Western Terminal got NAILED by the Tornado outbreak!

To: Western Express Drivers...prayers~

 

Watched the video; that's a huge mess and the main headquarters building is a pile of rubble.
Didn't know Western has 2500 trucks on the road.

 

Yes, sir. Western Express didn't get to be a mega carrier by paying their drivers.

 

David almost got sucked out of the truck during the tornado. I can hear the redneck exclamations now... "Winder got sucked out the winder!"
Of course, getting sucked through the winder is also a good indication that maybe your particular lizard might not be a female.....

 

Like Western drivers can afford lizards. Lol

 

When I first started driving, years ago, worked for a company named XpressCo.
Flatbed outfit behind the TA in Nashville.
Owned by Wayne Wise; the same man that started Western Express.
He was good to all his drivers and mechanics and office personnel.
I liked working for him.
Times change and management changes, but I have no bad memories of XpressCo.

 

Would anyone know if it had? The last time I saw that Pilot it already looked as though the parking lot had been the target of a bombing attack.

 

IMHO, many (if not all?) of their drivers are 'human too' and needed a second chance; a 'leg up' in this career, if you will... due to 'juvenile' or otherwise mistakes that they got CITED for in their pasts. How many of y'all have 'skated' ?!?!? (probably myself included..I was young and dumb once...tbh.)

Glass houses, y'all. They are still compadres of the road. How this turned into a 'throwdown' is unbeknownst to me, and .. pretty ... petty.

Hope their drivers and staff are faring well... (or better than the day 'of' ) at this time.

 

As someone who drove for Western Express two and a half years, you're about half right.

Most of the guys I met were ok dudes. And nothing was wrong with any of the few lady drivers I met, either.

But I saw so many guys who were human wrecking balls. They're easy to spot. Just look for the tractor with the bent up cab extenders and tore up or missing fairings along with a filthy tractor that never sees a truck wash.

Never saw the guy, but one driver dropped his tractor and trailer off at the Emporia, Virginia terminal. He did so because he quit suddenly. And I soon found out why.

There was this long length of duct tape running along the trailer's aluminum sides in several strips. Maybe 20 feet of duct tape in total. Curiosity got the best of me and I began peeling off some of the tape. Well, there was a long, deep gough running from the rear of the trailer to the middle. The gough was deep enough that you could see into the trailer.

I've hit a few trailers in my day, and lemme tell ya, I could feel it. I knew when I made a boo boo because the backing momentum stopped and I usually heard an impact. But someone who just keeps going after hearing a loud impact or feeling motion suddenly stop is a menace.

And I don't know how many times I have picked up an empty trailer at a Walmart distribution center that had a flat tire, no brakes, holes in the sides, air lines dangling an inch off the pavement, missing tie back chains, burned out lights, dents everywhere, or weren't swept out.

Of course it didn't help that some of the places we picked up loaded trailers from like Lowe's or Walmart feeders had yard dogs who were also human wrecking balls.

I had to share a hotel room with an ex con who kept telling how he got along with everyone. Couldn't stand the guy for five minutes. Later, I thought to myself, if he is able to get along with everyone, then why was he in prison? Hmmmm.

Lastly, I leave you with a petty example of low character. Western Express hauls or hauled a lot of hay loads back in my day there. One day, four of us unload hay at this farm. We were all required to sweep out the trailers on site because there was still much hay left over.

This other driver asked to borrow my broom. And it was MY broom. A new broom. He hands it back to me ten minutes later. It was broken. Broken where the pole threads into the bristles.

He never apologized. Never offered to buy another broom. Just hands it back to me like its no big deal or the broom was about to break anyway.