Friday morning I dropped off my empty trailer, picked up a clean one, and drove over into the barrio in Chicago to Newlyweds Foods on Fullerton. For those of you who have never been there, this is the kind of place they never tell you about in CDL school, because they know you'll start screaming and running for the door as fast as your little feet can carry you. It's a pit, one of the worst places you can barely imagine going into with a truck and trailer.
I pulled in with the empty to drop it of and pick up my loaded trailer. I did the paperwork, and the clerk told me to drop my trailer off at Dock "A", which is where they will load the trailer in a couple of days with flour for Campbell's Soup over in Ohio. I have backed trailers into that spot before, so it's not impossible, though it is a tricky spot, close to the side of the building on a residential street. I took a look at it, and there was another truck parked next to it, and the street had a full complement of cars parked on it.
So I decided that while I could put the trailer in there, I wasn't going to. The risk was too high of me contacting the truck parked next to me, and since they have a spotting truck that maneuvers much better than I do, they could park the trailer themselves afte the truck alongside was gone, and some of the cars had moved away. They weren;t going to load the trailer right away, so there was no rush to spot it there.
The clerk came out and reiterated that it needed to go to the spot, and I pointed out that I wasn't going to do it with my truck being a sleeper when he had a much more maneuverable truck available for later.
Finally, they agreed (since they had no other choice but to call my boss who would have backed me up!) and I dropped the trailer off in the lot and picked up my loaded wagon, and headed for Ohio.
Sometimes, if the situation is right, you just decide that there are other options that could be applied. I could have put the trailer in, but there was no reason that I needed to take that risk when the risk would be lower later on.
Park It In Dock "A"....
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by Burky, Apr 28, 2007.
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Sometimes, you have to do it yourself. I had a load of transmission fluid to Pontiac Truck & Coach, and I previously told the story of the "pipe fitter" who "helped" me. Let me tell you about the unloading point. It was an alley with a 90 degree bend. I backed blind-side around the corner in the alley. It was very tight, requiring many pull-ups. Surprise, surprise! The receiving pipe was behind the trailer and I did not have enough hose to reach from the pump on the tractor to the plant's intake pipe. Then, I pulled out of the alley and drove forward to the intake pipe. My hose was long enough to reach the intake by extending it beneath the front bumper. After unloading, I backed out of the 90 degree alley. Momma said there would be days like that.
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