Newbie from San Antonio, TX

TDI is ok if you choose a good company after graduation. One good company they place students with is CTL Transportation. Good money in tankers. Should make good money right out of school as long as you choose a good company to start with. Trimac Transportation is another good company that hires new cdl grads. 24 mos. with Trimac and then switch to their Elite Fleet and make over $100K per year running coast to coast. For tankers you will need a TWIC ID Card which you probably already have.
FFE (Frozen Food Express) has cdl school in Lancaster,TX - check their website.
You have plenty of time to make a wise choice as to the company you choose.

 

Those companies I listed are good. If you want flatbed, look at Paul Transportation and Melton Truck Lines. Probably make more money in the others though. Plenty of vets post on here, so you'll feel right at home.

 

You will also be in line to get a enhanced license when you get home. Here in Arkansas it's a upgrade until it becomes mandatory in 2020. basically a gold star on your license. It allows access to federal installations.

FFE is a company that was bought by KLLM I believe. But in my time there I had no real issues with them prior to the 9-11 tower and pentagon attacks. I was rolling with another outfit by that day. I don't call slow pay a issue because we had decent savings at the time that allowed us to keep trucking, even when the towers destroyed the people who cut our paychecks for 6 weeks until another payroll could be found and caught up.

Their LTL House is really capital. If you are loaded out of there in Lancaster you can be reasonably certain that everything in that trailer is kosher and you will not have issues with the multiple stops. The real money lies in Trainer Class. If you are elevated to trainer in a couple years or even less if you were a top driver you will find yourself in a good place salary wise.

 

If you want, you can start studying now. Scroll to the top of this page and click on "CDL Practice Tests" and memorize as much as you can. Also, Google "Free CDL Practice Tests Texas" and again memorize. You'll learn the actual stuff in school, so just focus on memorizing for now to get the nomenclature and terms correct. Pre-Trip Inspections are the most important and Youtube has videos of that.
Guess you're in the sandbox. I was over there years and years ago. We had to use cheese cloth to cover the gun mounts and 50 cal. deck mounted machine guns. That sand is like talcum powder it's so fine; of course you already know about that. Cheese cloth is probably old fashioned and out dated these days.

 

TWIC is seperate. You cannot physically gain access to ships at the dock for example without it.

VA is a federal installation, so is the Jax AFB etc. The enhanced was also rumored to provide access to canada etc but unsure if true.

The 6 weeks after payroll loss was made up for by approx 13K in savings which evaporated over that time and was replaced mostly. Kept rolling that was the important thing. Otherwise no job. For us that was the ultimate problem. No pay. For a #### good reason. I have pounded the table here for many newbies to build savings against the day you have no pay for a variety of reasons.

Trainers are very good if you have that trait and is recognized by the Company Officers who elevate you to that level. You will have a opportunity after a time of steady no trouble no fuss trucking with one company.

The most dangerous time in trucking for newbies (No offense... would you hand me a SAW 5.56? no...) is the first three months to a year after hire. Problems come up in so many ways as well as potential undiscovered fears such as heights, mountain driving, lack of endurance, mental issues etc. 100 people wanna drive a truck. I estimate 40 are still with it the first year and of that 20 is still around in 5. Most of them will make it 10.