Thank you Twilight Flyer
I really enjoyed this thread until it got out of hand.
Now I can enjoy it once again.
Can't wait to here from Evertrucker :wink:

Yes, I've enjoyed evertruckerr's thread too. I hope he'll continue. I even recommended it to others recently. Hope to hear from you evertruckerr.

g12

Hey, it's back. SO COOL!

First and foremost, I would like to personally thank Twilight Flyer for the effort that he put into cleaning up this thread and reopening it.

I did not expect it and am grateful for the time that he put into it.

Second, I would like to thank everyone for their kind words regarding this thread.

And for those that have a lessor opinion of it, I will from this moment on hold my tongue. ops:

Now, on with the show :P

2008
WEEK SEVENTEEN
Monday, April 21st through Sunday, April 27th


It’s Monday once again and I’m ready to go after my reset and a day at Wrigley Field.

I have an appointment across town about 45 miles away. It has an open live U/L delivery window of 7:30 – 21:00. I want to beat the morning rush hour traffic and get an early start of 5:30. I realize that in all likelihood there won’t be anyone around when I get to the customer, but I have a Shaffer trailer that I need to get rid of. As it turns out the customer is less than one mile from our drop yard so I will use the extra time to swing by and see if there is an MT Crete trailer waiting for me. If there is, I can put my lock on it and pick it up when I’m empty. I wasn’t surprised when I found nothing but loaded trailers. Oh well, I can stop by after my U/L. There were a number of loaded trailers sitting there that needed to be delivered in the area this morning. If I’m lucky someone will drop and empty when getting one of these loads.

I drove around the corner and found my customer for this morning’s delivery. As suspected, no one was home and I backed into one of the two doors available and waited for opening time.

After a 45min wait I was allowed to check in and of course directed to dock in the other door. I did as instructed and was unloaded shortly there after.

So now here I sit with an empty Shaffer trailer. The last thing I want is to have a Shaffer trailer attached to me. Last time that happened I was stuck with one live load after another and it took forever to get rid of it. Once you are stuck with one, the only way to dump it is to deliver a load in very close proximity to one of our yards. If it is anything more than a short hop, you will just be put on another live load. And it would very likely be a refer load. Late night PUs and early AM deliveries at cold storage warehouses just isn’t my idea of a good time. It would be to my advantage to bite the bullet now to avoid these headaches over the next week or two.

I waited to put in an MT call until I had a chance to run back over to our yard and see if any empty trailers had arrived. I didn’t want to give dispatch the chance to send me off on a refer load. There was a slight bit of irony here, there was a driver dropping one so he could haul out a loaded trailer, but it was another Shaffer driver.

With no empties on the yard I considered my second option. I went through the yard and wrote down each trailer # along with their destinations from the bill of ladings. My next step was to send a message into dispatch. “I’m MT and have a Shaffer trailer; I am in the Romeoville yard and would like to drop it here. There are a number of loaded trailers, so I can Shag one of them (this sealed my fate for the next load) or re-power one of the GA loads so that I can get back under a Crete trailer.”

It didn’t take too long to get a response. I was informed that the GA loads weren’t schedule to move today, but if I would take a Shag out of the yard I would be preplanned on something to keep me moving. By the time everything is said and done today will not be very productive, but if that is what it is going to take to get a Crete trailer I was all for it.

I accepted the offer and had them send the info, it arrived on the Qcom within a matter of minutes (looks like the Qcom delay issue may have been solved). It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I had to run a load down to Kankakee just south of town. It was a 50 mile run plus $35 shag pay and I would be going south instead of into Chicago during rush hour.

My reward was a preplan that I was to PU on the south side of town and delivered to Ponca City, OK (888mi) with a two stop delivery. Great (not so much), and to top it off the finial delivery was scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon. I wasn’t thrilled about that bit of news; I guess they can’t all be good loads.


The shag load was a pain. I had to run a two lane to get there and then had to wait a couple of hours for my appointment time along with another hour to unload. I put an MT call in while being unload so that I could get the information on my next load. The Qcom was acting up again (so much for the Qcom fix, it’s really a hit and miss thing these days) and after waiting for an hour or so I called my fleet manager to get the info I needed to PU my next load.

With a quick jaunt up the road I arrived at the shipper and hit my next road block. Apparently the three PO#,PU# and the B/L#’s that I had were not sufficient to get me through the gate. I was told to call dispatch and get the appropriate #. I sent in a message to this effect and waited. About 20mins later I received it and headed back to the shipping office. Sure enough, that’s what he needed. “That’s the number for your first stop, what’s your second number” Ugh! Back to the truck I go and send off another message. This time it takes 30mins and back to the shipping office I go. “That works”, I’m told. “Park along the fence and we’ll let you know when we are ready for you.” This just isn’t my day.

After a good hour I am finally called in and given a door assignment and treaded to another hour of waiting before loading begins.

I finally get rolling and find myself with a little over 3hrs left in my day. Not a very productive day, but the Shaffer trailer is no longer following me down the road.

I was to suffer one more drawback before this day ended. My chosen route took me across I-72 (which has very limited parking) to shave a few miles off my suggested routing, but I knew of a good sized hole in the wall truckstop that always has plenty of parking that I could get to before running out of hours. There is also a Pilot just up the road from there, but it always fills up early. My plan feel apart when I got to my preplanned parking spot because it was boarded up and the parking lot had concrete barriers all around it and the Pilot was packed as always. My only choice was to use my last 15mins to back track up the road and park in a rest area. Sure am glad that day is over.

Tuesday has me looking at a 600mi trip to my first stop. I’m not scheduled to deliver until Wednesday morning, but with an early start I will be there by 3pm today. It’s a Tractor Supply store and they always have plenty of overnight parking. My hope is that I will be able to unload when I get there and hopefully have enough time to make it to my second stop before running out of hours. If not, at least I’ll be able to get an early start on Wednesday.

The first few hours of the day were a little trying to say the least. I found myself driving through one of those Midwest thunder storms that give you the impression that a tornado could pop out at any time. This concern was reinforced by an occasional bought with hail and blinding rain. I finally drove out of it as I made it to the interstate outside of Columbia, MO. The rest of the drive was uneventful and I made it to my first stop at 2:45pm.

Time to cross my fingers and see what I can do about getting unloaded. I went inside to let them know I was here. The cashier pointed out the gentleman I need to speak with and off I went. As I was waiting for him to finish his conversation with a customer I overheard him explaining that they didn’t have that many fence posts on hand, but they were expecting a delivery in the morning. That was my cue, “Excuse me sir, but I think I may be able to help out here, it just so happens that I have a semi load of fence posts out back.” I was unloaded shortly there after.

I had noticed a Wal-Mart on my way into town and had one hour to spare and made a quick pit stop to re-supply and headed down the road to my last stop. I had just enough time to get there tonight and park in their lot. I knew it would be too late to make a delivery, but I could bump the dock and get unloaded first thing in the morning.

Wednesday started with me waiting at the door when the employees arrived and I was unloaded bright and early. Now instead of showing up with my delivery between 1-3pm and hoping for a load this afternoon, I was MT and ready to go at 7:30.

My happy go lucky feeling was soon squashed when I received my single load offer. I was another live load just up the road with a ridiculous live unload appointment of 10am Friday and delivered to Bowling Green, KY (863mi). Running as I do, I would find myself there by Thursday morning. That has me looking at close to 24hrs down time and little hope of a Tcall.

We do have a drop yard in Memphis, but that’s 250mi from the consignee and I know my chances are not good. This wouldn’t have been that bad of a load, but Monday was a less than productive day and I wasn’t keen on the idea of loosing another day. I can’t get 3800mi a week running like this.

All I could do is accept the load and worry about it later. The loading process was painless for the most part. There was no one in line and I docked as soon as I got there and loading was done in less than an hour. While I was loading I sent a message off to dispatch inquiring about the possibility of Tcalling this load or rescheduling the delivery appointment and awaited a response.

After driving for a few hours I stopped to stretch the legs and realized I had not yet received an answer to my Tcall inquiry. I repeated my request and continued on. In the meantime I took it upon myself to call the receiver and see if I could work out an alternative delivery time, but only succeeded in getting a voice message. The Qcom chirped after an hour or so, but I didn’t want to take the time to pull over and read it. I figured it could wait until I made it to Memphis and put in for the night at the Pilot.

The message turned out to be “Where checking on it”. That was the final communication from the company for the day.

I still had some drive time left in the day, but didn’t want to lose out on a chance at a Tcall and wanted to stick close to the drop yard. I shut down for the night and planed on getting up early to deal with this load then.

Thursday morning it is and the first thing I do is send off a message to once again make an attempt at Tcalling this load. It’s 5:30am and I did the standard offer to Shag a local load and waited. And waited. And waited. Should I continue? That pesky night crew is at it again. I don’t mind negative answers, but I have a hard time being ignored. After an hour or so I decided to take a shower before the morning rush and hope for an answer by the time I return. No Luck!

With that I decide the Tcall thing just isn’t going to work out and got settled in for my drive. I only had about 4 hours of driving to make it to the consignee, but knowing there is no parking to speak of in the Bowling Green area I thought a night in Nashville would be a pleasant diversion. I could park at the TA in the middle of town and have a short walk of a mile or so to get downtown. There are a number of great restaurants in the area and always a multitude of bands playing.

I had passed on fueling up when I arrived the night before for an available parking spot because a ten minute delay in that town can cost you a resting spot for the night. So I started the truck up and pulled up to the pump. When I had finished I noticed that I had a message waiting on the Qcom. “Are you in Memphis now?” What do you know; I might just be able to get this load Tcalled.

I replied that I was indeed in the area and hoping to Tcall this load, “Do you have a load available in the area”. I head back to the parking lot and waited. And waited. And waited. I was a little perplexed by the wait this time. Usually when I’m asked something like that it means that they are working on something. I didn’t want to bother dispatch too much because it was early in the morning and I knew they were busy, but after an hour or so I sent of a quick reminder message and waited. And waited. And waited.

By this time frustration was beginning to set in. I really hate being ignored; it’s really inexcusable as far as I’m concerned. Again, I don’t mind a “no”, at least I can plan out my day that way, but I can’t see the justification for being left in the dark. If nothing else, just give me a “working on it” or something.

The worst part is that I receive the initial response after I had fueled. My 14hrs is now running and 3+hrs of it is gone. If they do come up with a load I’m loosing time. If only I would have waited 15mins to fuel. Oh well, that’s the trucking game for you.

I finally gave up on any resolve of this matter and decided to get going.

As I was making my way to Nashville I thought I would try calling the receiver again. This only resulted in getting voice mail the day before, but I didn’t have anything better to do.

Low and behold (whatever that means), Nancy answered the phone at which time I let her know I had a load of flower that was due to be delivered tomorrow at 10am, “Would it be possible to make my delivery early, I’ll be in the area by 3pm?” She actually asked if I would like to delivery today or tomorrow and put me on hold. After a few minutes she said bring it on in, where a little busy, but well fit you in today.

This is very good news and I’m a little annoyed at myself for waiting most of my morning at the truckstop. If I had called earlier in the day I could have been there before noon. Who am I to complain, at least I’ll be empty today instead of noon tomorrow.

Things went swimmingly well and from the attitude of the dock guy I got the feeling they needed this product. I was immediately assigned a dock and the unloading began. With that I put in my MT call so that dispatch could get to work on my next load offer. I had wasted a fair amount of time sitting around this morning and was looking forward to saving this day.

I have mentioned this before without going into too much detail, but we are not suppose to put in our MT call until we have a signed BOL in our hand, but if I feel confident that a trailer will be unloaded in a timely manner and there is little chance of a product count discrepancy or damage claim I will send in the MT call to get the ball rolling on my next load. This does a couple of thing. If there is another Crete truck being unloaded in the area at the same time as me, I will be one ahead of them. Also, it allows me time to get all the pertinent information necessary for the next load and I can start driving as soon as I’m empty instead of trying to find a place to park and start the whole process at that time.

For the most part this strategy works out quite well for me, but on a couple of occasions it has bitten me on the butt. This ended up being a possible out come with this situation. As it was, I was immediately sent a single load offer going to Atlanta (316mi). It was to be picked up 5mi down the road and had an open PU time for today. It was a short run, but I had no problem with that because I already had close to 300mi in for the day and this load delivered mid morn on the next day. The only problem I had with the load is that because I started my 14hr clock when I fueled and the sat around for so long I would run out of hours somewhere between and have to take my 10hr break. Not a problem if I was actually empty and able to get over to my next PU, but I was a bad boy and I now had a window of about 3 hrs. Anything more than that and I would be late with my delivery.

Right about that time the unloading of my trailer came to a stop. The forklift driver was either distracted by other duties or on a break, but my clock was ticking and I was getting nervous. My next PU was close by, but it was a live load. This could be bad; I would prefer not to explain my early MT call to dispatch.

After a ½hr or so unloading resumed and I was finally released and I high tailed it to my next shipper. I was down to a 2hr window and need to get loaded quickly, but the gods were against me. I checked in and was informed that the majority of my shipment was still on the production line (it was suppose to be ready by 3pm and it was now 4:30), but they should be able to get to me within an hour. “Back into the dock and we’ll get to you when we can, should be within the hour.” It ended up being closer to 3hrs.

That seals it, this load will be late, unless!

I notice that they have a large dirt lot next to the building, if I take my 10hr break on property I would be able to start driving at 3am and make the delivery on time. A short chat with the warehouse personnel lets me know that I can do just that. With a sigh of relief I head out to the truck and wait. This isn’t an ideal situation because it makes for a short day and only 300 miles. I would have been much happier if I could have run a couple hundred miles off this load tonight. That way I would have much more time available to me after my delivery tomorrow morning, but a least the load will be on time. Not to mention I’ll be sitting in Atlanta at 10am tomorrow instead of at the dock of my previous load if I had been forced to stick with my original appointment time.

Friday gets started at 3am so I can make my appointment time and I make it there 30mins early. The driver currently in their only dock door was just leaving and I was able to back in shortly thereafter. I only had 12 pallets of paint or stain (this was my 4th HazMat load with this company in 1½ yrs) and would be unloaded very quickly, so I put in my MT call and awaited my next load.

In very short order I was sent a single load offer going to TX (890mi) and it was a D/H PU and Del with an open delivery window. The perfect turn and burn run. I can have it there around noon on Saturday and if I can get a decent run I will have my 3rd week in a row of 3700+mi. Awesome!

I am unload within minutes, my load info came through even quicker than that and I’m lovin’ life and I jump in the truck and turn the key.

NOTHING!

It’s not starting. The starter isn’t engaging, not even a click. I of course try it a number of times with the same result. It’s not a battery issue, plenty of volts and everything is powered up. My mind goes back to just last week when I was saying that I have not lost one day of productivity due to shop time with this truck, “620K+ miles and going strong” if I remember correctly.

It’s not a battery issue, but I checked the connections anyway. All the fuses were good and the starter cables have a solid connection and no corrosion was present. It has to be the starter. Time for the good ol’ standby, grab the hammer and pound on the starter for awhile (but I couldn’t get close enough to give it a good whack). No luck.

Well, I’m a dead duck sitting in the customer’s only dock and there is another truck staged for delivery. I had sent a message off to breakdown as soon as I realized I had a problem and was still waiting for a response. Not that they could do anything, but a tow truck seemed to be in order. I sent a message to dispatch to pull me off my next load and take me off the board for now. So much for my 3700mi week.

I wasn’t ready to give up just yet though. I was in need of some assistance and headed over to the waiting driver to ask for a little help. Not like he had much choice, this could turn out to be a long day for him too.

I had pulled out my crow bar and instructed him to hit the casing of the starter as best he could as I turned the key. After only 4-5 smacks the thing actually engaged for a moment, but because I was flipping the ignition back and forth too fast I missed the opportunity. At least there is a glimmer of hope and sure enough, a few minutes later she was running.

I had a running truck, but needed to get it to the shop. We have a terminal in the area, so I sent another message off to breakdown (I was still waiting for a response on the first one) and I pointed myself in that direction. While I was sitting at a light I finally got an answer from breakdown, “Try tapping on the starter with a hammer”. I answered that with a “Beat ya to it, it’s running and I’m headed to the terminal for repairs”. The reply, “God I love it when things work out”. I couldn’t resist, “Easy for you to say, you don’t have to deal with the Atlanta shop.” I got a smiley face for that.

Once at the shop, I left the truck running and went in to talk to the foreman. My hope was that they would have me put it in the shop so they wouldn’t have to deal with a truck that wouldn’t start in the yard. Just wishful thinking on my part. I dropped my MT trailer in the yard with my lock on it and a red tag that said “repair needed, hole in roof” On more than one occasion I’ve had my lock taken off by shop personnel at this terminal so that other drivers could take my trailer, only to leave with no empty and dispatch refusing to give me a load until I can find one. Maybe this will prevent a similar outcome today.

I was told my truck was on the list and to check back with the night foreman when he gets in at 4pm, it was now 11am. I gathered my laundry and computer and prepared to spend the day in the terminal and hoped it wouldn’t stretch into tomorrow. Just to annoy myself I turned the key, yup, started right up. Not only once, but every time I tried it.


Back to the shop I went with this information. After a detailed description of what had happened I was told they would test the circuits, but if it continued to start there would be little they could do. I didn’t think much of this explanation and told them I didn’t want to spend the entire day sitting around only to be sent out with a starter that would eventually leave me stranded. After a little pow wow with whoever was in charge, they assured me they would go ahead and put in a new starter.

The rest of the day was agonizingly boring and the truck finally made it into the shop by 5:30 (better than the next day I guess). But getting a truck in the shop and actually getting it worked on are two entirely different things. I checked on it every hour or so and saw no progress. Work finally began around 9pm, and as is the case on many occasions the repairs were miraculously finished 15mins before closing time. Our mechanics seem to be well adapted at milking the clock.

Its midnight and I get into the truck and start it up. It’s like a turbo starter. I hadn’t realized how week my last starter was getting. I had actually had the shops check my batteries over the last 6 months or so during a number of previous A and B services because I thought they were getting very week. Turns out the starter was slowly dying on me.

I’m now out of the shop and have been down long enough that I can take a load, but I’ve also been up since 3am and was in the need of some sleep. I could have waited till the morning for a load offer, but wanted to get a jump on the other drives that would be looking for a load in the AM and sent a message off to dispatch. “Truck is out of shop, need some sleep, do you have a load offer that I can PU in the morning.” Five minutes later I had 3 loads to choose from. If I was looking for a reset, as I usually am over a weekend, I would have been thrilled, but as it were, not so much. They all picked up at various time Saturday and didn’t deliver until Monday morning. One load going to VA(575mi), one going to Baltimore (750mi) with a 7:30am delivery (who want to deal with that traffic) and the finale load going to south NJ (863mi) with a 3am delivery. I’m still annoyed that I lost my TX run and these loads are really rubbing in that fact.

I have an immense dislike for NJ, but it’s the longest run with the earliest delivery of the three. If things work out I will be able to get an early load out of the area. I’ve delivered to this address twice in the past and this customer also has overnight parking. I know that I will be able to back to a dock door whenever I get there Sunday afternoon and won’t have to start my Monday clock for the day until I’m unloaded and ready to go. If I drive in from a truckstop for my delivery, I would have to start my 14hrs around 1am, which would severely limit my activities for the remainder of the day. In all likelihood, based on previous trips, I would be picking up a load around 7am and the later I can start my 14hrs the better.

My next hurdle will be getting a load out of NJ. I’ve gotten good loads out in the past, but more often than not they end up being crappy little northeast runs. Monday morning will tell.

What was setting up to be another great week ended up falling flat on its face due to my problem with the starter. So instead of another 3700mi week, I’ve ended the week in the 3000mi range. Nothing to complain about I guess, but I will anyway. I didn’t even get my reset in. Hopefully next week will run a little smother.






WEEK SEVENTEEN RESULTS
Monday, April 21st through Sunday, April 27th
Miles include deadhead



Gary, IN to Romeoville, IL(last leg)...........................................39m i
Romeoville, IL to Kankakee, IL(Shag) .......................................50mi
Chicago Heights, IL to Ponca City, OK......................................888mi
Enid, OK to Bowling Green, KY ................................................86 3mi
Bowling Green, KY to Mableton, GA..........................................316mi
Atlanta, GA to Deptford, NY................................................ .....803mi

Total Paid Miles………………………………..……….2959 Miles (This is only my 4th or 5th week under 3000 miles other than hometime weeks in 1½ yrs and was due to a breakdown day)
Actual Miles………………………3048Miles


2958mi x .42 = $1242.78 plus $30 drop and $35 shag pay.
[/u]

Good to see you back! Very informative post as usual & I've learned there's a severe penalty associated with fudging on the MT calls. Good to know.javascript:emoticon(':wink:')
Wink

Do you type these all up from memory? I can't remember where I was on Thursday, let alone last week.

You seem to have great trip planning abilities and more than a fair share of luck. I do ok on the latter, but lousy on the former.

The load I just got pulled off of was one of two. The other was a load you might have liked: D/H PU and Del. with 1200 miles in between with just enough time to get it done. I thought about it, but the prospect of crossing the midwest without toll roads was annoying. Just as well given what happened (kidney stones).

I'm hoping that some of the back problems I've been having were actually kidney problems. If so, I should be able to get from about 450 mi/day up to 500-550. Personally, I'd rather spread my time out than run balls to the wall like you do, but I guess that's why there's options

Are there any shops worth a darn for tractor work? I've got one or two new problems (shifter knob is loose. I've heard of this before. Easy fix that takes the shops hours to do) I know the Knoxville shop is the place to go for trailers, but with the roadwork, is that now a thing of the past? Also, aren't they closing that one soon?

I almost didn't get an MT out of Kohl's yesterday, but luck was with me. Unfortunately, the guy who repowered my load didn't have an empty, so when I get going, I need to cross my fingers that there is an MT at the KC terminal.

Favorite bit in this week's update was with the fence posts: "Sir, I'm a trucker, and I may be able to help."

2008
WEEK EIGHTEEN
Monday, April 28th through Sunday, May 4th


Monday started out extremely early. I had arrived and backed to a dock at 2pm the previous day. It was a Sunday and no one was there and I wasn’t in anyone’s way. This way they could unload me when the crew showed up and I wouldn’t have to start my 14hr clock until I received my next load. I was scheduled to unload at 3am, but another Crete driver had pulled in after me, backed into another door and had a 1am appointment. If things go well I will be unloaded early and get started on my next load and get out of the NJ area before the morning rush hour. I found myself in a parking lot with nothing to do for the rest of the day so I just watched a movie and spent some time on the computer before I hit the sack.

At 1am a dock worker pounded on my door and requested the BOL and unloading started soon thereafter. I sent in my MT while they were unloading and waited for a load offer. I was all but certain that I would be picking up a load around 7am but hoped there would be a preloaded trailer waiting for me in the area. No luck, I was given a single load offer that had an 8:00-9:00am PU in Elizabeth, NY 90 miles up the road and was going a whopping 350mi to Pittsburgh, PA with a all but impossible delivery time of 15:00. I was in no mood to drive in the horrible morning traffic so I decided to head to the shipper at 3:30am. This would start my 14hr clock much sooner than I like and most likely affect me toward the end of the day when I would be looking for another load after my unload, but I decided I would rather sit at the shipper for a couple of hours as opposed to crawling along on I-95.

As suspected, I arrived at the shipper and the door was locked. I climbed back in the truck and waited for them to open at 7am. About 1½ hrs later another Crete truck pulled up with a loaded trailer from the other end of the complex. After a short conversation with him I learned that this was a D/H customer and all I had to do was drive to the far end of the last building and check in with the guard. This would have been a wonderful little bit of information to have before I got there. I sent a message to dispatch to have them add this info to future PUs from this shipper so other drivers wouldn’t run into the same problem. I’m sure they jumped on that and made the update.

The next problem that I had to deal with was getting a NJ alcohol permit faxed to me. This was a beer load and apparently Crete buys single trip permits for this state. I was supposed to give them a fax number (you would think that they would already have it since there were dozens of Crete trailers here and I assume this has been done MANY times before) for the customer’s office and then pick it up before leaving the premises. The problem was that the office wasn’t open to do this (I assume that is why they had my PU time as 08:00-09:00 even though it was an available preloaded trailer, unknown to me at the time). As luck would have it though, I have an internet fax number that I can use to print and send faxes out of the truck, but my Sprint Card isn’t working here (why would it, I’m only in the middle of the most densely populated part of the country). After a ½ hr of sending messages back and forth with dispatch I had them fax me direct and planed on pulling over at a later time to print it out and was ready to go. So what should have taken 30mins ended up burning 3 hours of my day. Oh well, I’ll know next time around.

Instead of getting out of town by 5am I was looking at 8am and some very crappy traffic. At least I was headed out of town instead of in and after a handful of traffic delays I was headed down the road and looking at an incredibly tight schedule.

I can’t figure this company out at times. They will give you endless trips that have far more down time than necessary then suddenly give you a short hop load that has to PU and DEL on the same day. This one had an open delivery window of 08:00-15:00 (recall the 08:00-09:00 PU time). What I took from this is that they are probably open later than that, but I needed to be there by 15:00 to get a door assignment. This time frame was all but impossible, but if things worked out perfectly I might just make it. I had to stop to scale which cost me 15mins and I was off to the races. My situation wasn’t helped out by the fact that there were no directions to this customer via the Qcom and no one was answering the phone number I was given. I did have an address and my GPS had a course plotted for me, but Pittsburgh is notorious for not being truck friendly. I pulled out the atlas and searched out available truck routes and picked out what seemed like the best one to me and headed that way.

I was thrown one more curve ball to make things a bit more interesting. Just as I was making my way out of town I noticed that my fuel gauge was on empty. That made no sense because I had filled the tanks about 300 miles ago. I could not for the life of me recall the last time I noted the fuel level. It’s one of those thing that I may note during the day but don’t commit to memory unless I realize it’s getting low I guess. Anyway, there should be at least ¾ of a tank. There are two possibilities. Either the gauge has stopped working or someone siphoned off my fuel while I was sleeping. This just didn’t seem possible because my first night was at a truckstop with a Schneider company truck next to me and the other side was just a dropped trailer. There is no way someone would have made multiple trips with a gas can to completely drain my tanks. The only other place it could have happened was at the dock last night. But I had only been sleeping for 3hrs or so and I was in a very small private lot with no traffic going in or out. I had to go on the assumption that the gauge had broken. The closest place to pull over was a truck stop about 70 miles away, so I stayed in the right lane incase I had to make a sudden unplanned stop and hoped for the best. It turned out to be the gauge. Looks like I’ll be paying close attention to fuel mileage and distance traveled for a while.

Everything went well and I was pulling into Pittsburgh with 15mins to spare. With a fair amount of driving on local roads the best I could hope for was a 15min late arrival. Hopefully I’ll still be able to get unloaded. If not, I would have to wait until the next day to get unloaded. Not good because if I unloaded tonight I wouldn’t have a problem getting a load out in the morning, but if I had to wait until tomorrow to put in an MT call it would be much more likely that I would end up with an afternoon PU.

Now I find myself in Pittsburgh and take an exit onto what is shown on my atlas as a truck route. My first obstacle is an incredibly tight hairpin turn from the off ramp. I had to cut off a couple of lanes of heavy traffic and was barely able to make the turn. I was immediately horrified to see an 11’6” bridge just ahead. Why in hell would there be a low clearance bridge on a truck route. My only option is to make a serious pain in the butt left turn that cut off another line or two of traffic and catching the on ramp back onto the freeway. The cars in this area must be accustom to this because they were actually very helpful and accommodating at giving me the room I needed to get out of my mess.

OK, I managed to avoid that disaster, but I now have no idea how to get to my customer and even worse than that there is no longer any chance of making this delivery on time. There are no truckstops in the area, no rest areas and I’m driving around clueless. My only option is to go 20mi back in the direction I just came from, get back on the turnpike and park on one of the pullout so I can straighten this mess out.

I eventually find a place to park and shot a message off to dispatch letting them no that due to the lack of directions, useless phone number and my unplanned detour this load is late. I let them know that I had been within 8mi and it would have been on time, but I must have accurate directions to avoid further low clearance problems. This was answered by a “did you try calling the customer for directions?”Ugh!

I have a headache! I sent off another message repeating that no one has been answering the phone all day and I could still be there today but need directions.

I never received another message from dispatch. This is one of the biggest problems with Crete in my opinion. If the questions are too hard for dispatch to deal with it is not uncommon for them to just ignore you. We’ll, I’ve been sitting here for 30mins and I’m on my own again. I thought about staying put where I was until the morning to straighten things out then, but after studying the map and I found an alternate route that was about 50mi out of the way that looked safe. I should be able to get there by 5pm (I assumed this was their actual closing time) and might be able to get unloaded if I could catch them in a good mood. If not I had to hope that there would be overnight parking available (if not I was going to be in bad shape because I will be out of hours).

I rolled out and as I drove into town I noted a number of areas that I could come back to for parking if nothing was available once I arrived at my stop. After dealing with Pittsburgh’s horribly narrow roads I finally made it to my destination at 5:30 and was thrilled to find a very large dirt lot next to them. At least my parking problem for the night is solved. There was actually someone at the dock and he all but laughed in my face (as he was downing a beer) when I inquired about getting unloaded. I had expected this and asked if I could back up to the dock for a morning delivery. They were all for this and my driving day came to a close. I had noticed an Applebee’s a mile or so up the road on my way in and decided to take a walk and get something to eat.

I woke up early Tuesday and waited for my unload. They arrived at 8am and had me unloaded fairly quickly. I had put in my MT call and was still waiting for a load offer when the unloading was complete. Not a good sign. I drove the truck to the dirt lot next door and awaited a load offer. What I got was not good. It was a single load offer (there have been a lot of these lately) that was to pick up 100 miles away and was going back to that awful place Newark, NJ (350mi). As bad as that was, it was made worse by the fact that it didn’t deliver until 7pm the next day. Not only was it 450mi over the next two days, I stood little chance of getting a load out until the following morning and I would have to find parking after 8pm(not an easy task in those parts). Everything about this run sucked!

I’ve never refused a load, but I was going to do everything I could to get out of this one. I sent a message to dispatch, “I’ve had a rash of loads with extended down time and this one will have me sitting for over 24hrs, is there any chance of getting a load offer that is more productive. If not I will take this load if you need me too.”

That was answered with, “This is all I have to offer at the moment”.

My reply, “Would it be possible for me to wait for a load offer this afternoon, I will be sitting for 26hrs with this load anyway, or is that too much of an inconvenience? Let me know what works for you.”

“You can wait”. And that’s just what I did. I realized that there was little chance of getting a load out today (I could always hope), but at least I would be sitting good for a load the next morning. If that’s what I had to do avoid an evening delivery into NJ, I was all for it.

As a little insurance to avoid being sent back to the northeast I called my fleet manager and put in for home time in PHX two weeks down the road. I have been out for a month now and I hoped that this would encourage dispatch to offer me loads heading in the other direction, not only later today but for any loads in the foreseeable future. Doing so would also give me a little leverage in politely requesting alternative load offers if I don’t like what I see.

As suspected, I had to wait most of the day for a load offer and eventually received a three load offer. One to KY(650mi), one to MN(883mi) and the last one was the same NJ run I had wiggled out of.

I went with the MN load. It was the longest but nothing to be thrilled about because it was scheduled for a 7am Friday delivery (I would be there Thursday morning). Once again I’m looking at 20hrs of down time if I run my usual 11hr shift. I hope for an early delivery or possibly Tcalling this in our Chicago yard. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. At least I’m not headed back to NJ. This run also gives me the opportunity to fit in a 34reset. I don’t really need one at this point, but at least it will give me a chance at getting some good miles in from that point.

Fortunately there is a movie theater up the road and a few restaurants. I’m able to amuse myself for the day and catch a hockey game on TV.

Wednesday is finally here and I’m off and running. I started a little earlier than necessary so that I could get through Pittsburgh before everyone else hit the road. This is only my third time in this town and all off these trips have been an adventure. The roads are incredibly narrow, poorly marked and a wrong turn can get you into trouble fast. Main streets turn into local roads at the drop of a hat. In my opinion, it is close to the worst city in the country when it comes to truck driving. My early start got me to where I was going before they were open, but I only had to wait for 30mins. I was then notified that they had to attend a meeting and to wait in the truck for another hour. Grrrr! It ended up taking 3hrs to get out of there, but I was finally driving and making money again.

Now all I had to do was work on getting an earlier delivery set up. I called the number on the BOL and let them know I had a Friday delivery appointment but could have it there by Thursday morning. They said that would be fine, any time during business hours would work. Life is good!

Things go well except Chicago rush hour traffic and I make it to WI for the night which leaves me with a 250 drive to make my delivery Thursday morning.

Thursday starts a 4am so I can get unloaded early in the hopes of a good load out. When I arrived at the consignee a truck is just pulling out and I get a door right away and am unloaded shortly there after. Much better than unloading tomorrow. With any luck I’ll be 700mi down the road by then.


My next load offer takes about 30mins and is another single load offer, but it’s a nice 1500mi run to El Paso, TX(looks like the home time request is working out great, this will get me close to PHX). But once again it has a ridiculous amount of down time attached to it (not uncommon with loads sent out to get you home, you trade destinations for productivity). As many of our loads that PU on Friday, it delivers Monday morning. Now, if I hadn’t been held up in Pittsburgh, I would have been thrilled. I could have high tailed it to El Paso and put in a 34Reset and been ready to roll Monday. But as it stands, the last thing I need to do is sit around all weekend, if I can’t work out a Tcall or early delivery I will be looking at a dismal 2800mi week. As usual, I accept the load and will worry about the delivery options later.

I have an 80mi deadhead run and do my D/H PU without incident and drive out the rest of my day and make it to a truckstop north of Des Moines.

Saturday is another 4am start. I want to get this load to our KC yard and take a crack at Tcalling it there. It will still have a 1000 miles on it and could be picked up by another driver Sunday morning and still have plenty of time to be delivered as scheduled. Down the road I go.

I was suppose to stop for fuel at a Pilot north of KC, but decided to bypass it because I could fuel at our KC yard while I was there attempting to Tcall this load. This ended up being a bad idea because when I arrived at the KC yard I was greeted by fuel islands that were blocked off. Apparently they were out of fuel. My tanks were empty and the only fuel stop available to me was the Pilot I had passed up. It was only 18mi away, but I ended up burning 45 valuable minutes off my log. Once fueled, I headed back to the terminal and set about my Tcall.

I sent a message off to dispatch asking to Tcall this load because it didn’t deliver until Monday and I was pleasantly surprised to get a message back that said I could Tcall the load in El Paso. Very cool, I didn’t even know we had a drop yard there (add it to the list). This saves my week. Instead of looking at a nasty 2800mi week, I will now be MT Saturday around noon and will be set to turn this into another great week. I drove out the rest of my day across an incredibly windy Kansas that was almost as bad as some of my Wyoming trips this year with a finale stop in good ol’ Liberal Kansas.


Saturday has me looking at a little over 550mi to get to El Paso. I get started at 4am and make it there by 1pm. I had noticed on the load info that “if they are out of MT trailers, do not take one from the customer next door”. This was of interest to me because I had a delivery time of 7am for Monday morning and I assumed it was a live unload. But if they were talking about getting an MT I had to assume that I had a chance at dropping this trailer when I got to the customer. Even though I had been told I could Tcall this in our drop yard, I decided to go to the customer first to check it out. Sure enough, there was a guard there and I was allowed to drop my trailer and they even had a few MTs available. All my worrying for nothing.

The next obstacle was to get another load. Not always a certainty in El Paso on a weekend. My MT call resulted in no load offer, as did my direct inquiry about 30mins later. Looks like I’m being ignored again. I didn’t have much drive time left for the day anyway, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I have to wait until tomorrow for a load so I headed over to the local Loves to take a shower.

Once back in the truck I asked once more for a load and finally got a single load offer, it was a preloaded trailer that was sitting in our drop yard (and had been there all day, why it took this long to get the offer is of interest, I’m going to assume they were trying to get me something going towards PHX) and went to Menomonee Falls, WI (1532mi) that delivered Tuesday morning. I had already put in 9+hrs for the day which was not taken into consideration by the system, so I was offered a load that would have me on a very tight schedule, but I had looked it over and realized I had just enough hours to make it and accepted the load. I’ll worry about home time after this run.

I considered picking up the trailer and sitting in El Paso for the night because I didn’t have much drive time left, but with a quick look at the map I realized I could make it far enough up the road to be within 1400mi of my final delivery. That would give me the opportunity to get to WI Monday night. This would be very advantageous to me because if I can get unloaded (or at least make it to the customer) by Monday night I would be able to start my reset at that time and be ready to go early Wednesday morning. If I started my run out of El Paso the following morning I would have to hold up outside of town and drive in Tuesday morning. That would mean starting my reset then and it would not be completed until Wednesday around 6pm. That would mean a night run after being awake all day or more likely not getting a run until Thursday morning which would turn into two full days off.

With that in mind I took off and drove out the rest of my hours for the day and spent my night on a dirt patch in the middle of nowhere.

Sunday was nothing more than a drawn out day of driving, but I made it to a point where I could make it to WI Monday night and gave me the hope of an early unload. I’ll work on that during my drive tomorrow.


WEEK EIGHTEEN RESULTS
Monday, April 28th through Sunday, May 4th
Miles include deadhead



Elizabeth, NJ to West Mifflin, PA................................................ .....443mi
Leetsdale, PA to Cannon Falls, MN................................................ .883mi
Hutchinson, MN to Socorro, TX................................................ ....1531mi
El Paso, TX to Matfield Green, KS(first leg).....................................827mi


Total Paid Miles............................................. ................3684 miles

Actual Miles.........................................3797 miles

3684 x .42 = $1547.28

The beginning of this week started out horribly and I was not at all pleased with my unplanned down time in Pittsburgh. But even though I was feeling the frustration I have learned not too get bent out of shape with this company. Even with the set backs and less than desirable delivery times that seemed endless I managed to turn this in to a damn good week. As late as Saturday afternoon I was looking at a horrible 2800mi week and still managed to turn it around. Next week concerns me though because I am now on a reset schedule that will find me running out of hours on Tuesday or Wednesday and taking a reset in the middle of the week when miles are plentiful. It works out so much better to reset during the weekend because so many of our loads that PU at weeks end deliver on Monday. This was the case this week and I was able to work it out, but I have no doubt that I will once again be faced with this problem next weekend. Eventually I will have to work a reset on the weekend to get back on schedule which will hit me with a 3000mi week, but such is the nature of reset driving.

For the most part I type these up from memory, occasionally I update during the week, but am usually too busy until I am doing a reset or sitting around during one of my unwanted downtimes. If I need a quick refresher I just look at my little book where a keep a detailed record of stops, mileage, etc.

Trip planing goes a long way towards high miles and as far as Luck, every little bit helps.

As far as the best shops, my experience has been that Kansas City, Council Bluffs and Indy would be your best bet.

2008
WEEK NINETEEN
Monday, May 5th through Sunday, May 11th

Monday has me looking at just over 700mi to my destination with 11¾ hrs left of my 70. This is going to be tight, but doable. I have a very light load and its interstate driving the whole way, I should have no problem averaging close to 65mph. The problem will be with a PTI and a Fuel stop I will be arriving at the customer with little time left on my 70hr clock and the closest truckstop was close to 30 miles away. If the customer won’t unload me that night or doesn’t have overnight parking I will have a problem because I won’t have any drive time left. My only option will be to find a nearby hotel with truck parking. After being in this truck for over a month, a hotel sounds like a dandy idea anyway.

I had started my day as early as possible in anticipation of making it to the customer during business hours late Monday afternoon in the hopes of an early unload. When I got close enough to know when I was going to arrive I called up the customer and asked about their receiving hours and was informed that they stopped receiving at 4:30pm. I was set to be there at 4:15 and asked if they had overnight parking available. They did. That’s all I needed to know. I would be able to show up, and even if they couldn’t unload me tonight I would be there waiting in the morning.

When I pulled in I let them know that I was early for my morning delivery and would spend the night in their yard, but was told that they had another truck coming in the morning and it would be better for them to unload me tonight. “If you insist!” He also told me I could spend the night after unloading if I needed too. I love it when things work out like this.

Two forklift drivers went to work on my load and I was MT within 15mins. I pulled out the computer and set to work finding a nearby hotel. I found one that was about 8 miles away but I was completely out of driving hours. We are allowed to drive the truck within a 15mi radius or so for personal use during our down time, but I called safety just to confirm my plans and was given the OK to drive to the hotel.

So, instead of driving in to the customer tomorrow morning to make my delivery and starting my reset then I am now MT and will be ready to start my next 70hrs early Wednesday morning and in effect only costing my one day of work. Much better than waiting until Thursday for my next load. And I will get to spend a couple of nights in a real bed for a change. When I made the hotel reservation I was told to park in the Home Depot parking lot, not feeling too good about this, I hunted down the store manager to get his personal permission, checked in and headed over to the Texas Roadhouse for a nice steak.

That was an awesome 6 days. Even though the miles were broken up by the weekend, I put in just under 4000 paid miles since my last reset in Pittsburgh.

We’ll, it’s 5am Wednesday and my reset has come to an end. I head out to the truck to let dispatch know I’m ready for my next load and wait to see what they throw at me.

It’s a very nice D/H PU just outside of town that has a D/H delivery in Dunkirk, NY (659mi) as soon as I can get it there. I optimistically hope to get it there by tonight so I can get a load offer out the following morning. This turned out to be impossible due to an extended trip on a slow two lane highway going into Chicago at the height of rush hour and some very heavy rain along the way that brought traffic to a near stop and I came up short of my destination, but I got close.

I was able to make a 5am drop delivery on Thursday morning and was ready to go after my MT call. Unfortunately the freight wasn’t cooperating and I was informed that there was no freight available. “Sit tight, we are calling customers trying to line something up, we will let you know”. Not what I wanted to hear after a resent reset. The customer had parking available so I decided to take a nap and see what shows up later. Hopefully I won’t be here all night.

The wait ended up being 6hrs before the Qcom finally coughed up yet another single load offer. It appeared to be a D/H PU 90 miles away, but not until after noon tomorrow. Holy crap! It was going to TN (528mi) and delivered anytime on the 11th. This just isn’t real. That’s 3 days away. I can only assume this is a D/H delivery and an early arrival would be acceptable. I accept the load and await the details.

Sure enough, the consignee is a Wal-Mart and they will take my drop any time. That’s one obstacle out of the way. Next was to work on picking up the load early. The PU wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow from 12:00-23:00. This is an almost certain sign that it will be a preloaded trailer. Although if I show up today there is a very good chance that it wont be ready yet, but I’m determined to head that way and see what happens.

At this point I had been sitting for 6½ hrs and not being in any great hurry I decided to sit for another 1½ hrs so I can do an 8hr extended sleeper berth. That way I can put the breaks on my 14hr clock and turn some miles tonight if I am lucky enough to get my load today.

Once I had my 8hrs sleeper berth time I headed down the road to see what I could do about getting my load. As I drove through town I noted a large vacant parking lot with trucks parked on it. Looks like I have a parking spot if things don’t go my way. As it worked out, I didn’t need to worry about that. When I arrived at the shipper I let them know that I was early but hoped my trailer would be ready to go. After some paper shuffling I was informed that it wasn’t loaded, but if I backed into dock 1 they would get me loaded. Out standing! Another saved run. Time didn’t exactly fly because it took a little over three hours to get loaded, but I wasn’t about to complain.

I was now in a position where I could drive until 3am or so because of my use of the extended sleeper berth provision, but wasn’t really in the mood to run that long. I did run until midnight, which is far past my normal work day, but was sitting good to make a Friday afternoon delivery (as opposed to Sunday) with a fair amount of hours available to get a good start on my next load. This is good because there is a 90% chance that I will be picking up a preloaded trailer from a nearby customer that I have been to many times.

Friday goes just as planed and once I make my drop at Wal-Mart I am sent a two load offer along with a message “I have no loads to get you to PHX (I had put in a hometime request for Wednesday, not imperative, just a general target), but these will get you going in that direction”. Load one is to TX(950mi) and the other is to IA(1068mi). Again, these are Friday pickups that deliver Monday and have me sitting when I don’t want too. Looks like a 3000mi week. I had anticipated this and as it turns out the IA load works out just peachy for me. It just so happens that this load is going to a small town that is 45 miles from the town I grew up in. This is also the weekend that my grandmother is returning from AZ to spend her summer in IA and my father will be driving her car up there. So with the slightest alteration of my routing I will be able to spend Sunday with them and have just enough spare time to put in a reset while I’m at it.

With that in mind I head off to get my preloaded trailer. I will have just enough hours to drive far enough down the road so that I can make home town IA the following day and still have time for a reset. This little plan is shot to hell shortly after hooking to my trailer. I managed to make it 30 miles and caught a glimpse of one of my retreads flying off into the ditch (tire stayed inflated). At least I was only 3 miles away from a truckstop with a tire shop. I had about one hour to spare before my reset window was blow and was thrilled to be directed to a bay door right away. This excitement slowly faded as time passed, however, and I ended up sitting there for over two hours. So much for the reset and any hope of strong miles next week. Well, now I know I don’t have to be in any great hurry.


Saturday was a slow paced day because I was in no real hurry. No matter how laid back or hard I drove I wouldn’t be able to make it to IA until Sunday late morning so I took the opportunity to stop by our Indy yard and see what I could do about getting a B service. The truck was just due for one and if I could get it into the shop now it would be one less thing to worry about later. I was very surprised to be directed to a bay as soon as I got there. I took a short walk down the road to get lunch and was absolutely floored when I returned just over an hour later to find that it was done. I will make a point of stopping at the Indy yard more often. At most of our shops it is not uncommon to wait 4-6hrs after the truck goes into the shop.

I actually ended up driving out most of my hours on Saturday because I wanted to make it to Walcott, “The world’s biggest truckstop”. My CB hasn’t been transmitting for about a month now and it’s getting to be a pain. Especially when I’m at a customer that wants to use it to communicate. I know there is a decent CB shop next to the Pilot and now that I have a little extra time I can get that taken care of and check out all the toys while I’m there.

Sunday is basically a short 300mi hop to home town IA and my week comes to a close.


Time to spend some time with some old friends and family.




WEEK NINETEEN RESULTS
Monday, May 5th through Sunday, May 11th
Miles include deadhead


Matfield Green, KS to Menomonee Falls, WI(last leg)......................705mi
Jefferson, WI to Dunkirk, NY................................................ ........659mi
Meadville, PA to Midway, TN................................................ .........616mi
Newport, TN to Small town, IA(first leg).......................................1038mi



Paid Miles............................................. ...............................3018 miles

Actual Miles............................................3 087 miles

3018 x .42 = $1267.56

Not the greatest miles for the week, but this tends to be the case when they start heading you home. You are dispatched on trips that get you home (or some attempt at getting you close) as opposed to ones that optimize your miles verses hours. When I picked up my last load there were actually 3 other Crete drivers there that where getting trailers that delivered the next day but going in the wrong direction for my needs. The loads offered to me were both actually scheduled to pickup the next day, but because they were going in the general direction I wanted they were made available to me early.

Hey Evertruckerr, thanks for putting so much time and thought into your weekly updates! I look forward to each week's new post, like it's the next episode of a favorite TV show, or the next chapter of a really good book. You have a great way of passing along a ton of useful info, while keeping it a really good read. I've been really busy for a couple of weeks, so it was fun to sit down tonight and find you had posted weeks 17 thru 19 since my last visit. Hope you keep getting good weeks in, and I hope you keep telling us about 'em!