My Maverick Experience

Thanks

As for my pickup, I have 2 options.

My preferred option is to get assigned a truck up at the Gary Yard that I will have to pickup. In that case I'll just drive home and get a ride down to Gary to get the truck.

The second option is to get a truck in NLR and leave my pickup here. When I get home at some point I'll ride with my Dad back down here. He's going to be going on vacation to Texas to visit some friends of his anyways. I'll just ride along in his car and he'll drop me off here. Then I'll probably just sleep in my pickup for hte night and drive home in the morning. It will take 2 days to do and eat my entire hometime up.

I'm hoping for the first one, though I'm not really betting that it's going to happen.

 

So, you're saying that I should make sure to ask for a truck out of Gary then?

If so I'll do just that. That would make my life a lot easier and save me a lot of time.

 

Thanks. Gary is only about 100 miles from home for me do getting a ride down there won't be add hard as getting back to NLR.

Thanks. I'll probably keep updating this even after I get out of training. It will be a good way of keeping track of where I've been and what I've done.

 

Maverick Flatbed Securement Training Day 3 - Sunday 02/03/2013

Managed to wake up at 0500 today to take a shower. My roommate left sometime last night while I was sleeping so I have my own room now. After my shower I went over to the Pilot next door and got a coffee on my way up to the Maverick Campus. Arrived just before 0600 and we started class at 0600.

Jeff was out today so we had Gary as our instructor. We started out the day with a video and presentation on how to secure multiple Shotgun coils at the same time. It's pretty much the same as single shotgun coils until you get too many and run out of chains. He showed us how to marry a set of coils so we could secure more than 4 at a time with just 8 chains. Since it was so similar to the way that single shotgun coils secure we didn't bother going out into the barn to practice. We then took the test.

After this we moved onto how to secure palletized coils. Watched the video and his presentation. He showed us how to adjust the placement of the coils for different weights. We then went out into the barn and practiced. We all split into 3 groups and each did a different setup. Our group had the 3 Palletized coils that all weighed 16,000lbs each. After we finished we all went around and looked at the three different ways to secure multiple palletized coils at once. After the walk around we tore down everything and took everything down from the trailers. Then we went back into the classroom and took the test.

After everybody finished the test we moved onto securing linear freight. We started out with Shiny Bar. This is machined steel bars that are finished and can not be damaged. Maverick is a Steel on Steel company. This means that they always use chains where possible while hauling steel cargo. Shiny Bar is the exception. Shiny Bar is the one time that chains are not allowed to be used unless the special instructions on the load say to. We only use straps on Shiny Bar. The minimum for any load of shiny bar is 8 straps which means it's secured for 64,000lbs. Nothing we haul can weigh that much so 8 straps should be enough unless the bars are close to the same length of the trailer. Shiny Bar also requires a Bulkhead to be built per Maverick Policy. I've seen bulkheads on the road plenty of times, today was the first time I've seen how they were built. We also watched the Shiny Bar video.

After Watching the Shiny Bar video we also watched a Safety video for Gerdau Steel.

After the Gerdau Steel video we took a 45 minute lunch break.

Lunch today was free pizza. It's Sunday which means that another Orientation class started today. They had pizza for lunch and we were allowed to scavenge through the leftovers for whatever we could eat. There were still 2-3 pizzas untouched by the time we got out there.

After lunch we went out to the barn to give securing Shiny Bar a try. Again we split into 3 teams. After everybody got to practice building a bulkhead we built it in the right place. Then we set up the beveled timbers on the deck where they needed to be. Then we put the bars up there. For training they just have us use 18ft long bundles of PVC pipe. It's a lot lighter than trying to lift steel bars up onto the deck. After we got those up there we threw straps over the top and wrapped a belly wrap strap around each end. Tightened them all down to hand tightness with the winch.

After getting those all put in place we did the usual walk around and went back into the classroom to take the test.

After the Shiny Bar test we went over how to secure Gray Bar. It's pretty similar to Shiny bar other than we use chains instead of straps and there's no bulkhead required. The Belly Wrap Strap is still required on each end though. Maverick Policy also requires 4 chains minimum on a load of Shiny Bar regardless of weight.

After the Gray Bar Videos and tests we went back out into the barn and cleared off the trailers to get them ready for the Night Shift to come in.

Today was an early end to the day around 1530.

-Ryan