Tankers the Schneider way

I don't know if it against OSHA regulations to walk on the catwalk on top of the tanker. I don't think Schneider would let us do it if that were the case. As an example, we are not supposed to air up a seriously low tire.

The reasoning here is that OSHA wants that to happen in a tire cage. You don't know how damaged the tire may be if it was driven seriously underinflated. They say call for road service and on the road repairs will be made at that rest stop if that is where you discovered it.

They don't want CSA points and neither do I.

Now somebody asked about air ride dump valves, there are none. There also isn't a Johnson bar. The Johnson bar was a factor in a multi-million dollar crash and have been eliminated ever since.

Be in your correct gear 100' before that turn coming up. Don't worry that the guy in the car behind you may be delayed. You can't let other people drive your truck.

Time to keep working on those shift points. You shift based on the RPMs and the gear selected is based on your speed. Much to learn to do automatically.

 

First to safety. My understanding is that when you top load it is at a platform at the customer. The walking on top you have to do daily is to make sure your hatches and other openings are secure. A harness wouldn't be of much help since by the time the rope pulled taught you would be either at or about on the ground and all the harness would accomplish is to make sure you swung into the side of the tank.

Training today wasn't overly tanker oriented. My half day on the road concentrated on teaching me how to drive a truck, not how to pass a CDL exam. Where buttonhook turns were taboo before they are a very necessary evil now.

There was some training on rollovers specific to tankers but this was a video and thankfully not hands on.

We did have a large group meeting today that I learned quite a bit from. It was a cheerleading meeting but it was the first meeting where all the trainees were present. You had new grads training for van and tanker, experienced drivers coming to Schneider and new O/Os coming into the Choice program.

The thing I found most striking is that out of 26 total people, 12 were experienced drivers and 5 of them were returning to Schneider after going somewhere else for a while. I heard some grousing from the returnees, both about other companies and about Schneider. I guess the Schneider complaints were less important than the others.

I did hear that being in tankers (the bulk division) could be a great place to be. Besides the oil patches, intermodal looks to be a big potential for tankers. And being from Chicago that could be good for me.