Stevens Transport A year in review

No fuel surcharge on empty miles, and sitting in the middle of WY unless he can get a repower from a load running late, he will have a 400 to 500 mile deadhead. As a lease operator, that gets expensive. So instead of paying $1.20 per gallon for fuel, he is paying full price for the fuel he burns for those empty miles.

He also wanted to make Heyburn Idaho, which would have maximized his time and miles for the week.

 

March 15 to 21

slow week due to my hours. I could not work in a reset.

Miles ran, 2629
Miles paid, 2125
miles transfloed, not paid yet, 1041

Started my day week out in Cedar City UT. Head into California, with this heavy candy load, hoping the california scales will not look to close as my trailer tandems are at 40'6". The scale coming down I15 is closed . The only one I have to cross. That hill has a 45mph speed limit, and I watch a 6000 series Stevens truck go past me doing 55+ and I could smell the brakes. Started out at the top too fast. He was lucky the scale was closed as there was no way he could have moved over to make it into the scale lane.

Pull into Mclane, San bernadino, for my 5pm appointment. Arrived at 4, check in, and like most Cally recievers park on the street and wait. At 5pm, I am given a door, pull in, set up to back in, and see an employee waving, running towards me...they want me in a different door, and I see the shag truck pulling a trailer out, and that is the door I am to back into. this is a hershey load, and it is a priority load for them, Hershey pays the lumpers directly, and demands 2 hours or less. I move over to the new door, and they are unloading me, before I even check in with my paperwork.

Walk out on the dock with my paperwork, the supervisor takes my paper work, and hustles down the dock. there are 5 lumpers working the load, and in 1 hour I am headed out the gate. Shows that it can be done, when a company demands it.

On to my produce picks... Head over to coachella, park at the loves for the night. I am to pick up at Ocean Mist, just 4 miles away. This is good, and then down to yuma for 2 more picks. No fax, just case counts sent over the QC. Pull into Ocean Mist, they have no power, then the power comes back on, but the pickup # I have, is not for them. Call produce, to get correct number, and find out I was sent to the wrong pickup location. Need to head down to el Centro to pick up. 90 miles away, this screws up my good day. Arrive at the shipper, park, and wait for 2 hours to pick up 4 pallets. Now to head over to Yuma, arrive at UniKool, check in, and wait. It is 2 pm. Have an 11pm appointment over at t&A cooling. At 9:30 pm am finally given a door and UniKool. Takes 3 hours to load me, as it was a whole bunch of 20 cases, 30 cases, 5 cases.....So much for making that 11pm appointment.

Head over anyway, to park. I arrive at 1am, check in, and get told to put it in door 5 as soon as door 5 is empty. watch the truck pull out, back in, loader is waiting for me, getting 10 pallets of Head Lettuce....ugh the heavy product on the tail of the trailer, at least I am already out of California. Takes him all of 15 minutes to load me, and I pull out to park.

Send in my running late message, and get some sleep. No way I can make detroit with my hours. I don't have full days to run, but only 8 and 9s. get up and run my day, park, send in another running late message. Get up thursday, send in another running late message, and a repower request. get asked, do we really need to repower? yes, I don't have the hours, as I have been saying for 3 days. Repower set up in tucumcari, to an empty trailer. I could have made Liberal, and I expected a meat load.

Get sent to Cactus TX. Such a lovely place. Drop my trailer, load is not ready, that is okay, as I am just about out of hours. Get my 10 hour break, load is ready, head down to Dumas to scale, bills say 44,442 lbs. don't think i can scale that. gross weight with 1/2 tanks, 79980. Takes me 5 trys to get the axles legal, but I do, so off I go doing the 50 gallon shuffle. I have 9 hours today, and make Beto Junction, KS. Friday night, snow storm hits, saturday morning, I go on Weather shutdown, not driving in snow and ice. Send in my running late. Sunday Morning, wait for the sun melt some of the ice, and for the truck stop to empty out enough that I can get out. they are parked every where, like sardines.

Send in my running late message, and a repower request for spiceland IN. A team can make it from there to Hunts Point, and make it on time. But it is Sunday. Nothing happens. Get up Monday, now I will be a day late, and somebody st Stevens finally realizes this load is late, and decides to try and do something about it. finally rescheduled the load for Tuesday.

so ends another fun filled week.

It is now spring, let the snow fly

 

As of Wednesday, my driver manager is no more. Well he has another job within Alliance, but did not say what. So now I get to adjust, and break in a new Driver Manager. She called me today to introduce herself, and to chat, which I cut short, and told her I am driving, have to keep it short and to the point. Will have to see how it goes with Ms "C".

 

March 22 to 28

Miles ran 3000
Miles Paid 1041 Just the way the weeks work out sometimes
Miles Transfloed, not paid yet, 3768
Monday morning dawns, and I am up and running, headed for the bronx, Hunts point. Due to timing, I choose to stop at Frystown PA, 150 miles out, instead of the jam packed truck stop just inside New Jersey. wish I could legally make hunts point and just park there. Oh well, Tuesday up and at it at 5am, have a window appointment at nebraskaland any way. Cross the GW at 7:30 in the morning, was expecting a long backup, but was on 30 minutes. quick trip from there to Hunts point, medium traffic.

check in, he says " oh you finally decide to get here, this load was due yesterday" I answered, "sure was, that snow in Kansas was nasty, you would think it was still winter"... "you sure would, back into 10 to 21 when one becomes empty". At noon I am empty, and ready to head out.

Get my load assignment, picks up in south plainfield NJ, going to Fort Worth Tx, a haz mat load. Flavorings for drinks. Picks up on Wednesday 8am to noon. Head over to the Vince Lombardi, and shut down. short day, but I will be able to run hard and maybe make fort worth on Friday instead of Saturday, and not deal with weekend dispatch.

Get up Wednesday morning, head over to the shipper, pull in, 2 stevens trucks had spent the night there. Mark it in my book, can park at shipper. Need this info in NJ. check in, get told to put it in door 1. what about the other trucks? when they check in we will back them in. 30 minutes later I am loaded, but have to wait on paper work. BS with the dock workers, find out this is a new account and they are very happy that we are showing up before noon. that day they had 16 stevens trucks scheduled to be loaded. As I waited, 2 more arrived. Finally get my paper work from the other warehouse, and I am on my way. Make glade springs VA, shut down. On schedule to be a day early. thursday, find out I have a new driver manager, inform her I plan on delivering on friday a day early. she does not think that is possible. will see. Make earle AR for the night.

friday morning roll before the sun, I want to be able to be to Cott Beverages before 3pm. stop at JJ's in Arkansas, a good place to eat, exit 101 I30. call cott, talk to the receiver, which tells me the load is not scheduled to be delivered until monday, regardless of what Stevens has told me. I ask if I can drop it then, and he says make sure the refer tank is full, and on 40 continuous, and be here before 5pm. This is working good.

stop at a loves before dallas and top off the refer, and pull into Cott at 2:50. He is surprised to see me, checks the tank and the settings, comes back and says, "finally a stevens driver that listens". Had to blind side back it into a dock, against a fence all the way around the building. Took some time, but I got it in, and I am on my way. Hook up to an empty, hoping for a load out of the area.... I should know better by now....Head to amarillo for a load going to cally that the DLD is Sunday Night, and it delivers on tuesday Morning. so much for this working out in my favor.
I can make it to wichita Falls TX tonight, then get up to Amarillo by 9am, drop this trailier, start my reset, pick up my load, and head for cally.

stevens can sure mess with ones plans.

head over to the avery, and you can read about Saturday cluster circle jerk by the meat department.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/stevens/97249-stevens-transport-aviary.html

Sunday, zero hours, and empty trailer, setting in Moriarty New Mexico, doing a reset, since I can't move today anyway, and my 34 hours is up at 5am monday.

Dispatch sent me a message to head for Liberal KS, which I will on Monday. I notified them that I could not leave today. HOS rules and all.

My new driver manager has a lot to learn too. i was 45 miles east of Amarillo and sent back to Amarillo to repower off the load. ended up being 96 miles round trip. she says she has adjusted the routing, which I believe, and I made sure she put it across the QC, because as I told her, as it has happened every time in the past, rick and payroll will disallow the miles, and I will have to fight for those miles. I tried to tell her, I was not questioning her, I was just protecting myself for the upcoming argument over those miles.

 

Toughest, hard to say, varies from day to day. The long hours of being by ones self, being stuck at a truck stop, in the middle of no where. The long waits on hold to actually talk to a person that you are required to talk to.

I am single, kids are grown, so home is where ever I am at. I do maintain a tax home in Wyoming where my family is and my friends.

You are not missing anything, long hours, changing sleep schedule due to shippers and receivers, and changes caused behind the signs back in dallas totally out of our control.

Now I like to plan ahead, but trucking can really mess with those plans...Saturday is a good example, yet I have Sunday off, so it worked out.

It is what one makes of it. It is a lifestyle change, embrace it and you will do well grasshopper.