Originally Posted by Rawlco

Wow, twenty something pages of TMC thread to catch up on. I gotta get more frequent internet access out on the road. Perhaps I just need to find wifi that hasn't been banned from CAD. :lol:

Hmmm, I heard rumors that AHI is about to buy Carlen Transport, based here in Maine, with a terminal also in Kearney NJ. This would give us the New England freight market, and a bunch of freightshakers, Uggh.

I am home for a full three days this time. The load planners have finally given up on getting me home with a load. Flatbed freight moves OUT of Maine, not in, it just took them a month to realize what I told them when filling out my application. It really annoyed me before when I delivered lumber from GA to the Home Depot Dist Center in Norwood MA on a friday morning and the load planners had me set to run back south. I was 249 miles from the house and TWO loads had left from that SAME building destined for the home depot in Bangor ME just 30 miles from my house that same day, but there is "no freight to get me home" according to the load planners. They finally had me bounce 150 miles towards my house, load some fiberboard (the stuff they make cheap cheap furniture out of) run the other 100 miles up to the house for my 34 hour reset and then head for michigan. It would have been longer at home but somebody made the precall for monday before my FM could tell them otherwise. This week they made the much more intelligent choice of having me deadhead from Vermont to home and will load out of here in the morning. I get three full days at the house to make up for their screwup before.

Now I was all set to run home empty as soon as I had hours on my logbook at 1130 CST Friday. I get a message from my FM at 1030 CST asking when I will be available. I call and find out that I am 34 miles from a shipper that was supposed to load before noon EST and the TMC truck is still 150 miles out due to getting held up at the consignee this morning, so If I can take my trailer down there to get it loaded and then swap it with the other driver when he gets there I can bounce to the house empty then. I figure I might as well, since it is sort of on my route home anyway. Arrive at the shipper at noon CST, one hour late already, and find this is a Log home package, joy, and double joy it is supposed to load on TWO trucks for simultaneous delivery on Tuesday in Oklahoma. I do my best to extract information about when the other truck is supposed to arrive to please the customer and finally get a message "other truck is 31 mi away" about the time that I am done loading. I inform the forklift operator it will be about half an hour on the other truck and turn around to watch the same truck turn into the driveway. I guess that shows the delay in information from one truck to fleet manager to other fleet manager to his truck.

The nice part about this load was the "tarps = L" but the load was only 5 feet 3 inches off the deck. I still had to fold under the steel tarps in places, hehe. The bad part about this trailer swap was the trailer I ended up with. The oldest trailer I have even seen at TMC. A nasty old Steel and wood PFT 48' stepdeck. On my way home I fueled and hit the cat scale since the driver I swapped from told me it was heavy. I scaled EMPTY at 34,250 pounds. Egad :shock: , that is 3500 pounds less freight I can haul on this trailer than the Benson I had. I hope to be in DSM for TQM class next weekend, perhaps I can leave this heap of scrap there. :lol:

Originally Posted by Rawlco

Wow, twenty something pages of TMC thread to catch up on. I gotta get more frequent internet access out on the road. Perhaps I just need to find wifi that hasn't been banned from CAD. :lol:

Hmmm, I heard rumors that AHI is about to buy Carlen Transport, based here in Maine, with a terminal also in Kearney NJ. This would give us the New England freight market, and a bunch of freightshakers, Uggh.

I am home for a full three days this time. The load planners have finally given up on getting me home with a load. Flatbed freight moves OUT of Maine, not in, it just took them a month to realize what I told them when filling out my application. It really annoyed me before when I delivered lumber from GA to the Home Depot Dist Center in Norwood MA on a friday morning and the load planners had me set to run back south. I was 249 miles from the house and TWO loads had left from that SAME building destined for the home depot in Bangor ME just 30 miles from my house that same day, but there is "no freight to get me home" according to the load planners. They finally had me bounce 150 miles towards my house, load some fiberboard (the stuff they make cheap cheap furniture out of) run the other 100 miles up to the house for my 34 hour reset and then head for michigan. It would have been longer at home but somebody made the precall for monday before my FM could tell them otherwise. This week they made the much more intelligent choice of having me deadhead from Vermont to home and will load out of here in the morning. I get three full days at the house to make up for their screwup before.

Now I was all set to run home empty as soon as I had hours on my logbook at 1130 CST Friday. I get a message from my FM at 1030 CST asking when I will be available. I call and find out that I am 34 miles from a shipper that was supposed to load before noon EST and the TMC truck is still 150 miles out due to getting held up at the consignee this morning, so If I can take my trailer down there to get it loaded and then swap it with the other driver when he gets there I can bounce to the house empty then. I figure I might as well, since it is sort of on my route home anyway. Arrive at the shipper at noon CST, one hour late already, and find this is a Log home package, joy, and double joy it is supposed to load on TWO trucks for simultaneous delivery on Tuesday in Oklahoma. I do my best to extract information about when the other truck is supposed to arrive to please the customer and finally get a message "other truck is 31 mi away" about the time that I am done loading. I inform the forklift operator it will be about half an hour on the other truck and turn around to watch the same truck turn into the driveway. I guess that shows the delay in information from one truck to fleet manager to other fleet manager to his truck.

The nice part about this load was the "tarps = L" but the load was only 5 feet 3 inches off the deck. I still had to fold under the steel tarps in places, hehe. The bad part about this trailer swap was the trailer I ended up with. The oldest trailer I have even seen at TMC. A nasty old Steel and wood PFT 48' stepdeck. On my way home I fueled and hit the cat scale since the driver I swapped from told me it was heavy. I scaled EMPTY at 34,250 pounds. Egad :shock: , that is 3500 pounds less freight I can haul on this trailer than the Benson I had. I hope to be in DSM for TQM class next weekend, perhaps I can leave this heap of scrap there. :lol:

Originally Posted by anthony1995

Hey guys. I'm seriously considering starting my trucking career with TMC. What kind of annual salary can I expect running through the week and home on weeknds? 1st year, 2nd year salary? How hard is flatbedding from a tarping and securing standpoint. I understand it's physically demanding. I am 5'8", 160LBS so I just want to make sure I can lift these tarps and what not. Thanks guys