Rumor truth

exactly Sarge, and thats a dam good thing.You cant keep running things the same way forever and not get results.Cut out the deadweight terminals that cant get oil changes done in 30 minutes.My friend is a diesel mechanic and works on big rigs for a living and when i tell him how long it takes our company to get a oil change and lube job done he cant believe it.Its not a all day project or even a four hour project to change the oil, replace all the fuel filters, and a air filter on one of these rigs

 

At Bison both our Volvos and our Cascadias have the electric a/c's and espars with 8 batteries.I have a 2013 Cascadia and after all night with heat or a/c still have enough battery to make my morning coffee.Very comfortable and much quieter than the apu I had years ago.

 

yes sir I agree, but when maintenance director sends out the checklist for the pm it takes longer than 30-45mins it should take, there is a 4 page checklist for the oil change, apu service, and battery service that they have to sign off on and check off for the service to be done. then have to do the repairs. if you have a new guy or a guy that all he wants to do is pm's then he doesnt care how long it takes to do a pm. strange and odd times at usa, maybe for the better, may be the beginning of the end..........

 

I called my FM at home later on today after receiving the QC message. She says that the staff at Van Buren were told that Roanoke was closing due to low volume (same reason as Phoenix) and that they are adjusting our freight lanes again. She said that Roanoke was no longer in an area where we were doing a large amount of freight in addition to low maintenance activity so it doesn't make sense to keep it staffed. She said they are unsure if they will retain the property as a drop yard or not currently. Per her, West Memphis is not on the block to be closed completely, it is a hub and at bare minimum, intermodal traffic justifies keeping it open. She also said that the budget for 2013 took into account the savings from closing Phoenix and Roanoke and plans are currently to shift that funding to completing groundbreaking on a Dallas terminal (not Denton as its just a temp spot). We've already owned the property since 2011 but no construction had been done due to funding problems. Supposedly that will be starting March-April time frame and according to what she told me the new Dallas terminal will be a large terminal comparable with Van Buren or West Memphis.

 

Yip. Also Roanoke was off of 81 right? Very busy. West Memphis is off of 40. They said they were building a Dallas Terminal when I worked for them in 2001. Something tells me the upper people are even filling the dispatchers with a bunch of bologna, or boloney. Y'all be careful.

 

Low volume? Im constantly up and down 81. Oh well. Ill just adjust my planning accordingly. No stopping for my 10 in Roanoke.

Sent from somewhere out there

 

Yeah thats the biggest suck part. I counted on Roanoke as a safe haven so that if I had to drive all night I could plan it into my trip as a spot to shut down for a 10.

 

I agree, it was a good place to stop when needed. But, it was also a dump that had the nastiest shower and restroom in usa truck, and a maintance crew that didn't do much. Gonna miss the parking spot but that's it.

 

My main problem with services at the big terminals is the mechanics seem to spend more time walking back and forth for things than actually performing work. Not very efficient. Good supervision could prevent some of the lack of work being performed efficentely . I live in the Dallas area, a Dallas terminal would be a great asset in Texas,long over due