Stevens Transport vs. CR England

[runbmd]

Hello, everyone. I'm a longtime lurker as I'm sure you can tell by my brand new post count. I'm considering getting into the industry. Most of my jobs have been of the customer service/sales variety, but I'm starting to go crazy in an office setting.

I have taken initial steps and have been contacted by both CR England and Stevens Transport. I'd be interested in any information, good or bad, that you might be able to give me about these companies. How is the training, the training facilities and lodging, the trainers themselves, the equipment, etc.

Thanks in advance for your responses!

Run from ENGLAND AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Stevens not the Greatest in the world but could be worse like England. If you can go with a company like Earl Henderson or Schafer.

[larryh31]

You should put them both at the bottom of your list because of LOW Pay and they try to sell new drivers on lease purchase deals. If you really need someone to pay for your schooling, look into Schneider National.
If you do go to Stevens or CR England, stay a company driver.

[countryhorseman]

CR England is a definite no!

Stevens - I did my training and 1st year with them, was also on the Alliance Fleet for 9 months out of that year, and made excellent money, even with the higher than normal lease payment on the truck. As far as fleet owned schools, theirs is probably the best. The Safe-stat score on Stevens is below 23, which is really good. On the company side you are usually out 17-21 days before home time, and you get one day per week out (although they are pretty leanient on that.)

My only complaint at that time was dispatching needed improvement, they had change the system while I was there and went totally backwards. There was little if no pre-plans.

As far as lease programs - CR England will try to run you straight into their's, the trucks are worn out fleet trucks, and they will lock you into a 2 year contract, with no back out clause.

Stevens Alliance Fleet - is an open ended program. You have to qualify for the program to start with (i.e. prove you have some business savvy), before they will put you in one of those units. Then, if for some reason you are not making money, they will sit down with you to figure out why(to much idle time, refusing loads, too much hometime, etc), if the outcome is that you do not have the business savvy to be an owner operator, hand them the keys and go back to the company side, no dings on your credit, no bad reports to DAC, none of that, they will have you assigned to a new company truck and back on the road.

I have considered going back, but have more interest in flatbed work, so that is the direction I am looking to go back OTR. If you would like some more specific questions answered, feel free to PM or e-mail me.

What part of the country do you live in, there are a couple of areas that it is near impossible to get home with Stevens?

Louis

Louis

[runbmd]

Thanks for your replies. Countryhorseman, I am in Bangor, ME. Is this one of the areas that might be impossible to get home to? They are advertising quite a bit in this area, but perhaps they do that everywhere. Did you train in Dallas? That is where they would want me to train. If so, how were the facilities and the hotel arrangements?

I tried to PM you, but I can't because I have under 50 posts.

[countryhorseman]

Whew, you are way up there! Steven's use to do allot of NYC, upper NY state, with reloads around Hartford, Albany, and Boston. I never went in Maine. Bangor is what, 80 miles or so from Boston. Check with the recruiter you are dealing with on hometime for that area. I will see if I can get in touch with a buddy in safety, that is originally from Albany, and pick his brain to see how much freight they have up there.

Most all training for Stevens is in Dallas, although they have a small satellite at one of the colleges in Houston (was not impressed with the students coming out of their for final orientation in Dallas). Go to Dallas for your training if Stevens ends up being your choice. The instructors have a better grip on the realities of the road than the Houston bunch.
The motel was not bad, not excellent, kinda in the middle. They feed you lunch, which 95% of the time was pretty good, ever not and again they would choke us, but we lived. Around the motel was plenty of good eating, my favorite was CC's Pizza, all you could eat salad and pizza for $4.95. They just finished remodeling the drivers lounge late last year - supposedly new showers, game room, the tv room was finished before I left (nice big screen with cable), and it is suppose to have wi-fi for those with lap tops.

Another note, that far up, if you are decided on hauling refrigerated, look at Schaffer or one of their affiliated carriers. I have heard good things about them. You could probably get sponsored to go to a truck driving school in your area, and then finish training with them.

Hope this helps,

Louis

[runbmd]

I think you might be thinking about Portland. Bangor is more like 200-250 miles from Boston.

The idea about being sponsored for training might be something I should look into. How would one go about doing something like that?

Thanks again for all the info!

[neverbeenlate]

You may want to find a company based in the Northeast otherwise hometime will be a major issue.

[Doghouse]

The three complaints I had with Stevens were:
1.Being in a truck with a winsheild so scatched up that you couldn't drive into the sun (or at night on a two lane) with it.
2.As a solo driver, I sat a lot, and I mean a lot.
3.My home was in St Petersburg Florida, and it was next to impossible to get routed home. I was out once for 12 weeks non-stop.

Other than that, they took great care of the T-2000's,(I had an old T-600), and if you can make it through the 8 week training period,...you're good to go.

[PackRatTDI]

I drove for Stevens between 1998 and 2000. I was pretty much satisfied. 9 times out of 10 the job is what you make of it and I did my share of barganing. Made a little extra repowering loads to NYC or Canada. Once when I got home (El Paso, TX), I dropped a trailer at a freight forwarder that was sending a load into Mexico. I noticed that there were 5 empty company trailers parked at the forwarder. So I called my fleet manager and asked him of they knew they had all those trailers there. I guess there was some miscommunication between the forwarder and dispatch and the trailers were never reported as being returned to the US. So I bargained with my fleet manager for $150 to shuttle the empties from the forwarder to our drop yard (which was on the other side of town). Took about 6 hours to get all the trailers back (had to make a detour to the Petro truckstop because one trailer was missing the air hose grommit gaskets. I figure $25 bucks an hour wasn't too bad for a little extra work.