Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Kingdom City, MO, USA
Some people posted here they enjoyed my trucking tales ... so I'll keep updating till I get the first stepdeck work pay slip. That should happen on October the 1st.
I'm sitting at the Petro off I-70 west in MO writing this as I have to deliver 2 transformers to a customer in Lake Ozark, MO tomorrow. For some reason they don't look like cars, but rather like 2 big steel cabinets. Each is 8 ft tall and 7.5 ft wide and about 6 ft long. They weigh only 4,000 lbs each. And they've been keeping to themselves the entire 900 mile trip from Guelph, ON Canada to here.
Here's what happened. When I delivered Load #6 (9 coils to Peterborough, ON) on Friday, Dispatch asked if I needed a reset. I replied I had only done 2 loads and had a ton of hours. So they told me they were working on a load that delivered on Monday in MO.
I did something like 650 miles on Friday to be back in Guelph for the early Saturday morning (8 am) pickup. The customer was a plant 1 min away from our own yard and this was my first time there. The shipper was surprised to see me (which is never good) because:
A couple of "scientists" with big screwdrivers were still doing something inside the machines I was picking up; and "David (the Load Planner) promised me a rolling tarp stepdeck", according to the shipper.
I said I can't help him there but I re-checked their address and the shipper's name in the truck and told the guy, "You are on my satellite as my pickup location." He went to his computer and started sifting through emails about this load but couldn't find the one he was looking for, so he gave up and just shrugged.
The "scientists" were still deep at work inside of the machines so I told the shipper I'd drive over to the nearest shopping plaza to grab a bite to eat (there's one right next to our yard).
I took the truck and trailer and drove to the plaza and the only place to park was near a sign that said, "Bus stop" because the entrance to the parking inside the plaza had concrete islands and I didn't feel like rolling over them with my new 17.5" trailer tires.
I bought a plastic mini-box of raspberries and two 250 ml cartons of raw egg whites (good snack when you're in a hurry). My next stop was at the Starbucks where I rewarded myself with a 'tall Americano, no room". That's a double espresso in a small cup, topped up with hot water. It tastes much better than dripped coffee and - surprisingly - each shot has only 75 mg of caffeine, or 150 mg per 2 shots. That compares favorably with a large cup of regular coffee that would put my count of caffeine in the 300 to 400 mg range. And for some reason I find that espresso tastes stronger even with water ...
A girl in front of me in the line bought a 'grande' (large) cup of ... white tea (hot water + tea bag in a cup with the Starbucks logo), one muffin and one cookie or something (2 pieces of various types of pastry). The salesgirl punched some numbers on the register and said, "$8.75" I almost said something
this is Canadian dollars but still ... almost 9 bucks on a cup of tea and 2 donuts seemed extreme at 8:30 in the morning (I'm sure this girl hasn't even had breakfast yet).
My Americano clocked in at $2.45 and I left the coffee shop feeling like a financial genius. Back to the truck ... Now how do I get out of here? I have to go back towards the lights the way I came, but I can't turn around and I can't go into the plaza. I can only go straight deeper into the residential area, or I can turn left into a crossing residential street with no evident exit. So, I turn left into this residential street, put the truck and trailer straight and then back up into the plaza. I watch both mirrors and move slowly so that people don't ram into me and then get out of the plaza, turn left - back towards the lights. Sounds a bit risky but this was Saturday morning and and there was hardly any traffic.
When I get back to the shipper, the 'scientists' with big screwdrivers are gone and now a regular grunt just walks around the machines wrapping each in plastic. He puts on so many layers that I ask the shipper: "With that much plastic, maybe I shouldn't be tarping?" The shipper doesn't see the irony and answers seriously, "No, you have to tarp."
When the forklift guy (the "grunt") brings the machines one by one to the truck with 1 mile long FORK EXTENSIONS on, I ask him not to bump the guard rail. He listens and then moves towards the trailer and hits the guard rail! I tell him to back off and inspect the rub rail. No damage has been done as far as I can see, but I tell the guy (half-kidding) if he does that again I'm going to grab my pry bar and damage something on his forklift. The grunt smiles but doesn't hit the guard rail again after that.
Each machine weighs 4k lbs as I mentioned and is mounted on its own skid. The shipper insists I put 2 separate chains on the bottom of each skid and then add 2 straps on top of each machine! I try to argue but the shipper says that's their procedure and if I don't like it he can call David the Load Planner and let him talk to me. Naturally, that puts an end to the argument
and after a very-very-very long time the machines are strapped, chained and covered with one piece of my 24'x 20' tarp (I got some help from the grunt while spreading the tarp on the top).
I leave the shipper close to ... 12 noon! Because the chains and straps are in the front, as I"m driving I see in the mirrors how the tarp balloons on both sides. So I stop to rearrange the tarp:
- in Cambridge, ON - some 10 minutes out of the shipper; then again in
- London, ON; then again in
- Sarnia, ON (on the border); then again in
- Lansing, MI
It drove me nuts .. No matter how many bungee cords I used and how hard I tried to seal the front (I used the remaining 3 tarps as a counter weight at the bottom of the first machine), the tarp kept puffing up.
Finally, as I stopped for the night at the Flying J in Battle Creek, MI I just took off all the bungee cords, put the front strap on top of the tarp, and got rid of the first chain. Its binder kept the tarp open at the bottom corner ... and the air was evidently coming in the hole at 58 MPH. I used a small ratchet strap to hold down the skid. It had only 3,000 lbs WLL but I figured that was more than enough to hold a 4,000 lbs transformer.
I can't say the tarp sat perfect after that but it looked much better and I got to where I'm now (Petro Truck Stop at Exit 148 in 70 west in MO) without any incidents.
It'd be interesting to see how much this painful load pays when I get my payslip on October 15th (we have 2 weeks delay in pay). The shipper said the machines were expensive and the trip is almost 900 miles.... so I hope it pays good. Of course they should tell us the freight charge in advance, but the only way to change the system at MacKinnon is to quit and become 100% independent and I'm not ready for that yet.
load 7: transporting transformers
