Thanks! Hopefully it will look up from here.

My husband dropped his load early this morning, waited a little while for an empty, deadheaded to Colorado, and picked up a load he delivers 1200+ miles away in Ohio, so far so good , they are keeping him busy with decent loads.

Guess its about time for another update here. My husband is spending tonight in Napoleon, OH waiting to drop tomorrow morning early. He drove 400 miles today, but almost 600 yesterday. I'll update more once he gets his first check on miles, how many miles he actually had on it. He has been very pleased with his first week out so far, and is getting along well with his dispatch.
After he delivers tomorrow, he'll pick up a load also in Ohio, and take it back to Loveland, CO.
He has his next hometime scheduled and approved for the 5th of January to the morning of the 8th. Don't know if I've already mentioned it but barring weather and breakdowns TransAm guarantees hometime to the hour, and if they get you home early its gravy and not counted against your time home. So he will have 59 hours home every couple of weeks or so.

Sure am glad to hear things are definately looking a lot better now that he is on his own :)

BTW, what kind of truck did he get?

We are too! And, its a Freightliner Classic XL, the rest of the details are above :P Well, what details I know to give, there's still a lot I don't know :oops:

Hey MW,

What's the latest and greatest with the hubby's adventures? I need my fix!! :lol: :lol:

My husband is currently sitting on a 34 hour reset, well, at least it should be a 34. His fm is giving him a hard time because he gains a days worth of hours back 4 hours before his 34 is up and she wants him to roll then, not wait for the whole reset :roll:
He dropped at Napoleon the morning of the 26th at 6 am, waited until 11 am for them to unload him, and went to Lima, OH for a pickup. He ended up having to get a trailer repaired in Lima, and get a new trailer before the receiver would let him in. All in all, it ended up being 6 pm before he got back on the road. Company tried to tell him that since he only drove 1.5 mi before dropping in Napoleon that he shouldn't have started his on duty day yet, but should have rested and started the day at 11 when they were finished unloading him. He hadn't napped, and was out of hours, so ticked night dispatch off by having them reschedule his next load he couldn't make legally.
The next load ended up being due in Ceder Rapids IA, at 4 am on the 28th. He drove there and had a little time to kill as the receiver wouldn't take it early, he arrived 4 pm on the 27th. After he dropped, he picked up a load to swap with somebody else in Perrysburg, OH, where he is now to reset, which he says he's taking his 34 no matter what they think.

We're pretty sure his dispatcher is just feeling him out, but we'll see what happens from here. He currently is scheduled to drop the load he has now at 7 am tomorrow, 600+ mi away, which isn't possible with a 4 am start, and wouldn't be possible with a 12am start either, so he's waiting on a response back to that.

Just several small updates and tidbits we have learned along the way here. My husband is being required to run at midnight tonight, not 4am. His dispatcher wants him to try to make a 650 or so mile run by noon as thats the last available drop time until Tuesday. The only catch is he only will have 10 hours available, so we will see how that goes. His dispatcher specifically stated that TransAm doesn't "encourage" 34 hour resets unless at a terminal or on hometime, otherwise they run as soon as any hours are available.
We also found out that TransAm does NOT offer tuition reimbursement , which we had been under the impression they did.

I don't want to pass along the negative of these big carriers like Trans Am, but you and your husband, since you are new to this whole driving thing, have to understand that's the way these companies are going to be, especially to new drivers. They seem to like to try and take all they can get, and see how far they can push a driver, eventually the driver stands up for himself and hopes that things go back to normal, or the driver says nothing at all and the company continues to run he/she ragged. I had the same problems when i started with my first "big" carrier, running the road, i ran like they wanted me to for a while, but eventually had to take a stand and say "no more", things got better, but not much and i eventually said the heck with it all and just came back home and went back to work driving locally. All I can say, and you can take it as you will, while your husbands out there dealing with those idiots in dispatch, do a little research for him around your hometown searching out maybe a local gig, or something that's gonna treat him better, as the industry says someone who says they'll "call you by your name, not by your truck number". Anyway, i know this is long winded, and i could continue to go on, but the point i wanted to get across is the fact that with a little experience, and a clean license, your husband will be able to get his foot in the door in something better, might just take a little work on your part, but you seem to be up to the challenge.

Sorry, one more thing here, i noticed they were making your husband leave at Midnight, hopefully he has the rest to poung out that kind of mileage, especially getting started at that time. That's the one thing i hated about OTR, you wait around all day for nothing to happen, and as soon as you chalk it up to bad luck, and a bad day and decide to lay down for the night, dispatch always seems to be there with a load that needs to roll. The way they see it is that you have been sitting long enough to start a new clock, but they don't take in to consideration that just because you're sitting, doesn't mean you're sleeping. Anyway good luck with it all, hopefully things will get better.

I thought I had posted a reply but apparently it didn't take.
Millersod, thanks for your kind words. We were hoping TransAm would be better since they aren't huge. They seem to want to do nothing but push him and then make him sit. I understand thats part of the industry, especially with reefers which is all they run, but it seems to be a bit overboard here. He is currently out of hours again, sitting in WI, still 150 miles from where he was supposed to drop, due to interstate tie ups, and fog. Dispatch is more than unhappy with him, but there are 2 things he won't do, run tired, and run when he's out of hours, both of which he is now.
He knew early on yesterday that he would be expected to run at midnight or 4, so he was able to get some sleep going into it and was ok, tired now but he usually is by the end of a run, he drove his full 10 hours available to him today.
We went into TransAm not planning on staying forever, as they don't have enough hometime to suit us. He's going to put in his 6 months to a year, then see if he can move to something that will either put him local (a fair bit of stuff here) or at least home every weekend.
He's pushing as hard as he knows how to push, and it still doesn't seem good enough to dispatch. I guess they expect him to log creatively and get there no matter what, he really wants to run as legal as he can. He doesn't stop and spend forever in truck stops, and eats most of the time in the truck, sometimes while he's driving, so his stops are at an absolute minimum. He pulled over once during his trip today to go to the bathroom, and got scolded over satellite that he should be running!
I'm hoping it will smooth out some with dispatch once they get a feel for him, but I'm not sure.
I'll close this chapter of a book! Things will look up, be it now or in a year :) I am watching the local things, but with his work history being his only issue he really needs to stay with TransAm at least for 6 months-1 year.