Time For An Owner-operator Update

Hello All, and so very sorry its been so long since my last update. pretty soon ( Oct 5th ) will be my 3 year anniversary of retiring my old profession and beginning a new chapter in my life. For those that don't know me I retired from the Police Dept and hired on to Prime. I had never seen the inside of a semi before going to Prime nearly 3 years ago. after completing my training I stayed with Prime for another year to fulfill my obligation for the free training. I was looking to get something more local to home to I took on a job driving an O/O truck for 50% of the net after fuel pulling containers from the Ports in my area. I was averaging $1000 per week and home 3-5 nights a week and every weekend off. after doing this for 3 months I went against everything that is preached here on TT and decided to buy my own truck. I had a few pennies save up and purchased a 2008 International Prostar for $30,000. It was nice at first, however after a month I started having breakdown after breakdown . after dumping good money after bad into it I decided to trade up to a 2014 Freightliner Cascadia for $98,000. Best choice I ever made. I have had it since last December and other that oil changes I haven't had to dump any money into it. The money is also Great. I make more in a week then I did in 5-6 weeks at Prime. My truck is almost half paid for in only 9 months. I am now embarking on the next phase of this journey and looking to purchase more trucks and put drivers in them. Crazy Hugh? I never imagined myself being an owner operator let alone having my own fleet of trucks. well that's all for now I'll try to be on more frequently. Take care .

Steve

Congratulations Steve. Looks like you're doing great. I too am a police officer. I have 3.5 years to go before I can retire and pursue my truck driving plan. I can't hardly wait. I've been burned out with this job for awhile now (been doing it for 25 years). Caught the trucking bug about 8 years ago. I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting close now. Who knows maybe by the time I retire you might have a whole fleet and I can drive for you👮🏻

I assume you drive a tanker- Correct? Do you deliver to gas stations? About how many miles do you drive each day? Thanks. Pretty impressive!

I assume you drive a tanker- Correct? Do you deliver to gas stations? About how many miles do you drive each day? Thanks. Pretty impressive!

Steve pulls containers from the port of Norfolk here in VA. It looks like very soon I will become his employee after being his trainer on this adventure we call truck driving.

Ernie

Containers- Probably the large metal boxes- see a lot on trains- a lot have Chinese/Asian markings on them. I assume this is what you mean.

Containers- Probably the large metal boxes- see a lot on trains- a lot have Chinese/Asian markings on them. I assume this is what you mean.

Yes it is.

Ernie

I assume you drive a tanker- Correct? Do you deliver to gas stations? About how many miles do you drive each day? Thanks. Pretty impressive!

As Ernie said. Yes containers. Except the ones I pull come off the ship's. I drive between 600-700 miles a day. Mostly interstate highway where I can do 75 mph.

Below are pics from when I used to pull containers to the Oakland Ca Ports. Its a 45 foot reefer container that most shipped frozen meat overseas.

On this particular day we were loading wine in Cali for a back haul back east in which we would drop the container at a local Missouri wine distributor and bobtail to a meat warehouse in Missouri and haul another load freeze pork to the western ports.

This was back when my brother and I were lease ops. The pay for containers are higher than normal freighter so the pay was awesome. Luckily enough we never had one single thing go wrong with the truck and were able to keep our average maintenance cost down to 3.5 cpm.

Below is the generator the produces the electric to run the reefer unit. Notice the rather large extention cord plugged into it.

The power cord then runs along the frame rail of the trailer and is attached to the power cord that goes into the actual reefer unit on the front of the cargo container.

Below are pics from when I used to pull containers to the Oakland Ca Ports. Its a 45 foot reefer container that most shipped frozen meat overseas.

On this particular day we were loading wine in Cali for a back haul back east in which we would drop the container at a local Missouri wine distributor and bobtail to a meat warehouse in Missouri and haul another load freeze pork to the western ports.

This was back when my brother and I were lease ops. The pay for containers are higher than normal freighter so the pay was awesome. Luckily enough we never had one single thing go wrong with the truck and were able to keep our average maintenance cost down to 3.5 cpm.

Below is the generator the produces the electric to run the reefer unit. Notice the rather large extention cord plugged into it.

The power cord then runs along the frame rail of the trailer and is attached to the power cord that goes into the actual reefer unit on the front of the cargo container.

Occasionally I pull refer units too. They pay a little more than dry box but it's a little more hassle getting them at the ports. Mostly I just pull 40 ft dry box and sometimes 20 ft. . Like you said. The pay is awesome.

Hi steve! I remember you!

If you're bored check this out. I stole your old thread from the old forum and redid it onto this new forum. It will probably give you a bunch of flashbacks.

Steve "the cool dude" Prime Journal