Load #3
 

September 9th, 2009

I started driving at 6:30 am eastward on 401 towards Pickering, ON. When I pull in the shipper's driveway and find someone who knows about my pickup load, I'm told the load is ... not ready. "We expected you to come in the afternoon", says one guy who seems to know what was going on. Oh, oh ... I'm supposed to pick up a few big but light parts that look like they have something to do with air conditioning. The parts themselves are ready but they still have to be painted and a metal pyramid roof has to be bolted on top. I send a message to Dispatch telling them about the delay and drive over to the nearest Walmart - to wait for the phone call from the shipper. Chris, the guy at the plant I have talked to, says the stuff might be ready around noon...

I spend some quality time at Walmart (looking for new sneakers, checking out the new New York paperback bestsellers and getting a couple of breakfast burritos). When I come back to the truck an hour later, the satellite terminal is beeping: I've got mail. I open the message and - surprise! - Dispatch writes, "the Customer said the load is not going to be ready until tomorrow. I have a load in Stony Creek that goes to Chicago, if you want."

Now, Stony Creek, ON is about 100 miles WEST of the place where I am now, so before leaving I decide to give Chris, the shipper, a call. Well, it's official - the guy confirms the load is cancelled till tomorrow.

I call Dispatch on my cell and say I'll take the load to Chicago. She sends me a load offer (lumber!) and as I read through it I notice my least favorite words, "NEEDS TO BE TARPED".

I get to Stony Creek via 401, 403 and QEW and the load is bundles of maple plankwood. The forklift guy says it will weigh 40,000 lbs and that some of the bundles are 16' long and some are 10' long.

And I'm thinking, "I'm in trouble." My big tarps are: (1) 24' x 24' with a flap; (2) 24' x 20' with a flap. The steel tarps are 16' wide. So, if all this stuff is 8 ft high and the guy loads something on the upper deck, I won't have enough tarps ...

The forklift guy is named John and he is a remarkable character: he is in his 50ies, but is built like a weight-lifter. He wears training shorts, a training t-shirt with no sleeves, and ... heavy duty safety boots :) I look at him and I want to watch my diet and exercise :)

Anyway, I expertly direct the guy (I have no idea what I'm doing) to load everything on the lower deck (see the pic). Turns out the load is only 6 ft high and about 33 ft long after all's done. Now it's clear why MacKinnon has 20' wide "steel" tarps: my tarps are 8' and 4' tall so I have to tarp a 6' load with 8' tarps :(

Since it's the first time I unrolled the big tarps and for some reason the flap was INSIDE (at the end of the roll) it takes me forever to tarp the load. I even managed to throw straps onto the wrong side (the hooks went to the side with winches). I arrived at the shipper just before 1 pm and I left at ... 4:30 pm! I still had to stop a couple of times to the border because the trailer in the mirror looked more like a sail boat than a Wilson stepdeck :) if you know what I mean.

You'll notice in the picture I didn't put any straps on the lower bundle (which is about 3 ft high only). By the time I remembered I had to do that the load was on the trailer and because of the different height of the bundles getting a strap thru was impossible....

This was by the way one of those 'blind loads': the Buyer (the company that hired us to deliver this load to Chicago) bought the lumber from the Shipper and naturally didn't want the Consignee to know where and who it was coming from. I always feel uncomfortable with this: it's clear the Consignee will pay a higher price for the load because they bought it from the third party (the Buyer) but I'm sent directly to the seller of the said lumber! All the paperwork I got from the shipper/seller was a customs invoice faxed to them by the Buyer. Now I'll have to 'fabricate' a bill of lading using one of the Mackinnon Transport blank bills. I don't know ... maybe it's just me but this system doesn't seem fair to the Consignee.

So, I'm on my way to Chicago, IL and as I ran out of U.S. hours (14 hour rule) I parked at the Duty Free in Sarnia, ON. The USA is on the other side of the river - I'll be crossing via Port Huron, MI tomorrow after the obligatory 10 hours off. I know what you guys are thinking :) but I have an electronic log-book: have to be compliant 24/7.

By the way, I scaled the load in Burlington, ON on the way to the border and to my surprise with one full tank the ticket showed:

front axle: 12,060 lbs
drives: 24,860 lbs
trailer: 27,560 lbs

for the total of 64,480 lbs. Since with both full tanks my rig (truck+trailer) weighs about 31,000 lbs, this load of lumber is definitely lighter than 40,000 lbs. Which is a good thing because if it really were 40,000 lbs, I'd be probably overweight on the trailer tandems.

If they weren't happy with the price they paid they would shop around.

seems kinda dumb to park in duty free parking lot for ten hours, why not just park at sarnia petro pass or the truckstop at wyoming?

Parking at Duty Free was a great time saver: they have a coffee shop and washrooms and I was 100 m from the Blue Water bridge so that I was able to cross the border first thing in the morning, without wiggling my way through lights and intersections on the way from Petro-Pass truck stop. I have Internet access in my truck and I had good time watching DVD movies on my laptop and browsing Internet. The only thing that a truck stop would have would be a restaurant that I had no need for at the time.

wow Tracer,how dumb can ya be. I mean staying away from a truck stop at a nice clean convenient place with all the personal requirements you need for the evening at a location that is 100 m from where you need to get in line first thing in the morning is kinda dumb...i think you need to change your ways and start using that truck stop instead of thinking ahead and doing what works for you. What was on your mind to distract you so bad. :hellno:

i meant duty free doesn't want trucks parked there for ten hours, since the parking lot only holds maybe 20 trucks, and that is for customers to stop quick and then cross border.

if everyone parked there for there ten hours off, the lot would always be full.

i dunno how you can sleep on the huge slant the trucks park on, i like to be level when i sleep.

+1.....

Tracer go after the original shipper for a cancelled truck fee. If its a good customer you should be able to get a hundred bucks or so. On parking @ the duty free. You had already paid the toll and entered it in your computer so what difference would have it have made to clear the load and get off the bridge. You'll learn the blue water bridge is not the place to be in the morning unless you like inching up and over 10' at a time. When you have a load like your's put a ground tarp on the sharp edges of the lumber where the tarp is likely to whip and fray. Sometimes it's neccesary to put a strap over the outside to keep the tarp from ballooning out.

My thoughts exactly :) I don't know what I was thinking :)

I had 0 hours left to drive in the US. Because of the 2 hr difference in HOS regulations I was only able to go as far as the US/Canada border. As long as I parked on the Canadian side, I was in compliance and only had to shut down for 10 hours to be legal in US again. So I did it at the Duty Free sleeping at an angle :) which I didn't feel as bad as some people ... probably because I have 295s tires on the drives but 275 tires on the steers :) The line-up in the morning wasn't more than usual. Took me 10 minutes to cross.