10 cube pulling a trailer???

[stevetheupsguy]

You get about 7 minutes to pretrip and hook up a trailer. It takes me about 45 seconds. The "official method" is a ridiculous ritual that involves pacing off the distance to the trailer, and then making a mark or leaving a pebble on the ground by the drivers door to use as a reference point. This was before we had rear-view monitors. Back in those days my "unofficial method" was to just stick it in reverse and go until I hit the ball with my bumper and then pull forward about 8" to line the ball up with the hitch. All of our hitch cars in the pre-monitor days had dented bumpers....

I was told to wrap the chains around one another and hook em to opposite side holes, to take up the slack. My chains don't have that much slack and I hook em up right in line, left on the left and right on the right. I've never been trained in TP60 hook up or feeder hook up/shifting, but have done both of these jobs.

 

[JonFrum]

here in 705 land if your pulling a pup behind your package car you get feeder pay )

You could of just kept that to yourself, ya know.

In New England we don't get any additional money for pulling a TP-60.
At least I've never seen anything in the Contracts. But I've only driven them on the property, not on the road.

You'll know UPS is in serious financial trouble when you see TP-60s hauling two ponies to and from the petting zoo on the weekends. Tee-hee.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

In New England we don't get any additional money for pulling a TP-60.
At least I've never seen anything in the Contracts. But I've only driven them on the property, not on the road.

You'll know UPS is in serious financial trouble when you see TP-60s hauling two ponies to and from the petting zoo on the weekends. Tee-hee.

You guys may not get the coin, but I think they pay you in Lobstah!

 

[bluehdmc]

I was told to wrap the chains around one another and hook em to opposite side holes, to take up the slack. My chains don't have that much slack and I hook em up right in line, left on the left and right on the right. I've never been trained in TP60 hook up or feeder hook up/shifting, but have done both of these jobs.

Chains are supposed to crisscrossed, forming a basket if the hitch came unhitched. That's what your supposed to do with any trailer, feeders do that with the dollies, they don't have to be wrapped around each other. Sometimes with the dollies you twist the chains to shorten them so they dont' drag. If you can't cross the chains they are too short. If you the trailer became unhitched the tongue could dig into the pavement if you just hook up the chains straight.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Chains are supposed to crisscrossed, forming a basket if the hitch came unhitched. That's what your supposed to do with any trailer, feeders do that with the dollies, they don't have to be wrapped around each other. Sometimes with the dollies you twist the chains to shorten them so they dont' drag. If you can't cross the chains they are too short. If you the trailer became unhitched the tongue could dig into the pavement if you just hook up the chains straight.

Interesting.

 

[barnyard]

We have a couple in our center. To get the extra pay, you have to code the time pulling the trailer in 'other work.' If it is more than 30 minutes for the day, you get the extra pay for the whole day.

TB

 

[SmithBarney]

We had one in our center, Driver pulled it 50miles to our "satellite" center and 4 drivers unloaded it and loaded up for the day...

 

[soberups]

Chains are supposed to crisscrossed, forming a basket if the hitch came unhitched. That's what your supposed to do with any trailer, feeders do that with the dollies, they don't have to be wrapped around each other. Sometimes with the dollies you twist the chains to shorten them so they dont' drag. If you can't cross the chains they are too short. If you the trailer became unhitched the tongue could dig into the pavement if you just hook up the chains straight.

I "stole" some extension chains from the auto shop and keep them in my truck. Some of the trailers have different length chains and they arent always long enough to hook up to the various hitch cars. Inevitably, you find this out after they have already red-tagged and pulled your regular trailer for service and the replacement one has chains that are too short. A bit of "theft" on my part solved this problem for good.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

We had one in our center, Driver pulled it 50miles to our "satellite" center and 4 drivers unloaded it and loaded up for the day...

They were talking about doing this at our center but scrapped the idea for the time being.

 

[planoupsman]

I drive a P-10 and pull a TP-60 daily. I take it to a mall and another UPSer delivers from it. I also get an extra dime per hour to pull it.

 

[soberups]

Another trailer peeve;

The trailers all have an emergency brake, it is a spring-loaded lever similar to the one in a package car. You connect it to the bumper of the tow vehicle with a "breakaway" cable, so that if the trailer seperates from the tow vehicle the cable will pull on the brake lever and activate the brake.

The geometry of this brake lever is such that the rubber sheath that encloses the brake cable has its open end facing upward. Whenever it rains, or the trailer is washed, a small amount of water will run down into the cable sheath and collect at the lowest point in the line, which is underneath the trailer half way back to the wheels.

When the trailer is parked at night, the brake is set to keep it from rolling. In the winter when the temp gets below about 25 degrees, that water will freeze and bind the cable up in the sheath. When you try to deactivate the brake, the cable will kink because it cannot move. It is basically like trying to push a piece of string thru a drinking straw full of ice. Once this happens, the trailer is immobilized and the only way to move it is to take a torch to the cable housing to melt the ice (illegal if the trailer is loaded) or to crawl under the trailer and disconnect the emergency brake completely (illegal to drive in such a condition). Neither "solution" is acceptable; if you melt the ice it will just freeze up again the following night, and if you disconnect the cable you are defeating the entire purpose of having an emergency brake in the first place.

I have been complaining to EVERYBODY (automotive, center team, safety committee) about this for the last 15 years, and no effective solution has been found. Last winter they tried injecting antifreeze into the sheath with a syringe. Didnt work. One morning we had at least 8 trailers frozen in place and unable to move. Major dispatch headaches, yet it happens over and over again every winter.

My solution is simple; I do NOT set the brake when I park at night, instead I secure the trailer with some wheel chocks that I stole from Automotive. To keep carwash or preload from forgetting and setting the brake on accident, I padlock it in the "off" position until I am ready to hook it up and leave with it. The brake will still deploy if the trailer seperates, because you are "pullling" the cable thru the frozen sheath instead of trying to "push" it.

Apparently my simple and cheap solution is still too complicated and expensive, because the company feels that it is more cost-effective to pay a mechanic to crawl under the trailer and try to repair the the problem in the morning while the driver waits and the packages miss service.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Another trailer peeve;In the winter when the temp gets below about 25 degrees, .

We don't have this problem here.