Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

So next week I'm back on the bump and grind, but if I had to do it again, if it came up now I would bid on the volume route that I have that I've been covering. Yeah it's all over night work, but it's alright I don't sleep good at night during the week on day shift anyhow, and I like getting home in the morning, so it's not a big deal to me.

Will see what happens over all I like this run though and would take it if it came up again. I had the chance to do this run when it came up and I passed on it, because I wasn't sure about the whole nights thing, but anymore nights is just part of the day lol! If it came up again I would take it now.

 

Sounds like you would enjoy an LTL gig.

 

I like doing this job. It’s more LTLish all the stops are palletized and come off with a pallet jack.

 

@jmz Welcome to the Purple Posse!

 

Oh boy do I have a good story for you guys today!
I'll tell you all later.

 

Now that’s the type of foodservice delivery I could live with. I kinda wish I had known GFS did routes like that when I was first looking at US Foods.

 

Alright so lots of fast paced action again last night.
So I'm driving down the turnpike and this is how fast things go from calm to action packed will say.

So I'm driving down the turnpike lalala and up ahead in the distance clogging up the center lane is a slow moving CR England (go figure) truck with the cruse control set at about 50.

Well, why this guy wasn't in the slow lane I'll never know, my guess is he doesn't care about his driving or he was half asleep behind the wheel and not paying attention at all, well he definitionally wasn't paying attention at all.

Anyhow, I'm coming up on him and out of my rear-view mirror the headlights of another truck appear a real fast mover well, this truck that's coming up white International sleeper cab the company I don't know small time company may even be a private fleet comes out of nowhere in the center lane and he's booking it.

Well, this white International is coming up on pokey Joe CR England truck fast and he's flashing his lights at this moron CR England truck to get out of the way, because this CR England truck is going way to slow, well of course this silly CR England truck makes no move no anything just hums along.

Anyhow this white International is just starting to clear me and he's pulling a roll cover flatbed trailer well, right as he starts to clear me, I can't really tell because it's dark and the flatbed trailer this white International is pulling is black, so I see the trailer clear me and then I flash my lights, like if you need to you can cut in front of me and go around this CR England clown, well I keep looking and see uh oh spaghetti oh's he's not cleared me at all, there's another trailer attached to that trailer.

Yes that's right it was a set of roll cover turnpike doubles 48' flatbed trailers.


So the turnpike doubles has a clear shot in the fast lane and speeds right on around this 50 mile an hour CR England truck and I pass this silly goose up in the slow lane and the whole time the CR England truck is putting a long oblivious to it all even though he almost got bull dozed by a set of heavy turnpike doubles. So that's my story of last night.

 

The volume routes are normally seniority/length of service bid a most of them are based out of the warehouse distribution centers it just so happens that they took (2) volume routes moved one to our yard and one to Akron instead of having the warehouse do them.

What it is, is the bigger bulkier stops that need to be pallatized they put on the 50ft trailers. Some of those accounts are 5 days a week and others are 1 day or 2 day a week. Thursday is a big day on the route as it's a 3 stop day, but usually I've got 2 stops. Broadline doesn't shuttle or use big trailers for route delivery so all the big bulk stops, are taken and put on 50ft trailers and then routed accordingly.

Some of these stops were at one point in time on 28' foot trailers and they were an absolute pain to do on the 28' trailers. The one nursing home we do that was switched over the 50ft was a horrific pain on the 28' trailer, building pallets and running the freezer inside from outside because it came out of the side door on the 28' it was like a 2.5hr delivery with the 50ft it's an hour if not maybe less.

Another hospital that we do was a 28' trailer stop and it was upwards of 3hrs when they took that stop and put it on the 50ft time went down to an hour, some of that was also the customers request management changed and the company had to change along with it, but ever since they gave us a 50ft trailer some of the real hard and time consuming stops went away, because those are now on the 50ft trailer and it's easier on everyone.

Now the pay scale for the volume drivers is different although actually this route that I've been on the past 2 weeks is as far as the whole transit volume world is concerned pretty good pay, the major draw back to it is and this is why I wasn't sure about it the first time around and why it wasn't bid on off the rip is because the hours are not the greatest it's worse then night transit hours it's all late start almost 10pm and late finish for an over night run 7-10am depends if you have a back haul or not. Night transit there hours very and there runs very some guys start at 10pm just have a single turn and by 3am there back at the yard and go home. Others start much earlier 4-5pm and are done by 3-4am. I wasn't sure about the whole over night thing and if I wanted to get into that or not, but what's nice about this route is there's no on season off season this route is constant the day time work fluctuates with schools and stuff and what ends up happening is you end up doing a lot of swing driving.

Once in a while they do tack on a GFS store to the volume route I had one on Tuesday it was an emergency special delivery, but yeah over all it's not bad.