Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Yeah but the money is good AND the home life is even better. Weekends off.

Plenty of time for bass fishing after work.

 

I had a pup today and picked up 12 pallets of agm batteries.

Ended up being 11,000 on the steers with 3/8 tank, 5th wheel all the way back; 35,960 on the drives; 24,440 on the trailer axle; 71,460 gross. Center of the steer axle to center of the trailer axle is 43'10", so moving the 5th wheel forward would only serve to make me over gross in addition to over axle. I took 2 pallets off, which should be 6,500 lbs and shifted everything back a half pallet spot. Out of hours by the time we got things reworked, so I'll scale tomorrow to see what happened.

First question is do you think I shifted things properly/what would you have done? I'm worried there is still too much on the trailer.

Secondly, how often does this happen and do you just run around the scale to get back to the yard?

It's my own stupid fault that I didn't point out the problem before starting on the run, but I thought the batteries weighed 20-25 lbs a piece, not 50+, so I didn't ask the question of weight on Friday when we had easy fixes. There werent weights listed on the bills, and again I didnt ask. Only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask. I didn't use my mind so I had to use my back. Lesson learned, but I'm wondering how many times in my life I will need to learn this same lesson?

 

OMG, where do I start? And who would be interested in my rants? I'll start with being a rookie at Werner and just got out from under trainers and going solo. They were building this jail in Philly, down by the river, hard as hell to get into but got there. Now I gotta blindside back into this only dock they have to unload with. With cinderblocks, big pieces of iron and lots of stuff made it a very tight back. Told them it was my very first blindside back and that I would need extra eyes to help me. Was in a flat top cabover so no back window. Foreman said I've got four big construction guys here, one on each corner! Ok, so I backed it in with not a word from anybody to watch out! A piece of rebar that was embedded in a concrete block actually threaded it's way thru the front plastic bumper hole, the hole that you step in to haul yourself up to windshield cleaning height. And it ripped off the two foot section of the front plastic bumper, which was a three piece section of plastic pieces. So, being faithful called safety on phone and reported it. Put the bumper in side box and got back to Omaha and they bolted it back on in about 20minutes! Now I had a preventable backing accident on my record that they wouldn't take off, even though no damage was done!!
I learned my lesson about being faithful company guy! Two years later had a blindside back into an underground dock and scraped the outside of the plastic mirror shell on passenger side. Mum's the word, got into a dealer on my next delivery, took the mirror shell off and they repainted it to match for $60. Out of my pocket, nothing said, no preventable on my record. It was worth the $60. Just saying, if the company gonna screw me over like that, then I'll use my head and not be a faithful company man! Ain't worried about repurcussions as I'm retired now. But being OTR for 16yrs was an experience!

 

Those construction guys that were twice my size sure looked squeamish though whenever I came around cussing up a storm, and asking them if they needed glasses! They didn't say one word, plus got me empty in about thirty minutes. LoL

 

Your way sounds a lot better than what I did, live and learn. I ended up being 31k and 23k, so I doubt I could have gotten 100% legal without leaving a 3rd skid behind. Next time we're going to just use a 53 and make life easy.

Thanks for the help.

 

I'm in a new truck and still haven't weighed it bobtail, because I never need that weight. Full tanks, a trainee, and an empty 53 foot I weigh 34,200.

My atlas says on a 4 axle, 44 foot spread I can gross 71,500. I was just under 44, so I think gross weight would have been fine (at least until I fueled), but you're right on the inner bridge for 3 axle (drives and trailer). It's a moot point because neither the drives or the trailer were legal on their own.

Dropping two pallets would have solved everything if I'd placed them in correctly. I guessed at moving things back a half pallet, should have only moved then back 18 inches. Or done what Roadrunner suggested and done a single in the nose and a single in the tail. I was thinking about the weights as if I were sliding the tandems - took 6.5k off the back and 'slide up' 2 feet to move 2k to the back. Two feet got me 6k moved back.

It will be interesting to see what they decide to do next month - run the route with a 53 or only order 9-10 pallets of batteries for the return. The 53 would be 'interesting ' to get into both stops. Not really hard, more along the lines of "I'd rather not, thanks". The rub is we need to send a pallet jack to off load the first stop, so we can't just one way the load. The LTL freight charge for the stuff on the first stop is enough to cover the 400 miles of dh between stop 1 and the battery pick up, so from a cost perspective it makes sense. That is until VTL "charges" the parts department for use of the 53 foot trailer for 3 days so their portion of the balance sheet looks better. From the peon perspective and the executive suite perspective the common sense solution is apparent, but from middle management this is apparently a hill worth dying on.

 

The way this industry is going at least you know that their is work for you Monday.