Typical reefer load/unload times

I pull reefers so, I'm talking from daily experience. I have a number of techinques i use to avoid unnecessary waiting time. For the most part they work 65-70% of time depending on the customer. Waiting time all depends on the customer. Example some produce processing warehouses/plants in Central California and Yuma Arizona are very quick to load you any where from 30 minutes to 3 hours and some places 3 hours to upwards 10-12 hours. It depends there operations and appointments times.

Walmart DCs can be 2 hours to 6 hours. In most cases the reason for the long delay is waiting for the frieght count to be verified and BOL to be signed.

Meat processing plants, that can anywhere from 6-24 hours, because of the slaughtering butchering, packaging, and loading process and whether your company drop/hook trailers at that plant. Most want all trailers to be dropped and the yard hostler puts your trailer up to the door while you wait from 3 -12 hours. Some meat processing plant will live load you on the spot, 2-4 hours.

The one of the keys to avoiding unnecessary waiting time is to call ahead time so know whether the load is ready or to wait at a truckstop close by. Because some places may or may not have a hold area/parking for trucks and some places like meat processing plant have nothing around for miles to eat (keep food in your truck for this reason) or may not have restroom facilities for drivers and the smell of pigs & cows can be so bad you have to park down the road to keep the smell & flies out of the cab of your truck.

In regards to unloading wait times that varies depending on whether if the customer is distribution center, a small warehouse, or manufacturing/processing plant. Also if they use lumpers or unload it themselves.

For the most part lumpers tend to be the cause of lot of the long waiting times unloading. (Example: BS around, jumping around from truck to truck, not enough help, got wait for paperwork, not tell you when you are empty and etc.,) and then want charge you $150-$250 lumper fee to unload you!

 

Wow! Obama supporters has something to do with wait times at the dock? Arent we tolling today? Quess obama really got under your skin for last 8 years! Let's blame obama for the sun rising 5 minutes late this morning shall we?

 

Salinas ca is worst case scenario my app is usually 5pm they want the trailer there 3 hours before. You show up at 2pm check in wash out and wait for phone call. They call you at like 8-9pm load you between 1045pm and 1145pm. Then they want the load in Chicago in 2days deliver on the 3rd day 5am you bust your ### get there check in...... And wait could be 10 minutes could be 15 hours to unload if they don't need it.... Don't get me started on Bronx ny market Fml

 

No such thing as a schedule

 

Amen to Salinas CA getting the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate (or Wait!) trophy. Especially Taylor Farms, with sucks in every possible imaginable reefer way.

 

Produce pickups are a 24-hour ordeal

 

So are cat scales in a produce area .. heaven forbid they overload you ...

 

That's why you gotta geotag all the free scales at all the produce places so you can at least get a ballpark idea of where you are otherwise it might be 50 miles to the nearest cat scale

 

It varies wildly.

To unload a reefer is to prepare thyself for battle and woe onto ye who have had a date planned later that day because you probably will not make it.

Union Places back east were really bad. To sit on the floor of the reefer surrounded by 5000 little boxes of spices from mccormic while wrestling with 300 printed spreadsheet pages to mark each one off one by one... took about 6 hours when they finally take pity on me and assign 5 people to assist in the last hour of my trial and tribulation.

Im still mad at Meijer in Detroit over a unload incident that took me 14 hours lumping. It's freaking 1988 that hot summer night. And Im still mad at them. FFE sent us there once and I instantly said OH no.. you don't we will be there forever. No no no came the soothing voice from ST dispatch, you park on the other side in the back and they will unload you. We were unloaded in 45 minutes flat.

A&P in jersey off 287.. ugh.

Stop in shop in CT is another. they can go do something anatomically impossible.

One in Norristown PA near Philly was a world class operation, I forget it's name but it's huge and they actually had a awesome deli and hot order food cook 24/7 on the third floor above the docks. I used to plot that I will get loads there so I can get eating and eating and eating. Whooo.... oh the unloading... easy when you get to eat. The cheese steaks, the philly ones... YUM!

Clean too that place was. crack a pallet and leave a splinter on the corner of the dock and they give you hell.

I can go on. But if you want to excel in reefer work, make it drop and hook. Every time.

 

Actually some dude at JBS gave me the nickel tour when I was waiting at one with a load of concrete. They send the carcass of the moo moo cow over to a cooler for 48 hours to cool it down after its bled and skinned, before they cut it up.