The "meat and potatoes" of National Carriers.

So I started with National Carriers a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to wait until to start a thread until I could actually get a feeling for how the company operates. All too many times does somebody post a thread about going to orientation for company 'A' only to never come back and update...leaving countless readers hanging and using up server space with yet another useless thread. On top of all of that, I am just coming out of the oilfield and being home every night, so I knew that it was going to take me a bit to readjust.

National Carriers (the Elite Fleet) is based out of Irving, TX with yards in Liberal, KS and Dodge City, KS. They are owned by National Beef, so you can imagine what you will be hauling a whole bunch of (hence the thread title!) They have slightly over 600 trucks, most of which are 2014 or newer Kenworth T680's with PACCAR MX-13 455hp engines and Eaton Fuller 10sp automatic transmissions. They have a few Freightliner Cascadia Evolutions that are also automatics. I have heard rumors that they have some older T700's and Cascadias that are manuals, but I have yet to see any. All company trucks are governed at 65mph. Lease trucks are governed at 68 cruise and 72 pedal. All the trucks have Thermo King apu's. The trailers are Utility with Thermo King reefers. There are a few Carrier reefers too.

Pay is $.40/mi empty and loaded. No sliding scale. Orientation pay is $250. Dentention is paid after 2 hours at $10/hr up to $50/day. You are required to have a TWIC (they will pay for it.) No forced NYC. You are required to follow their fuel solutions and their routes (if you want to go a different way, call them and they will replan it.)

Orientation is scheduled for 3 days. It might take a couple of extra days to clear through compliance (more on that in a bit.) They put you up at the Best Western which I must say is very nice. You get your own room, and the hotel has a continental breakfast. National covers your lunch and gives you gift cards for McDonalds or Subway for dinner (I kept mine to use out on the road.) National is very thorough in vetting their drivers. They look at everything. So don't even bother trying to hide anything or fudge employment, because they will find out. They were pulling up jobs I had in high school back in the 90's, and even found out about a misdemeanor that was expunged from my record over 10 years ago! Well, all of this vetting takes some time to do...hence the couple of extra days to clear compliance. They will redo your medical card, so don't bother getting one before hand. We had a guy in orientation that had paid for a medical less than a week before coming to orientation, and they still made him get a new one. The guys that run the orientation were kinda gruff and no nonsense. It almost had that training company/truck driving school aura to it. This kind of concerned me as I have graduated from hand holding training company pull-ups to big boy truck driver pant wearer. I expressed my concerns to a few drivers at the smoking table (every trucking outfit has one,) and they all told me to stick it out and that it got a lot better once orientation was over. Other than that, it was a typical orientation.

I cleared orientation, and was given a truck. A 2014 T680 with a ton of electrical issues. I was routed back to the yard, and they swapped me into a 2016 T680 with no issues. They really do try to take care of the driver. The president is always out and about hanging out with the drivers, and it's a fully open door policy. They even let you have access to the payroll people...which seems to be rare these days. The maintenance shop is top notch. They treat every truck as if it's an o/o truck, so no going to the bathroom only to come out and your truck is gone because maintenance decided they wanted to work on it. Driver managers are easy to work with. Miles are decent if you are 48 state otr. If your go regional, you will only get around 2000 miles/week. Most runs are in the midwest and up into the Northeast and California. Very few Northwest loads.

That basically sums them up. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

 

They call it a "self paced" orientation...which it is. I finished my assignments on Monday whereas there were people still working on them on Thursday. They do have a student driver program with the caveat that you live in the state of Texas and can meet their hiring standards. I have read that they will help you get a cdl, but I don't know specifics.

Interesting about the online activity monitoring. Not surprising though. I agree that Al is not a person to trifle with. He's a very busy man that has to deal with us whiny ### drivers all day among other things. He's the one that switched my truck for me no questions asked, and he treated very fairly...so he's alright in my book.

 

Kenworth screwed my truck up. I took it in because I was hearing a 'clunking' noise coming from the front end. They did not fix the noise, but they did update the ecu software which causes random electrical systems to go haywire. From what I hear, the systems that screw up are different depending on the truck...but one thing that does get messed up in every truck is the average fuel economy display. I don't know if it's specific to National T680's or what. Anyhoo, I am now sitting in Liberal waiting on my beef load. It should be ready tonight sometime. Now I need to go run some miles...and cross my fingers that this update does not do anything bad to my truck.

 

I was wrong about this. Apparently, you still have to follow their route even if you have a shorter/better/different way you want to go.

 

2900 miles in 5 days last week. 4 days home time, and close to 2000 miles for the 3 days left on this week. Busy busy!

 

They're ok. It's not the oilfield paychecks that I was used to, but I didn't expect them to be either. The 2900 mile check was just a hair under $1000 take home