Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck3507
I am interested in heavyhaul. Canada is not a problem for me. Flatbed will be fine also but, I'm not much on general freight.
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First off I want to clarify, right now heavy haul/specialized freight is slow SLOW
SLOW no matter what company you go to. Flatbed freight is slow as well but Wylie seemed to get everyone out of here in a day or two from the Fargo terminal this past week.
As for the heavy/specialized side there are 4 of us here over the weekend. There are 2 4axle/55 ton trucks (one of which is mine) and 2 3axle 35/40 ton trucks. I could have been out of here yesterday but I don't have a TWIC card and neither did the others setting here.
If you looking at coming here for heavy/specialized what you do will depend on your experience. Most everyone starts off in a 3 axle truck with a 35 or 40 ton RGN then moves up from there. The natural progression if you want to stay heavy and not into wind is to go up to a 45 ton trailer then move into a 4 axle tractor with a 55 ton trailer. If your looking at wind then you would go from an RGN on heavy to pulling blades then back to an RGN on top towers, then up to mid towers and finally the big move would be into a 4 axle tractor pulling schnables hauling bases.
Wylie sold it's heavy haul many years ago and they are just getting back into it. In fact all the equipment is less than 1 year old. Wylie is owned by Ottertail Corporation and one of it's sister companies under Ottertail is DMI. DMI is one of the main tower builders with a plant here in Fargo, one in Tulsa, OK and another in Ft. Erie, ON (By Buffalo, NY). Ottertail was looking at the millions of dollars a year they were paying out to carriers moving the towers and since they already had a flatbed company the natural move was to start a heavy haul division to carry thier own product. The terminal manager here in Fargo come from a 20 year background as an owner/operator in heavy haul and the lead driver on wind has been in heavy specialized for 50 years and has 20 years of tower experience.
To say that everything here is perfect would be a lie, there are some growing pains and bumps in the road right now but as I have said before, they seem really open to input from experienced drivers. I was with one of the "Mega" specialized carriers for about two months before coming here and let me tell you, it's a whole different atmosphere. Wylie is small compared to some of the big players but they have a clean operation and a driver is not looked at like a robot. You can walk into the main building and right up to your driver managers desk. The "Mega" carrier I was with, drivers weren't even allowed inside the building and if you wanted to meet the person on the other end of the phone you had to call inside and see if they would come outside to meet you.
There have been a few specialized drivers hanging around here this week that have not stopped complaining about EVERYTHING. I think that they think they are some kind of premadona and should have everything handed to them on a silver platter. I got tired of listening to all the BS in the drivers room Thursday morning and they were asking all the drivers to go out and pull trailers out of the snow banks so they could plow real good before the next storm. I was the only one who went out while all the others dissappeared. Needless to say when dispatch had a load pop up and they came to the drivers room to find someone, I got the load. It wasn't nothing special, and oversized front end loader needed moved 50 miles and another one brought back but at least it was work. It could have been hauled on one of the smaller RGN's but since I was out there running around in the cold, I got the load. It also helped me out because I discovered a leaking hub seal on my flip axle which I was able to limp back to the yard with rather than being stranded in some shop somewhere out on the road.
I spent the day yesterday swapping out my flip axle for the one that was supposed to be on my trailer. I also found my gooseneck extender out in the snow back, got it dug out and got the shop to set it on my trailer for me. I also found my stinger axle and checked it all out, made sure the lights were all good and that the registration was current on all three peices of my trailer. As of right now I'm not going to carry my stinger with me since that will be used more for tower sections. If I get into a situation where I have a load putting me over gross but not enough to require the stinger there are some states that won't allow me to have it chained to the deck along with the load on a permit. It adds about 3,000 pounds and they sometimes frown on that.
Anyhow, I hope this helped a little, I'm still new but so far I like what I see. Not as much money as the "mega" carrier I was (comparing apples to apples) but at least here we're not looked at like we're robots.
E.W. Wylie
