New truck

Find something 2000 or older and rebuild it while you keep your current job

 

I’ve seen plenty of new Red western stars
Sitting at more than one dealer.
one dealer had an entire row of them.

was there a company that ordered a ton of red western stars and then went BK?

You need to find an O/O who will be a mentor. And as suggested above , if you get a used truck, do NOT get one with emissions. Get 2000 or older.
Better yet get a truck that’s pretty computer.
That has a mechanical injector pump, and no computer at all.


if I had $75-100k for a down payment I’d join a syndicated apartment complex purchase. And keep driving a company truck.

since no one asked yet, tell us more about your experience ,

 

Sad sign of the times.

 

These kinds of comments always crack me up. If being an o/o was so bad....nobody would do it. Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from selling your/their truck and doing whatever. Sell your truck and build some Apts if that is what you want. Nothing stopping you...or anyone else.

 

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I started as an o/o with about forty bucks in my pocket on a lease purchase that actually worked out.
I was dead broke , earning $800 a month mowing grass at a state park. and sold my $500 car for the plane ticket to go to the orientation.
The first month in my Lease purchase I cleared $4800 after fuel insurance tags etc.
I went from bringing home $800 a month to bringing home $4800 a month with zero down, on a walk away lease purchase.

what I’m saying is that if I had $100k in cash I dunno if I’d spend it all buying a truck driving job.

 

Mostly after tax.
As a beginner o/o you don’t pay much income tax. There was plenty of deductions.

this was in the early 90s so I’m sure the tax laws have changed, I would usually average paying 8-10% of my settlement for income taxes. when I got my settlement I always put 10% in one account for maintenance and repairs, another 10% in a different account for taxes, and another 10% in a savings account.



The company I was leasing with , Triple Crown Service, had 14 terminals around the eastern states, all the freight you could haul , and you were back at the terminal every night by 10 pm at the latest, because they used “roadrailers”
The trailers that were built so they could slide train wheels under the back bumper.

the pay was a combo of daily rate, milage and stop pay with detention after three hours and a fuel surcharge if the national average was above a certain amount .

they paid $125 a day to sign up to be on call to work Saturday and another $125 for Sunday.
Plus if the needed you to work you got the regular daily rate on top.
The truck was they called three random times each day and if you didn’t answer all three times they wouldn’t pay.
So I was an early adopter of the bag phone. The car phone with a battery and antenna in a backpack.
Carried that thing everywhere , it was my man purse. Cause if you were on the toilet and missed the call you lost $125 and in 1990 dollars that was a nice bonus for answering the phone three times a day.
But it cost $500 to buy plus $75 a month , plus $1.20 a minute, plus long distance charges . Y’all old geezers remember what long distance calls are.

I dunno how they managed it but they were able to lose money, I guess railroads are experts and inefficiency and losing money.

TCS isn’t totally out of business now, but they only have two terminals left. A mere shell of the business they used to be .

I got a job offer at a normal 8-5 job and the Mrs had a bun in the oven, so I sold my truck so I could be home every night at a predictable time to help with the baby.
I enjoyed driving as an o/o LP, but I also am glad I quit and was able to be there while my kids were growing up,

My son is a chip off the old block, I basically managed to clone myself,
He’s driving now, doing heavy haul oversize.