Central Refer / Prime
 

I have read and searched all through these forums and read everything I could find about the companies that I am looking at. I am trying to decide between two training companies, and I know that neither one will be perfect but this is the hand that I am being dealt without having a CDL from a private school.

So Central Refrigerated seems to have a good program for a newbie. The school is short at 17 days, then 4 weeks with a trainer on the road. Is this enough time to turn a green horn into someone who can drive on their own?

I am also looking at Prime Inc just because if you stay for a year the schooling is free. The classroom is only 4 days, but then you spend 6 months with a trainer and it takes about 4 months before you even have your CDL. This seems like a very long time, and I am afraid the trainer is just doing it to reap the extra pay from a rookie for 6 months. How much time will that trainer actually spend "training"?

I really would like some response from people that know one of the two companies, but I would also like to know what is said of these carriers at the truck stop......

I just thought that maybe someone knows of a TRAINING company that is better that I am missing. Please let me know if there is!

I have never worked for either but neither have a great reputation at the T/S's. I do know guys who have done good with both companies but none of them went through their training program.

As far as training it all depends on the trainer. Yes, you will find trainers who will use you to make more money but then again you may have a trainer that will work with you and make sure you are learning correct ways to do things.


With the length of the training program it all depends on you, if you are a fast learner then maybe a month with a trainer is enough. You will never learn everything with a trainer. It dosent matter if you spend a week or a year or 10 years you will never learn everything. There will always be something that make you step back and go hmmm.... So it really depends on what you think you will need. A month with someone who will actually go through everything with you and make sure your competent*(sp) enough to run that rig will deffinately outweigh 6+ months with a trainer who just gets in the bunk and lets you drive and never teaches you anything.

Thats my 2 cents and thats all its worth i'm afraid.

Central Refer....
 

Well, I have done a lot of research and from what I have found Central Refrigerated is where I will be going. I already have a tentative date to start school next month. I can't believe that there are not a lot of people with an opinion on these two companies!

Please, if you drive for Central Refrigerated or Prime Inc, give me some feedback here or you can send me a private message if you don't want everyone else to know what you think.

I did find a few cool links on You Tube, and I really enjoyed watching some of the videos on there. I just wish I had someone who would give me an honest opinion from the experience that they had.

I will try to be very active in this forum and will let you know what I experience from the school and the company!

I kind of expected that! It is a training company so I am sure they go through a lot of drivers!

All I can do is hope for a good trainer!

I will be well prepared for school. I already have a CDL book from the department of licensing, so I will read through that over the next few weeks!


Thank you for your response. It is always helpful to talk with someone that knows more than I do, which is NOTHING!

Then there is going to be stuff and makes you jump back and say WTF!!!

Just to clarify on the Prime training. You have a week in class where you get your permit. After you get your permit you are put 1 on 1 with an Instructor until you have 100 hours driving. This 100 hours is done with the truck as a solo. After 100 hours you go back to Springfield to test out, and then go out with a trainer for 50,000 miles (they say 60,000, but they give you credit for 10,000 from your instructing. After you reach 60,000 miles you can go back to Springfield, take another test and get a company truck. Once you reach 80,000 miles (the last 20,000 can be done solo company, or with your trainer) you can get a lease truck.

As far as pay goes, while you have your permit Prime will loan you $240 a week for food and supplies while on the road, this is paid back at $25 a week once you get your license and become an employee. In the training phase you are paid $0.12 a mile with a guarantee of $600 a week as long as you are available for dispatch. At 60,000 you can go company solo at $.30 a mile or stay with the trainer @$.12 with the guarantee. At 80,000 miles you'd get a raise to $.34 company or could lease a truck.

I work for Central. It's not too bad of a company. Been with them for several months. Freight has been a little etchy here and there. I run team and for the past month we have been getting more solo loads than team loads. Told it will pick up pretty quickly.

The training is very short. It's a hard, quick two weeks in class. You have one week to get your CDL learner (a few people didn't make it) and then you have a week backing and driving around. After that, you go on the road with a trainer for a month. As it was stated some trainers are good and some are bad. I (and my girlfriend) went through 3 trainers before we found a good one. The first one was a complainer and couldn't deliver loads on time and would rather sit around then drive. The second had a couple of cats in his truck and it was just plain nasty. The third though showed us how to run as a team and run hard.

I always keep in good contact with my dispatch and use the qualcomm regularly, so that makes them happy when you keep them updated.

With Central, you'll be using the electronic logs and their not that hard once you get used to it.

Central trains over 25 students a week at there West Valley City terminal in Utah and then a dozen at Fontana, CA and Connelly, GA. It is scary some of the people that they are willing to train and release out on the road. The training does feel short and it took me and the girlfriend a week or two on our own to get the actual hang of it after finishing training. But like I said, we had a good trainer and were really prepared. It was just not having the trainer there to make the decisions and tough choices when you were used to having them around that made it tough.

I figure I'll work here for a year and then move on to a better company that pays better. After a year working here, I'll only be able to make 36 cpm and there are companies that will pay over 40 cpm. You only have to pay something like $1275 after a year with the company and the training original costs $3000.

Good company to get your foot in the door and then move on to better oppurtunities.

I agree with the esteemed poster Jumbo above.

Nary, in the past 5 years of perusing this board have I seen such consistent STOP SIGNS to the newbie driver as is offered when the poster queries regarding PRIME, or Central Refrigerated.

Of course, you probably already have your mind made up. Best wishes and good luck with the experience.

Prime (a coolie carrier) will put you in your own truck immediately and let you make all of your own Disability insurance payments etc. Heh heh......does it take you that long to figure all of this out? Sure, it is certainly to their advantage to lease that POS to you and pay no benefits/retirement/insurance/ blah blah blah blah.

Reminds of of the classic movie "Goodfellas" and the method of organized crime taking control of a business.

1. Business slow? **** you. Pay up!
2. Truck broken? **** you. Pay up!
3. Family illness? **** you. Pay up!

Oh and by the way. Central Refrigeraged is basically coolie carrier extension of CR England (i'm not sure, they may be outright owned by CREngland coolie carrier.)

Get out now if you can! Don' stick around for the burn!!!!:thumbsup:

You can lease your own truck after only 80,000 miles? Cool.

I am not so sure that leasing a truck after so little experience is a good idea. I guess this is why these companies are so easy to get into a lease program. They just keep recycling that truck from one rookie to another when they fail.

Just my $.02

Trying to decide between these two is like deciding whether to cut your arm off above or below the elbow.

So who would you suggest that I could go with?

These guys are going to do whatever they can to make you feel like bad or uneasy about your decision. About a year ago I was in your shoes, and got some good and bad advice, I went the company who I felt best fit me. It worked out fine I got some good experience and really liked OTR driving. I left OTR to have more time with my family, but otherwise would be on the road. Central was one of the outfits I had on my short list, but decided on another company who ran dry van. I would have gone to Central had the other not worked out. I also had Swift and Watkins-Shepard offer me CDL training.

Really no training company is ideal, but unfortunately most of us have no choice because of experience. I know drivers from both Prime and Central, and they have the same complaints that all drivers have. I don't think one is really worse than the other. I know one Prime team who absolutely love it and have been with them for over a year.

Go with your gut and make the best of it. Just remember, deliver on time, trip plan well, get plenty of rest on your 10 hr break, log legal, drive safe, and have good communication with your dispatcher. Focus on the last one, it can be a eal pain if you do not get along with a dispatcher, like living hell. I had a good relationship with my dispatcher and always got home on time, got good loads, and rarely sat and waited on an assignment. I learned real quick, if you work hard and don't whine, you will be fine.

PM me if you have any more questions, driving a truck is not hard, and there are things you can do to make your life on the road good. I loved my time OTR and will probably go out again when my kids get out on their own.
Good Luck.

So who did you go with for your training?

Just to let you know, I have done a lot of research and i too have found that most of these training companies all have the same issues. I have all but made up my mind on Central and I am really looking for other Central drivers who can give me some more insight on the company.

I know the recruiter is just a salesman who is trying to get me to commit so they can make a quota. Anything I ask them will probably be answered in the companies favor.

I know that I am not the typical student that goes to these schools expecting everything to be fun and easy. I am not afraid of hard work, and I know how to get along with just about anybody. I am going to be prepared for school as I already have the CDL manual and will be ready for the test before I even get there.

I really do appreciate any information that is offered here, good and bad, it will all help me be better prepared when I know exactly what to expect!

I do plan on staying active on the forums throughout my training. I promise not to write any books, but I will try to give a recap of all the training to help those that will come here after me.

I actually went with Schneider, I felt they offered the best training program. I had almost commited to Watkins-Shepard, but they did not have any training after CDL school. They just basically put you in a truck by yourself after school, and I did not feel comfortable with that set-up. If it had not worked out with SNI, I would have gone with Central Refer., I felt comfortable enough with them to do so.

School will definately not be fun and easy, it was a lot of hard work. We were up at 4:45 am to be ready for pick-up by 5:30 am, It was then in class or the trucks until 5:30 or 6:00 pm. After I did homework for at least 3 hours a night, could have got by with less, but i wanted to be at the top of my class. I was able to do that with a 97.8%, there is really no time for personal time, you must concentrate on class all the time. Even with the schedule I did enjoy it, and was glad I went. The two weeks will fly by, it will be over before you know it, and then the real work starts.

Yeah I did look at Schneider, but they are not taking anyone that does not have a CDL at this time. I did talk to Watkins-Shepard also, just never felt very comfortable with the recruiter, then they just stopped talking with me altogether.

I am very comfortable with Central Refrigerated, and they have answered every question I have asked so far. The program is going to be just what I need with 1 week in class, 1 week in trucks and getting the CDL. Then out on the road with a trainer for 4 weeks. I am a pretty fast learner, so I think this program will work out really well for me.

You will do just fine with Central, just listen to your trainer, work and study hard, and drive safe.

It seems as though you are pretty set on Central and If I had the choice between the two Id go to Central and learn all I could. Best o luck there

Honestly, 4 weeks with a trainer is a very short time. The length of the school really doesn't matter, you won't really learn anything anyway until you get out on the road for real. Just make sure that your trainer trains you! Back up EVERY TIME that truck needs to be backed up, make sure your trainer is there and up front with you while you do it, and make sure he explains WHY you need to do what you need to do, not just telling you what to do. Also try not to have him spot you that much either, because if you get to used to backing with a spotter, it will only be that much more difficult to learn to backup on your own. If anything practice GOAL, especially when you first start out, if you GOAL you get to see the whole picture of where the rig is, what it is doing, and get a good mental picture of how it will respond, a spotter isn't going to give you that insight.

Sounds silly, but when I went to school, the best advice the instructor gave me was to go and buy a toy rig, and practice maneuvering it, it might be a toy, but the physics work the same, and it really gives you valuable insight into how that trailer reacts.

Backing isn't everything though. Try to get in that driver seat in all weather conditions, all sorts of different terrain, etc.

One of the most valuable lessons my trainer taught me was to take me to a big abandoned parking lot that was iced over, and had me practice skid recovery. Believe me what he taught me came in handy many times.

Yes it does sound silly, but my instructor told me the same thing. Ya know he was right it did help, it gave me a view of the truck that I did not have otherwise. Two other things he told me, first was get a plunger, this was while I was still in training, memorize the speeds for each gear and sit down with that plunger and practice double clutching. That worked for me very well for me, the next thing he told me was always remember, you are not driving a truck, you are pulling a trailer. Those things may sound dumb at first, but your trainers, if they are good, are trying to give you tips on how to learn to drive and how to always be able to improve your driving.

My instructor said those same things too! Where did you go to school?

Schneider Training Academy (STA) in Fontana, CA. You?

Swift Driving Academy, Richmond, VA.

Excellent, sounds like out trainers were cut form the same mold. Two different companies many miles apart and yet it seems our trainers had the same philosophy when it came to training. Mayby our trainers were trained by the same guy,LOL.

Mine was a cool guy, probably in his late 50s early 60s. From the south. He used to fill our heads with crazy stories of his life on the road. He got off the road because of medical reasons. The funnyest thing to me, was that he never drove for Swift, and when someone asked if he did, he got a look on his face like someone just slapped him with a moldy pickle, and would just answer, "Hell No"

Having been a Lease Operator for Prime myself, I can tell you to definetely not go to Prime. And the biggest problem with Central is they are nearly identical to Prime.