Some Pictures: December near Buffalo, New York

Here are some pictures that I have meant to post for some time and just haven't gotten around to it. Sitting around doing nothing gives me plenty of time so I no longer have an excuse. These are all from December of 2008 when I was stuck in a Red Roof Inn near Buffalo, New York. The ones with more trucks in them are from the Falcon Terminal near there.

Trucker Stories: New York City

Now I have heard this one before and it was always a friend of a friend, or I heard it from this driver from another driver. Last week I actually talked to a person in the Romulus Falcon terminal that had done it and another that had his trainer do it. Both of the experiences happened several years ago, so how current this information is unknown.

Now the story always starts the same the driver, sometimes with another truck following, is in New York City somewhere and has to make a right turn. A tight right, and a car is illegally parked against a yellow curb.

Sometimes a police officer is there writing the car a parking ticket, and sometimes they come later.

In the version with the officer there, the driver is told to complete his turn or he will get a ticket for impeding traffic. The reason the driver stopped was because his trailer would hit, run over, or otherwise take out the illegally parked car. So after being told to keep moving the rear tandems do damage to the car, by ripping off the bumper, rolling over the hood, or some other expensive repair.

The officer then finishes writing the ticket and puts it on the window of the now destroyed car. While the truck goes on to make its delivery.

The version when the officer comes after the damage was the one told to me by the driver that had it actually happen to him. According to him they came up to the turn and the driver of the car was just getting out after illegally parking it. When they asked her to move the car she flipped them the bird and went on her merry way. So they did what any driver would do, tried the turn and ended up tearing off her front end. The woman then came tearing back and called the police about the accident. When the policeman arrived and looked at the car, looked at the truck and saw where the car was parked. He then proceed to write the irate woman a ticket and hand it to her for parking illegally and told the truck driver to move along before they got a ticket for impeding.

The whole moral here is don't park illegally or at the very end of a street in New York City.

One thing I never understood was how the trailer always escaped damage, I feel if I tried to do something like that, I would end up blowing at least one and possibly two tires on the trailer. That is if I didn't roll the entire thing as it climbed the car.

Maybrook, New York: TA, still

Once again I find myself living at a TA during the beginning of the week. Hopefully I will be getting a load tomorrow morning, but I will not be holding my breath. The load planning department at Falcon is leaving a lot to be desired at this point. If this keeps up I might not be able to hold out until GM restarts and have try out another carrier. Hopefully the issue will resolve itself with the inauguration now done, but if it doesn't I will take another look at Werner.

Now in my eyes the proper way for a planning department at a trucking company to work is that one group works on drivers that need to be moved right now, and another works on loads for those drivers once it is known where they are going. This way a load is already set up, hopefully, once a driver gets unloaded and they can just keep moving. One thing that hampers this type of planning is a lack of knowledge on the planners part of exactly how many hours a driver has available to work with on the next load. This can be worked around by using good estimates of what is needed and leaving some time between unload and reload.

For example the load that got me here was acquired by Falcon on Friday in the early afternoon. Once they got that load they should have immediately had someone looking for something for me to pick up near here on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Now I have no idea if this happened or not, but with over a thousand trucks to plan for, and very few regular runs, it seems likely that all the van drivers are being planned for as they empty at a location, not prior to being empty. So what is likely is that they started looking Monday afternoon, if they even got around to looking for me at all.

This style of planning creates a lot of scrambling and extra expenses. One example of this is fuel being burned to idle the truck or run the bunk heater, the use of Idle-Aire is also an expense to worry about. Both of these costs would be moot if I was rolling on a load. Another expense is an increase in company paid for showers. If I am not running, I am sitting in one location, and free showers only accumulate with stopping places for fuel. So right now the company is paying more for me to sit at this truck stop than if I was sitting in a forty dollar a night motel room. Now I am able to get a room once a week, but prefer to hold on to it until I really need one, either due to a lack of truck stops or just needing a break form the truck.

I have mentioned a willingness to work at the main place and help out with the planning, but I doubt that they will take me up on it, to many toes to step on. Besides, I only have a two year degree in business, most of a four year degree in supply chain (which is basically logistics and purchasing rolled into one), a co-op in the materials and purchasing department of Hayes-Lemmerz, and previous dispatcher and planning experience. So I would be definitely not be qualified to offer a new perspective on the problem. Please note the sarcasm there, the worst of this is that not only am I not making money, but the company isn't either, so we both get to take a spin down the porcelain money cycle if this keep up.

Maybrook, New York: TA

Once again I am hanging out at a TA, and will be plugging into an Idle-Aire for the night. Which means that there was no new load for me today. At this point they haven't found one for tomorrow either. One thing to remember with this horrible record on keeping me moving is the fact that Falcon Transport is a really big GM carrier. Until the economy crashed and GM shut down almost all of my prior loads were dedicated for GM in some way. The few that weren't were either at the very beginning of driving here, or covering a run for Ford.

I never did any of the many runs we used to cover for Chrysler, but at least at the Toledo Jeep plant we were a major player there until June or July of last year. That was when Falcon dropped Chrysler as a customer, apparently they were behind in paying their bills. If one looks back, shortly after that was when the rumors of GM and Chrysler merging were floating around. The main reason floating was Chrysler's supposed pile of cash. So if they had this cash, then why were they not paying us? I don't think the cash has been around for some time now, which would explain not paying. I am still not certain if they ever paid Falcon what was owed.

Tonight in the Country Pride restaurant at the TA, I will be having the all you can eat ribs. I saw someone with them before and they looked good. Usually I will get the buffet or something usual off the menu, but tonight I felt like ribs. They are here now, and they smell good. Don't worry, they come with the soup and salad bar as well, so it isn't all meat tonight.

Brookville, PA: TA

This is actually the exit where you would get off of I-80 to head south and say hello to Phil. You know Phil don't you? Short in stature, a little pudgy, and has a lot of hair. He ends up on television yearly as well. Haven't figured it out yet? Well it is Punxsutawney Phil of course, the groundhog that predicts the end of winter. I wonder if he will see his shadow this year.

It turns out that my almost two hour delay didn't really lose me as much time as I though it would. Apparently the road got shut down about ten miles short of this exit due to an accident earlier tonight. So I would have ended up hung up and losing time either way. This is about an hour and a half of driving away from where I originally planned to stop at, so I will have close to five hours of driving tomorrow morning rather than three.

One thing that was a bit amusing along the way was a particular CB advertisement. It was for a strip club off of I-80 at exit 42, the Interstate Body Shop. To entice the truckers they announced free showers, free cocktails, a laundry room, plenty of parking, and of course live nude girls, like there were some clubs with dead nude ones. The girl on the radio then asked people who were interested to head to another channel, to keep the main channel, 19, clear of the ads. there they went on to say that they had a new dancer, never done it before tonight on stage, with such enticing descriptions of long blond hair down to her butt and her measurements, which meant nothing to me. All I could think was TANSTAAFL. The cover must be ridiculous to pay for all the freebies, because There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Falcon Terminal: West Middlesex

Last week I ended up getting out of Chardon, Ohio, with a load that took me to Taylor, Michigan, on Friday morning. So I got to spend a quiet night at home before taking off to deliver a load of construction adhesive. Once empty it was once again the waiting game, eventually I moved over to our Romulus terminal for some more waiting. Then much to my surprise they had a load for me out of Port Huron, Michigan. I zipped up there and was loaded quite quickly, then back down to Perrysburg for the weekend.

Today when I got to the yard I was surprised to find out that my truck was running, and apparently had been running since Friday after I left or Saturday. I think it was around a hundred degrees in the cab when I got into it.

The plan was to drive for about six hours today and make it to Lamar, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately while fueling at our terminal here in West Middlesex, the inspection found a leaking wheel seal. Which is what I am waiting for right now. If it takes too long I will move just a bit further down the road and take my break. Hopefully I will get moving quickly though, the mechanic estimated about an hour.

Still here: Chardon, Ohio

Well I delivered a load here this morning, and moved to a Walmart to wait for the next one. That was before ten this morning, it is now almost two. This week has just not been a good one at all.
I can say that the Walmart here is nice and modern, complete with a Subway and skylights for lighting on bright days. It is also something I can't wait to get away from.
If I don't get a load I have located a Red Roof Inn in Willoughby, that is not far from here, relatively speaking. The funny and really sad part is that both the company and I have probably spent more money than we made this week. At least my money was only on food, a greatly lesser expense than fuel or time hooked to the Idle-Aire or a hotel room that they are spending. I actually think it might be cheaper for them to let me drive home tonight than to put me up in a hotel room.