My flatbed experience with W/S

I have been with Watkins for 7 months now on the van division. 4 months of that have been on a dedicated run into Canada. I had signed up on the list of guys who want to go to flatbed back in November and was informed that they were planning a orientation in December. Unfortunately that didn't happen due to low freight and so they put it off until this week.

Training is done at the Missoula, Mt. terminal and is taught by Rick, who is an awesome trainer but unfortunately has never pulled a flatbed. Luckily one of the experienced drivers offered his help and he filled in all the gaps that Rick missed and gave us ideas on how to do things better.

We backed the trailer up to the dock and loaded two different forklifts and learned different ways to secure equipment. Afterwards we followed the driver to a local lumber mill and observed loading a load of particle board. After securing the load we went back to the yard in Missoula to tarp the load. The trainers would watch as we did it and stop us periodically to show us a better way of doing it. Overall we got it right in the end and it looked professional.

The last day was spent going back over securment laws and showing us a ton of different pictures and going over how we would go about securing and tarping them.

Overall I was very pleased with the training I received. This was the first flatbed orientation in 1 1/2 years which only 3 of us got to go through. This was also the first flatbed class that Rick had taught so it was a huge learning curve for him as well. Several other drivers gave me their phone numbers and offered help when I need it out on the road and the dispatchers are awesome and are all ex drivers themselves.

Right now I am sitting in a hotel in Missoula as they put the final touches on my truck, headache rack, O/S beacon, plus a whole laundry list of other things I gave them. My trailer is sitting in Salt Lake City so they are going to hook me up with a van load to get down there and get Rollin.
Ill keep this updated about my experience here for anyone who's interested in flatbed for W/S.

 

Thanks I appreciate it, I'll be updating this thread as often as I can. I haven't seen any other threads about this besides guys asking questions about their program so hopefully ill be able to answer some of those questions.

 

Turnover rate on flatbed is extremely low compared to the van division, I believe there are only 30+- company flatbed trucks and the rest are owner operators. To get on the company side, you have to start in the van division and put your name on a list of guys interested in switching over. They are recruiting O/O very heavily right now for flatbed.

 

Well nothing new to update. I'm still broke down in Missoula as they found several more things wrong with my truck once they started tearing into it. The worst being a motor mount which requires removing the transmission clutch and flywheel housing to get to. While they are in there they are replacing the rear main seal which was leaking a little bit, as well as the clutch.
I was told it will be done in the morning then hopefully I will get a van load first thing monday going to slc to pick up my trailer.

 

Don't worry I'm not going anywhere, I'm making $100 a day for breakdown right now and just using this as a vacation and exploring Missoula a bit. Pretty cool town