TMC drivers from KY

Ya, they hall out of there along with home run. Ive taken loads to Michigan and Massachusetts from there.

 

Provided nothing has changed since I left there four years back, here's what I can tell you from having been on that Lafarge Continental Dedicated account--twice...

First off, driver must live within 250 miles of Silver Grove. If you're outside of that, they won't take you.

Secondly...there may be a waiting list. I know for me it took nearly a year from when I first requested it to when I finally made it in. (The next time was much quicker, but by then everyone at Lafarge knew me). Speaking of which...one year minimum with TMC is required before they'll let you apply. (Or so they say...every now and again people have bent rules up there regarding that.)

Next...the good and maybe not-so-good about dedicated in general and that account in particular...

- Guaranteed home time. That's the #1 reasom guys jump on that. One way or another, breakdown or traffic notwithstanding you WILL be home on Friday. Now having said that...

- Pay can be up-and-down as all get-out. There were weeks where I cleared $800 take-home and the next week I took home barely $500. That's the other side of guaranteed home time: if there's no available Friday load within 200 miles, they send you to the house empty. Meaning...$0 dollars for that run. Which leads me to...

- Pay. I mentioned 200 miles. That's their bounce range. On linehaul the typical max deadhead is 150 miles before you get that .20/mi deadhead pay (unless they've recently changed that). On Lafarge, its 200. So that's a lot of free work--and time you're not being paid for. Bear that in mind. As for the pay scale itself, its fixed per year: first year on the account you get 26%, second year 27%, third year 28%, and I believe they max out at 30 (but again those figures may have changed some). Now as for how you'll be making that money...

- The key to making $ on that account is FREQUENCY. Get used to not sleeping in any truck stops unless you're on a haul where that's where you run out of hours--or unless you're smart enough about your time management to where you can fuel, run in, shower and be back on the road all in under an hour. (It's possible; I made a science out of doing that.) But again I reemphasize, the key to making $ on that account is FREQUENCY--how many loads can you deliver in one week? If you're good, you can get between 6-8.

- Length of haul: this may be different depending on specific areas, but most of the loads are under 300 miles--and many will grt you within shooting range of a Home Depot distribution center, so get ready for that because that may become your primary means of backhaul back to the Cincinnati area to get you back to Silver Grove to reload. (Oh yeah...you don't get tarp pay for Lafarge's loads since they're preloaded and pretarped--mostly. Every now and then you may have to wait to live load there and it will suck.) That said...because the radius from Silver Grove is 250 miles in any direction from there, don't be surprised if you have some 500-mile trips in there. I know I did that a few times from TN to IN just to get a backhaul to somewhere within 200 miles of Silver Grove. Just letting you know.

So as you can see, its great for guaranteed home time--but it ain't for lazy folk, neither. You really gotta be on your hustle game there. But if you make the best of it, it can become fun. (Just understand you're dealing with drywall mostly...meaning you're delivering to the likes of Home Depot, Lowe's, and...ugh...Menards (but TMC drivers don't say that word around each other--ask why), and the long wait times they can incur just in unloading alone.

Hope all this helps you.