Pros vs. Cons. Refer,flatbed,van,tanker

Well that particular case I was still pretty green with the tank. Everything I tried the #### thing wouldnt unclog. For a while I thought the silo was full but I went inside and had them double check the computer and had someone go up and dip stick the silo. So when all else failed, I unhooked the hose, built up some pressure, a few whacks of my magic rubber mallet and POOF...LOL. However that was the only time I had to do that....lol

 

Okay, greenie mistake. I can understand that, especially if you get a really lousy plug. I had one yesterday that was plugged up when the loader preloaded the trailer. Took me 30 minutes of playing around the get it upplugged when I got to the customer. Longest I have ever had to fight one. I'm still not 100% sure what happened or where it was plugged. Trailer didn't act right, pressurized goofy. I got it cleared and continued on, but things can happen once in a while. Some companies barely train their people how to work a trailer, and I was just wondering if that's what had happened. I met one guy last year, had been given a 5 minute lecture on how the valves worked and sdewnt out on the road for 2 weeks with a pneumatic tank. That's a ood way for someone to get seriously hurt, and it wouldn;t have been the driver's fault. Some companies think that their entrie training department consists of the kindness of other companies drivers.

 

Yea I hear that. Fortunately my trainer for that company was actually one of their best. Great guy and he showed me alot and tought me some tricks. I give him alot of credit because he told me that he already had a new job lined up and he was gonna be leaving in a week because he was pretty unhappy with the company we were BOTH currently working for, but he never let that interfere with how well he trained me. Whenever I wasnt driving, I was pumping off and even when I had been driving I was pumping off, and I understand why. He showed me once or twice and then left it up to me after that so I could really learn. But he never once left me by myself when I was pumping, he was right there to make sure he answered any questions or helped fix anything I couldnt do. Good guy, I wish ALL trainers were like him. Of course after about 7-8 months of driving with that company I realized exactly why he left, and I did too. People were ****holes, but hey they're everywhere right...

 

it could be a number of reasons Mack. A kink in the line usually wont cause a blockage in the actual product line on the tank, what happens sometimes is if you open the flow valve too quickly, too much prouct will enter the product line causing a block. Or if you do what a lotta rookies running tanks do, they open the product valve before they open the flow valve so they end up dumping product in the line and by the time they try to release the flow theres too much product to push through and it causes the pressure in the tank to spike.

 

Almost...

The BTU which is basically just a blower unit mounted on the back of the truck run by the trucks engine, that fills the tank with pressure....the flow valve when opened takes part of that air and re-routes it too the product line so now air is flowing through the line....then you open the product valves one pod at a time which dumps product into the flow of air in the product line which is what eventually empties the tank. Thing is, if you open the product valve to much too fast theres too much product for the airflow to push through.

 

The blower used on the trucks is bascically a big Roots type supercharger, like was used on 2 cycle detroits. Mine flows about 1200 cfm at up to 20 psi. That's enough flow to move 50,000 pounds of flour out of a 4 inch diameer pipe in under 30 minutes. Usually, you can't push that hard and 1-1.25 hours is a more common unloading time.

Essentially, to unload a tanker, you make the air do two things. You have static pressure inside the tank, which you create by allowing air into the tank, but allow no outflow from the tank. This pressurizes the product inside, and will force it down and out of the tank.

At the bottom of the trailer, you have a pipe known as the product line, and you direct a moving airstream through this tube. You open valves above this line, and the pressurized product flows into the piping and is carried by the airstream into the customers storage silo.

So, much of the drivers job while unloading is maintaining the ratios between pressure in the tank and product and air flow down the pipe. Don't put enough product into the pipe, and the unloading takes excessive time. Put too much product in, and the product drops out of the airflow and you have a plugged pipe, 100% solid with product. And the ratio varies, add more pressure by opening a valve to the top of the tank, and you are subtracting air from the bottom flow. Add more air to the bottom flow, and you are subtracting the air needed to pressurize the tank.

If a line plugs up, you can use differences in pressure to create pressure differentials in the hoses, and pull product back into the tank, clearing the hose and the plug. Drop all pressure out of the tank, close off all air sources into the tank, and put full pressure on the bottom line. When you momentarily open one of the hopper valves down below, the high pressure in the line flows upward into the tank, seeking the lower pressure, and pulls product back with it. Do this a few times, and you clear out the plugs.

The trick is that different products react differently, and you have to know how to handle them all. As an example, I haul plastic pellets, and they cannot be sucked back in. But the trailers used for plastic are slightly different, and are designed so that you can pull a vacuum on the trailer body. You hook up to a railroad car for loading, and create a 12-15 inches of mercury vacuum, and it sucks the pellets out of the car and into the trailer.

This is why I stressed how important it is for a company to properly train their drivers doing this work. There are safety issues working with pressure units, and violating the rules can easily cost in blood. We never climb on a trailer when it's pressurized, and treat them like bombs. The air coming out of my blower in summer can reach 300 degrees, and the aluminum piping on the trailer gets hot enough to burn your skin with just a slight touch.

It's a different form of trucking from other types, and it's not for everyone, but I find it much to my liking.

 

In my roughly 19 months driving reefer and dry van (mostly dry van) I almost never delivered palleted cargo anywhere that didn't have lumpers available. Maybe 1 or 2 times out of 19 months. Unfortunately, that doesn't tell the whole story. The companies I worked for (Andrus Transportation out of St.George, UT, for the last 15 months, CR England for the first 4) had a policy that went something like this (been ~6 years, a bit rusty on details): Most loads had a certain amount set aside for unloading--it varied from shipper to shipper, and load to load. If the lumper fee was less than the set amount, the lumper got paid, and Andrus pocketed the difference (Not me!). If I wanted to unload it myself, then I could keep the set amount. If the lumper fee was greater than the set amount, then if I didn't want to unload it myself, I had to get a cash advance somewhere (or cash a company-authorized ComCheck against my future earnings) and pay the difference out of my own pocket. It sucked.

One place I went to I figured my out-of-pocket expense for 4 hours of THEIR labor, was less than what I could make in 8 hours of driving, and that it would take me about 12 hours (at the rate it took me to unload just one pallet--they wanted it re-stacked differently, and on more than one pallet) to do it myself. The fee that I would get for my labors would result in me getting LESS than minimum wage per hour worked. I decided I wasn't a company slave at that point, and bit the bullet.

 

I worked for a crane outfit who also owned a shortline railroad. They used to unload RR cars of soda ash and salt and then haul the material in pnumatic dry bulk tankers over to this soap plant about 2 miles from the siding. I had to go there one night and drive. I asked how to run the tanker. They said "It works just like the big sand blaster down the yard" That was it for my training. I had to unload 4 loads that night by myself. I was a bit slow because I used lots of air and went easy on the product.

You know it's a wonder I never killed myself in my younger days with all the wonderful training I had.