Comments By Chris L.

Local NW drivers use channel 17 on the CB. I usually have my radio set to scan 19 and 17.

My guess is the first electric semi would probably be a local job. It would return to same place at end of day to charge. Also probably be a company that hauls light loads. I heard Frito-Lay had electric box trucks.

Congratulations and good luck! How's the equipment there? You going to get a fancy Kenworth?

I drove a chip truck for about 8 months. Daycab 4 axle tractors and 4 axle trailers 105,500 gross lbs. Home daily and off on weekends with occasional Saturdays. Good job for being home and was mostly out of the city's congestion. It got a little old for me as I did the same deliveries day after day.

I have recently started doing intermodal about a month into it now. So far it's ok home daily off on weekends, but have to deal with city congestion.

In my experience I prefer regional work, pickup today deliver tomorrow, one pick one drop loads.

I was pulling a split axle flat bed for little over a year, then 4 axle chip wagon for about 8 months after that. Both have axles that don't slide and no overhang. Then I went to pulling a dry van and was inches away from hitting a truck on my right one time backing into a tight truckstop. Only thing that saved me was I got out to look even though I felt I was good. I was so freaked out by my misjudgment that I left and parked at a rest stop down the road with pull throughs.

I spent the next 2 months or so driving with my axles in the middle position if my weight allowed it. I had to take wider turns but had less overhang. I eventually got over it and now am comfortable with them all the way up.

I'm working for a small company, actually an owner operator. He was purchasing a newer truck and my only request was that it would be a manual transmission. The only auto transmission I like are Allison the true automatic transmission. I don't like the auto shift transmission which seems to be more common. Walsh Trucking has some Mack trucks with the Allison and i liked driving those.

Congrats on noticing you had stuck brakes. At least you didn't have to call dispatch and tell them you need 2 new tires cause you dragged them down the road.

I actually thought trucking paid more than it does. I didn't research trucking pay till I was in truck school. When the recruiters came to talk about pay I was shocked. This is why I went into food service delivery straight out of school, it was the highest paying job I found during school.

Still I took a pay cut to be a Class A driver. I didn't find this Web site till almost a year into my first trucking job.

I'm very comfortable in the NW, it's very familiar as I've lived my whole life here. I kinda feel like a slacker though as I'm only been running 200-300 mile days. Detention time seems to be a big part of the pay here. It's to early to tell what a normal week is as I'm just getting started.

You survived local Chicago in training! That's an accomplishment, I got myself into a couple of tight situations delivering in Chicago, due to wrong turns and just not being familiar with the city.

Terminal is in Portland Oregon and I run Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. This is my first week at it and so far it seems mostly local. Wasn't my choice to go local as I drive for a owner operator that only owns 2 trucks. I enjoyed the NW regional I was doing but he wanted to be more local.

I'll stick with it as long as the money's there. It's not a bad thing to have intermodal experience to add to my Resume.

I ran Chicago intermodal during training. We did a 300 mile radius and ran constantly. I liked having the same customers all the time cause I felt really comfortable even being new.

It gave me great city experience as well.

Good luck!!!

Terminal is in Portland Oregon and I run Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. This is my first week at it and so far it seems mostly local. Wasn't my choice to go local as I drive for a owner operator that only owns 2 trucks. I enjoyed the NW regional I was doing but he wanted to be more local.

I'll stick with it as long as the money's there. It's not a bad thing to have intermodal experience to add to my Resume.