan says Lewes, DE to Baltimore for a live load and tarp going to Avenel, NJ then a pre-plan going from Avenel, to home... Umm NO. It will never happen. Not enough time on my clock. E-mail dispatch, then have them call me to have a chat. Well guess I'm doing it.

Next morning I get to Lewes at 4:45 the receiver took the load after some smooth talking. Get unloaded and notice my trailer tire is flat. There was a gouge in the tire. I don't remember curbing it or even being in any tight situations where I could have. But that is what it looked like. Call breakdown, tire service guys are being sent from somewhere but its going to take 1 1/2 hours before they arrive. ehhhh yup definitely not doing this live load and definitely not making it home Friday night. Guy gets there and changes the tire in like 15 minutes. Nascar style. Call dispatch, straight to Avenel will get me home Fri. night. Baltimore to home will be Saturday. Baltimore it is. hmmm ok. Get to the shipper. It's loaded but not at the yard yet. over 2 hours later it shows up. Quick fix and to the Elkton T/A I go. Shut down at 16:00 Friday night with roughly 2 hours on my clock. I'm not dealing with the Friday rush up 95 to get any closer. Got an early start Saturday morning at 2:00 made it to my terminal by 9:15.

2358 miles driven for the week. I've learned of 2 routes to never take and that we might not make it home every Friday but there's a guy in Dispatch that will take care of us for not making it.

 

Day 24

Was heading to Cranston, RI with this load from last week. It’s only 2 hours from my terminal so I decided to leave around 7:00 to avoid the heaviest traffic and just deal with the tail end of rush hour. Things are going good until I get a few miles from 495 on I-95. I heard a loud pop on the passenger side front. The truck dives a little to the right. I thought I blew a steer tire so I hit the break and inch it over to the very narrow breakdown lane. Nope, the tire is good. But I hear hissing behind the tire. The #### air bag for the air ride suspension blew. Truck has a lean to the right. I watch the air gauges and It stays above 100. Call breakdown, they forward me to the shop in N. Reading. Mechanic asks a few questions. We decide to limp her the 10 miles down the road @ 30mph. Yup mechanic conformed and called around. Since it was a 2003 he said the part was hard to come by. Closest he found was in NY. It would be in Tues. at some point and then he’d have to fix.

Out Of Service it goes. Dispatch finds me a ride to Pawtucket where several trucks are.. Sweet maybe I’d finally get a 2016. They had a 2012, 2014 and 2015 available. 2015 was the cleanest and newest so truck number 3 it is. Bobtailed back to N. reading and spent forever cleaning it and moving my stuff over. I must say I’m getting pretty good at both. Maybe I’ll just switch to recon. LOL

 

Unfortunately not. But I come close to what you said you did. I park them door to door and throw as much as I can from one to the other.

 

Day 25

Dispatch rescheduled Mondays delivery for today. Up and on the road by 4:30. Nice easy ride to Cranston, RI. Got unloaded and had a pre-plan to go to Portsmouth, NH do a drop n hook and deliver in Auburn, ME. Easy Drop n Hook and the tarp job was actually pretty good. Get to Auburn figure out where they want me, unstrap n fold up the tarps. Waited about 45 minutes. The unload process took some time as well since most of the load was 14' sheetrock. Get unloaded and my pre-plan was to head back to Portsmouth, NH for a 2 stop delivery on the FAR east coast of Maine for Wednesday. Headed to Cherryfield and then on to Calias, ME. Left Portsmouth and headed for our Scarborough terminal. Got here with 15 minutes left on my clock. Found the shower and had some dinner. Definitely one of the cleanest terminal showers I've come across.
Not a bad mileage day for the small runs and the crazy traffic coming back up I-95 during rush hour. Till tomorrow from the deep backwoods of Maine.

 

Day 26

Up and gone by 4:30. Headed for Cherryfield, ME. All in all a pretty good ride. Route 1 Cherryfield was rough as hell. Got to the 1st receiver and was a really quick unload. Retarped the remaining and headed up 193 to 9. If you ever go to ME avoid 193. Another rough road. I found out later that 199 was just paved and is a lot better. Reached Calais and another quick unload.

Something i've started doing in remote areas with no truck stops is scoping out future parking spots when my clock runs low. There was actually a lot of parking up there.

Got my Pre-plan picking up in Bradford, ME and dropping this load at the Concord terminal as it's going to Queens and I'm off on Friday.

The roads in that part of ME are crazy rough and tend to slope to the right. I spent half the time fighting the steering wheel to keep it on the road.

Made it back to the Portland terminal with about 15 minutes left on my 14. and 570 miles. Pretty uneventful day minus the race against my clock. That's always fun. But I'll take that over a breakdown any day .

 

I'm just getting caught up on the last week as I've had a few things going on after driving. I'll try to keep it short.

Day 27

Up early Thursday and headed towards Concord with my load that's going to be dropped. Noticed a coolant leak on the new truck so when I arrived in Concord they took a look and thought it was a small hose leading into the reservoir tank, They said they would fix it on Friday. I called dispatch to figure out what else they had for me for the day. They had to find something so I ran to the truckstop down the road, grabbed some breakfast and waited for 1 1/2 hours for a call. After all that there was a load sitting at the Concord terminal needing to be delivered in W. Leb, NH. Erg It was there 1 1/2 hours ago as well so back to the terminal I go. Grabbed the load and shot up 89N the 80 minutes it takes to get there. Basically drove by my house twice. Once on the way to W. Leb and once on the way back to the terminal.

Oh well this ended my week pretty early and it was going to be a min. pay week sooo. Off for a 3 day weekend

 

Day 28-29

I had called dispatch on Friday to figure out my plan for the start of the week. Picking up in Newington and needs to be delivered in Colonie, NY by 8am Monday. So after some quick planning my 3 day weekend turned into a 2 day weekend. Had to leave Sunday afternoon in order to make it work. Plus I was hoping to get a full week in with no breakdowns. Left around 14:00 to go get my truck and load my stuff in for the week. Newington was great to pick up at on a Sunday. Absolutely no one around. Did a drop n hook and headed to the Albany terminal which was 7 miles down the road from the receiver. Arrived at 21:30 and shutdown for the night

Made it to the receiver by 8:08 the next morning. Pulling in behind me was my trainer. We get checked in and had to turn around at a 3 way intersection so he watched traffic for me and helped me get backed in, and helped me fold the tarps. Quick unload and my pre-plan has me heading to Wallingford, CT to get some slinkies which are headed to New Salem, PA.

2 different accidents on 91s several miles before my exit and 45 minutes later I make it to the shipper. Was able to get right in and loaded. It takes longer to strap them down correctly then to get loaded. My trip planning had me going down 95s to 287 around 16:30 and shutting down at our Camp Hill, PA terminal for the night. NY traffic cost me about another 45 minutes . Pulled in with about 15 minutes left on my clock.