UPS feeder school in RoadKing magazine

[bluehdmc]

I was talking about an entire pretrip also. Apparently the 45 min doesn`t apply when it`s a "hot load" or "late sort" or "that time of the month" or whatever excuse they want to use. I have been handed a set of tlrs,each on opposite ends of a 3/4 mile long building, at start up that have a 45 min cutoff at the railyard,which is 50 min away mind you, and I`m still waiting to be handed my keys. When I tell them there isn`t a prayer in the world that they`re going to get there on time then that makes me the bad guy. I guess maybe the dispatch mgmt team were the ones who didn`t pass DTS.

My response when I'm told there is a short amount of time to get to the railyard is, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
If I was to get into an accident speeding or something it would be my fault and the load wouldn't make the train anyway.
Sometimes it can take an hour to put a set together, lead at one end of yard, kite at another, then find a place to put the set together, dollies in the other corner of the yard, and yard traffic.
Just pretripping a tractor, air line drains in one place on a mack, 3 different places on sterlings and internationals, etc can cost seconds to the guy doing this on a stopwatch, plus does that allow you time to go find your tractor that's in one spot one day and another the next, that's if you get the same tractor everyday, or even the one you had yesterday LOL.

 

[Highwayman]

I was so lucky to be my new feeder supes first ride when he got out of DTS. Wow was he gung ho. I was too aggressive putting dolly in hook? Didn't check lights on dolly? When I said "i'm hooking up doubles and don't need lights on dolly" he was perplexed to say the least. I said "look at an older dolly lights don't work when used for doubles". He said "I never saw one". Oh Well!

 

[Old International]

Just had my supervisor sleep along ride. He watched maybe 5 hours out of the 10.75 I was on the clock. Wore my ass out about the safety triangles, and the fact I didn't check for a paper timecard and a HOS logbook(both in my personal grip that follows me everywheres). Oh well.
Then he started in on the 10 point commentery, which I only knew 4 of. Oh boy, now he wants me to know them verbaitem.....oh well, a bad day in feeders is still better then a good day in package car....

 

[broncobros1]

Thanks for the link. very interesting, especially the 45 minutes and the $50,000 price tag.

The 45 minutes is not a secret...that is the time to beat when explaining and demonstrating every aspect of the pre-trip. Also, I don't see too many folks out there doing coupling awareness on empties and placing the dolly half way under the rear trailer.

 

[anonymous6]

The 45 minutes is not a secret...that is the time to beat when explaining and demonstrating every aspect of the pre-trip. Also, I don't see too many folks out there doing coupling awareness on empties and placing the dolly half way under the rear trailer.

Before I was hired ( for peak ), i was told drivers were required to pretrip and put a set of doubles together in 24 minutes.

I can see how it would take much longer if you had to verbalize each step.

 

[G.I Joe]

When I went to DTS we had 33 minutes to do the pretrip and hook up a set of doubles