Northeast Regional

Looks like I got me one of them northeast regional dedicated freight lanes. It seems like the area is what's dedicated, not necessarily the customer. First run of this is Walmart in Maine. It's a round trip from the DC, to 2 or 3 stores, then back to the DC. Could be fun. Could be horrifying. I'll let you all know how it goes.

FYI.. you can park in lewiston wm bobtail if you need to. Just pick up your traiker after your break. I was told I couldn't park there.. but prime can.

I'm in the DC Baltimore area often. All I can say is park early lol

Miss Miyoshi, Word of advice on Walmart store deliveries, use the printed directions on the trip sheet that Walmart provides. They will get you to the correct dock without getting you hung up in a parking lot you don't belong in. Try to look up the store to get an overhead view to determine the degree of difficulty before you get there. The older stores are less than desirable for long trailers.

Find out if you are running grocery or general merchandise, many times the docks are different and at opposite ends of the store. Trip plan directions will specify each stores dock setup.

If you are running grocery, and using Walmart reefers for your deliveries, let me know I can walk you through what to do to avoid problems and pitfalls. They are different than what you are used to; 3 zone temps with freight intermixed, consolidated for each store. Fun stuff!

Walmart is all that I do, so I have a fairly good idea of what you could be facing. Happy to help if you need it.

Thanks G-Town! It will be a Walmart trailer, and I'm pretty sure it will be refrigerated, but who knows. I don't know if I'll be on walmart exclusively or just sometimes or most of the time. I'm happy for any advice you would like to give.

Thanks G-Town! It will be a Walmart trailer, and I'm pretty sure it will be reffer, but who knows. I don't know if I'll be on walmart exclusively or just sometimes or most of the time. I'm happy for any advice you would like to give.

I will send you info shortly...

My biggest concern is driving anywhere near a Walmart on a holiday....

They offered it to me when I first started. It was not walmart exclusive. Most of the drivers are from the NE and get home a little more often because they can park and spend a 10 hr at home.

My advice is check out trucker path app... and Google Earth and make lists of places to park. There are no TA, pilot loves flying in maine... there's a tight TA at the Maine NH border... 80 miles from lewiston. But a welcome center that had TONS of straight line back spots.. early.

Yeah, I will get home every other weekend for a weekend, so I figured that was pretty good. It seems most of her fleet is like this. If NE turns out to be too much for me, I can run SE.

I'very got the Trucker path app. It's pretty good. I'll going to keep good notes on where I can park. It's going to be a challenge up this way.

At a high level there are several differences running Walmart grocery you should be aware of, different from what you are used to. Know your DC's 4 digit number. Usually your 14 hour clock is more critical than your drive clock. You will use up to 60 minutes of on-duty time at each store. I rarely drive more than 8 hours on a single run, but with great regularity use more than 12 hours of the 14 hour clock. On Saturday I was doubled up (2 different loads, total of 6 stops) and arrived back at the DC, empty with 7 minutes remaining on my 14.

Most Walmart dry loads are driver supervised, live unload. All reefer loads are driver supervised, live unload. No touch, but you will need to supervise what comes off and in the case of a reefer load, possibly what goes back on for the next store. More on that later. Dry runs night and day, reefer; meat and produce (MP) at night, freezer, dairy, deli (FDD) runs during daylight hours. Regardless of running reefer or dry, you will get a package of 8 ½" x 11” paperwork that includes in this order; trip sheet, scale sheet, seal card/sheet, load sheet/map, a single invoice for each store and new orange seals for each store after the first stop. Store number is the key piece of information that ties each of these pieces of information together.

Trip sheet- The trip sheet is organized by each individual store in the order of delivery routing. There is a paragraph/section for each store that includes store address/phone number/manager name, directions from your DC number, and any special instructions or warnings. Read it thoroughly. Scale card - The scale sheet is for weighing the trailer as each DC usually requires you to scale before leaving. Most of the time you will be under 80k gross, averaging about 78k. Mixed grocery loads have a high degree of variability for each pallet due to product density and the height of the stacked pallet. It’s important to weigh to ensure proper load balance; I have had some wildly different axle weights due to this.

Seal sheet - The seal sheet gets you out and back into the DC. The guard will check your seal#, reefer temps, and sign the sheet allowing you to proceed. Organized by store number/seal number in stop order it also has to be initialed by you and the dock supervisor/manager once you are done each store delivery for both arrival and departure times. When you return to the DC, this sheet must be handed back to the guard. Note the time of arrival and time of departure on this sheet and reattach the correct seal to your trailer door. This sheet also has your assigned Walmart trailer number on it in the upper right hand corner.

Load sheet/map – Again organized by store#, on the front each store has a section for you to sign and again note the arrival time. The store representative will sign their section before you depart. It also shows the total number of pallets on the trailer and the number of pallets designated for delivery at each store. The most important element of this sheet is the load map. Below the store information is an overhead map of every pallet (top is nose and bottom is tail), the store number it’s assigned to and where it is located in the trailer and what zone (1 is front, 2 is middle, 3 is tail). The back of this sheet is used for placing the adhesive backed pull-tabs found each pallet inventory tag (more on that later). This sheet is very important for the three-zone multi-temp reefer. Usually dairy/deli is on the tail (32-33 degrees), frozen in the middle (-20), dairy/deli in the nose (33). If meat and produce, meat is usually in the middle. A mixed reefer will have pallets intermixed depending on the type of product and the store it’s being delivered to. It is not unlikely to have pallets in each of the three zones for the same store. I organize the map by using highlighter markers to color-code pallets for the same store, makes managing the unload/reload process much easier. Keep in mind if you happen to accidently miss-deliver a pallet, you are responsible for fixing that mistake and it may require you to revisit a store before returning to the DC.

Invoice – Again organized by store number, I use the same color for the store number on the invoice as I use for the load map. I always give this to the dock supervisor/asst. manager as soon as I arrive.

That’s all the paperwork and the majority of the processing. Like I already suggested, use the directions for each store found on the trip sheet. It will alleviate a whole bunch of wasted time. These directions are from DC to store, so use your GPS to coordinate with the next store destination. There is also a phone number for each store. I suggest not waiting more than 5 minutes after ringing the buzzer at the entrance to call the store and let them know you are a Walmart driver and need a manager to let you into the grocery dock door. Waiting to get into the store is the biggest time issue I deal with. Don’t be shy and if absolutely needed go into the front of the store to let you in.

Hopefully the DM at the DC will walk you through the above process. I’ll send you part two on how to handle the trailer during loads, including photos on what to expect.