Tough Guy
Well-Known Member
I don't have any experience driving the package cars out in traffic or making deliveries; I simply jockey them around sometimes before preload. Sometimes moving a vacant one so a driver can get out, or moving them around to get platforms out, etc.
It may be different on the road, but in my limited experience, I'm actually partial to the 4 speeds. It seems they all have the same type of feel on the clutch, and the same "get-up-and-go" (with a few exceptions). A lot of the 5 speeds seem to really be different from car to car. The usual vacant one that I have to move a lot tends to be real light on the clutch, so you barely let off the clutch and it wants to go super fast. There's another one though (which drives like it's from 1973) that you have to practically press the gas all the way down to make it move at all.
The worst was another one that was a little touchy, no matter what I do I can't seem to move that one around without it getting all herky-jerky. I thought it was just me and my limited experience, but I see the sups or dispatchers have to move it sometimes and they have the bobble head thing going on too.
It's a good skill to have to know how to drive stick, but I'm glad the company only seems to get automatics now. I have to imagine it makes it a lot easier out on the roads to not have to fiddle around with that. Some of them have ungodly amounts of miles on them. Is there a limit of mileage that they decide to retire the cars?
It may be different on the road, but in my limited experience, I'm actually partial to the 4 speeds. It seems they all have the same type of feel on the clutch, and the same "get-up-and-go" (with a few exceptions). A lot of the 5 speeds seem to really be different from car to car. The usual vacant one that I have to move a lot tends to be real light on the clutch, so you barely let off the clutch and it wants to go super fast. There's another one though (which drives like it's from 1973) that you have to practically press the gas all the way down to make it move at all.
The worst was another one that was a little touchy, no matter what I do I can't seem to move that one around without it getting all herky-jerky. I thought it was just me and my limited experience, but I see the sups or dispatchers have to move it sometimes and they have the bobble head thing going on too.
It's a good skill to have to know how to drive stick, but I'm glad the company only seems to get automatics now. I have to imagine it makes it a lot easier out on the roads to not have to fiddle around with that. Some of them have ungodly amounts of miles on them. Is there a limit of mileage that they decide to retire the cars?