Comments By Steve Marshall

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

Daniel. Thanks for the ride down Memory Lane. I just read through the entire thread. It seems so long ago but it really wasn't. I bought a new Rand Mcnally 720 GPS when I started with my first Truck. I recently looked at the odometer on it and it was 295,000 miles. Hard to believe I put that many miles on in 2 years-8 months.

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.

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.

I first bought an older (2008 ) truck last year, had 700K miles on it. Broke down all the time. so not only was I paying for repairs I was missing out on income I could have been earning while it was in the shop. I kept it for 5 months and traded up to a 2014 Freightliner with 100K miles on it. no breakdowns & great fuel economy. buy newer if you can swing it.

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

I have been solo now for 2 weeks. During that time, I have been from Salt lake city Utah, to Springfield Mo. Then went home to Virginia for a few days. Picked up a load of pig fat to be made into hot dogs in Cincinnati, Now I'm in Taunton Massachusetts waiting to be unloaded. They said it might be a few hours before I get an empty door, Meanwhile the snow is continuing to fall. within the next few hours the weather conditions will continue to deteriorate as the Blizzard of 2013 approaches. 60-70 mph winds, up to 3 feet of snow and zero visibility.

Looks like I will be stuck at this receivers for several days while they try to dig us out.once I get backed into the dock they said it will take up to 3 hours to unload. its 1700 cases of frozen dinners loaded on the floor so its got to be all hand unloaded. Geeeze, could it get any worse. By then I may not even be able to pull away from the dock to close my rear doors. Its gonna be a long weekend folks. Glad I have a fully stocked fridge on board.

I already got my pre plan for my next load going to Maine picking up french fries then driving to Atlanta Georgia. If it weren't for the storm I would have had 3500 miles this week

I have a full tank of fuel and made it to a truck stop in Plainville Massachusetts. And trust me. The name of the city suites it. The governor has declared a state of emergency and has banned all traffic on all roads until further notice. The truck stop i am at mostly is a fuel and convenience store with overnight parking so I wont be whooping it up in the drivers lounge.

Looks Like I'm gonna be here awhile and its still snowing hard.

After clearing the snow from my truck this morning I found a nice surprise. The left headlight was busted and yellow paint on the deer guard. One of the snow plows clearing the lot scraped me last night. Of course when I confronted them about it they denied it. I called the police and made a report just to cover my butt. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what happened.

Got My Truck!

I got my Truck today. A 2014 Freightliner Cascadia light weight. It'll do!

Its in the shop getting prepped today and installing the APU so I still dont have it yet officially even though its assigned to me. I'll take some inside pictures once there done and before I load all my crap in it.

well, its been 24 hours since they assigned me my truck, and so far all have gotten to do is look at it. First they had to prep it and add the quallcom, and a few other things. This morning its in the APU shop having an APU installed, I talked to the mechanic this morning at 7:00 am. He said it would be ready by 5:00 pm, so I go over at 4:30 to check on it. Its nowhere near being ready. He says it might be tomorrow afternoon now.

Talk about dangling a carrot in front of your nose. And after the APU is installed it goes to the detail shop to get spiffed up and have a chain rack installed. again, another delay. Thank goodness I held on to the keys to the old junker I brought back. I could have stayed at the campus slums they have for students but then I would have to lug all my crap around and I'm here to tell you, 4 bags of chains and cables arent the lightest thing to be moving around. I already have a pretrip load that will be taking me home after I make the delivery. I have some unfinished business with the police dept to take care of this week. I finally will Retire.

I finally moved into my new truck today, but not without its headaches. After arriving back from Salt Lake City on Thursday I was hoping to jump right in with both feet. I was assigned my new truck on Friday, but it had to be prepped. Then it had to have an APU installed. The mechanic that was installing it must have had a chip on his shoulder and hated his job because he barely did anything to it during the 12 hours he worked on it.

so last night after he left I walked over to the shop and the night guy was there. He was about as nice as they come. he invited me to stay and watch and he would answer any questions had. well, I stayed until midnight but was getting tired so I went back to the junker and laid down for a bit, I woke up at 4:00 am and went back over to the shop. He was still working on it. I cant figure out why, but they installed a used APU on a brand new truck. Go figure. So anyway, he was due to get off at 5:00 am, but he stayed on his own time until 6:30 to get it finished. I was quite impressed. Only problem was the factory installed bunk heater was missing the fuel pump. How could that be.

Its a factory installed item. Mechanic says I need to take it to Freightliner dealer to have them install it. OK, I go to detail shop, Have chain rack installed first. Dam, those bags of chains are heavy. I check with road assist, they call dealer and they say bring it in. By now, it's 8:30 am on Sunday . dealer open on Sundays, Hmmm, So, I drive it to dealer only 10 minutes away. Of course, they say, ( our computers are down ) no way to check and see if we have the part. I'm thinking, Just carry your lazy ass down the parts isle and look. But I guess that's not how it's done anymore. So I leave the truck there, catch a ride on the shuttle back to the terminal. I immediately go to the parts counter to check on the fuel pump. Of course they had it, the parts guy laid his hands on it and showed it to me in less than 30 seconds. Like a magic trick. But since its a brand new truck its a dealer issue.. BULL,,,So, i go lay down and take a 30 minute nap. started thinking.

Why cant they fix it here and just charge the dealer. I walk over to road assist and the wheel started squeaking. apparently it squeaked enough that they put a little grease on it and I hurried back over to dealer, brought the truck back and had it fixed in our shop. Took all of 20 minutes. So now I had the task of moving out of the junker into my shinny new truck. I returned said junker to the Truck shop and commenced to organize everything. I now feel like this is my home away from home. The journey to get here has been long and arduous but also has been quite fulfilling. I would like to thank everyone on Trucking Truth and my loyal followers that have followed me along this journey. Although this will be my final entry on this thread it is just the beginning of a new journey.

Well, I made it to Salt lake city Utah.I arrived at 4:00 am and of course there was nobody that knew anything about anything. we were all very tired from the long drive so we went and got a hotel room. After getting a few hours of sleep Mark and I went back to the Terminal to get our trucks. Mark was handed the keys to a 2013 Freight liner with 38K miles on it. I on the other hand got the keys to a 2010 Freight liner that had over 300K miles.

It stunk and was a big bucket of bolts. It was literally a piece of crap. after my inspection I learned that I will only be driving it back to Primes Terminal in Springfield MO so it can be sold in auction. I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard from unreliable sources that as a consolation prize for shuttling this clunker back to the barn I will get a brand new truck when and if I make it back. I took the truck through outbound inspection because there was a check engine light on. it seems there is something wrong with the accelerator module. good to find that out before I leave out on my first solo adventure with this piece of junk. Gonna have to be repaired by Freight liner, so here I sit in the hotel another night. hope to have it fixed and a load assigned by tomorrow afternoon.

Okay, so my first day Solo. Here's how it went. I'm in Idaho but it may as well be Alaska. I wake up at DADs truck stop.its minus 5 degrees with wind chill somewhere near minus 30. I still have an hour before my 10 hours are up. I'm still driving the clunker back to the terminal but got to pick up a load of potato's; first . Well the windows and mirrors were so dirty you could hardly see thru them. I go inside and buy some windex and paper towels. As soon as i spray it on the window it ices up. Now what do I do. No ice scraper. Credit card seems to work just fine. So Forget cleaning windows and grab a biscuit and head out on my maiden voyage. I arrived at shippers on time and unscathed. They want me to scale empty before getting my spuds.

As I'm halfway on their scale the red coil air line bursts and now I'm stuck on their scale. I take a look at the air line and it was as brittle as an egg shell. Not even McGuyver could have fixed this. I called my FM and road assist and wait an hour. Meanwhile the shipper is getting ****ed that I'm blocking his scale. Of course he has no yard dog that could move my trailer if i unhooked. So i find out there is a trailer repair shop a few miles away and get a ride there. Purchase a new airline and fix it myself. . Never heard from road assist. Kinda ****ed me off but I got my potatoes and headed down the road. Hope tomorrow is a better day. Still 1100 miles to the terminal. Hope this clunker makes it. It would have been bad news if that air line burst while driving.

Another flunkie chimes in and says your load requires a USDA inspector.OK, where is he then. I'm informed it shouldn't be too much longer. I go back to my man cave and just like magic I feel the rumblings of fork lifts entering my rear. Rear of trailer that is. So we get loaded, USDA guy gives his seal of approval and he puts the seal on the back door. Great, we finish up paperwork and head to the TS to get weighed. were heading to California so we know the pin placement on tandems max is #6, so we set the pin, weigh out and were 60 lbs over on the rear. we head back to the chicken plant and guess what, USDA dude is gone, there not allowed to break the seal.

Their guy calls somebody who calls somebody and guess what USDA inspector wont be back till Thursday (today is Tuesday). we call our on duty Fleet manager who basically passes the buck and says to wait till the am and see what or regular FM says. well , on the bright side, I will get a good night sleep without the truck moving and bouncing around. So, morning comes, FM is contacted and he says, its our call, we can take it as is, or wait another day. we decide to roll the dice. we know that we can move the rear tandems to make it legal until we hit California. Then well just run the refer on half a tank of fuel so hopefully we'll be ok. You would think 60 lbs isn't that much over but why take the chance and keep your record clean right?

Nearly 2/3 done with training. Seems like I have been out here for months. Oh Yeah, it has been 2-1/2 months so far. Just completed our latest assignment under the cloak of darkness. Top Secret load from California to just north of Chicago. The kind of stuff they make movies about. Had my first experience with driving in snow. I didn't think it was too bad but everybody was driving 35 mph on the interstate for about 2 hours, then just as quick as the snow started , it was gone. I am going home for a few days at Christmas then back at it and hope to complete training by mid January.

well, after a brief visit at home for Christmas I'm back at it. Our first load took us from the east coast to the west coast. 3,300 miles. were currently backed into the receivers in Pico Reveria , California. Obviously Shippers don't always know what their doing. This is a two stop pick up and two stop delivery. were at the first delivery and discovered that it was loaded wrong and everything is all mixed up.

Everything has to be removed, sorted out and then reloaded. good thing we have plenty of time before our next delivery. we had a stop near Chicago prior to this one For the second half of the load, but we have been running non stop since we left. ran thru all kinds of weather to get here but we made it safely. I now have 24K miles towards my 30 K before they let me loose. I'm looking forward to that. Maybe another week or two, depending on the miles we get. 2 more runs like this one and I'm there.

Graduated!!

Great News. I completed my training. I am currently back at the terminal in sprawling downtown Springfield Mo. Staying at the 5 Star Campus Inn. Have a few upgrade classes then should be on my own truck Solo by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Well, today is Monday, Been back at the terminal since Thursday. Completed the SMITH system class (Basically powers of observation ) took my finial driving test on the simulator ( passed ) and took a class today on maintenance. Have 20 computer based training classes to take over the next few days. Just chilling at the Five Star Campus Slums . ( actually, not too bad) the food is digestible and free. There's about 25 of us that are here for upgrades. 16 of them are going lease and the rest company. good luck to those Lease guys. I'm sticking to company. As luck would have it, SLY48 rolled in here late Saturday night for his upgrade too. so we are in the same class. we have been hanging out a lot. There are rumors around that there might not be enough Trucks so may have to wait a little to get one, I hope not, but we will see.

So, after spending much of the day in the computer lab taking online classes, Mark (SLY48) and myself were hungry. we didn't want the pig slop served here at the motel so we decided to take a walk down the street to a place called Buckingham Smokehouse BBQ. Seemed like a good pace to eat. parking lot was rather empty considering it was 5:30 pm. We walk in an notice that it was smokey inside. ( truly a smoke house restaurant.

They told us they had a little problem but it was taken care of and we were welcome to stay if we didn't mind the smoke. Well, it wasn't really that bad, so we stayed, ordered our food and ate most of it , when all of a sudden we were told we had to leave cause the place was on fire. I was basically finished and Mark got a to go box for what was left of his dinner. They were kind enough to not charge us for the meal and as we were walking out the front door 4 fire engines showed up and the fire chief. I'll check in the morning if it burned to the ground.

Well, a bit of good news of sorts. instead of sitting around the terminal for a week waiting on a truck, I will be getting a rental car in the morning along with 4 other drivers and head to Salt Lake City Utah (1200 miles) to pick up some trucks. So looks like I will be getting a truck pretty soon. Its starting to feel real now. I'm excited.

I drive most of the way back and end up staying the night at a TS. so we arrive at 5:30am because early is on time, on time is late and late is not acceptable. So load is not ready and the underpaid guard tells us to park on the street and takes our phone number. says they will call us when we are ready to load. Keep in mind, I am only 30 mins from home at this location, So, we wait, and wait and wait some more. by the time we get loaded 14 hours later its nearly 8:00 pm,On the bright side, our load is taking us from the East coast to the West coast. 2800 miles. My first time at true team driving. Looking forward to it. see you on the west coast.

Well, made it to the west coast in near record time, Smokey and the Bandit aint got nothing on us.

was fairly uneventful ride but the scenery along the way was spectacular. Made it to Washington to Walmart DC, Unloading was very quick and before you know it, we had another assignment back to the east coast. were more than halfway there with plenty of time to spare so we are taking a 34 hr reset here in wild and wonderful Nebraska, Celebrated Turkey day here in style, did laundry and a fresh shower. ( getting them pretty regular now).

Only mishap along the way was somewhere I don't even remember, I was driving. Ernie was sleeping. about one or so in the morning. crossed a state border. the weigh sign indicated it was open, no green light on the prepass. sign says all trucks exit next right. So I get off, and go down the hill, stop light was there, so I figured I must have gotten off the exit just prior to the weigh station. At the stop light I go across the street and get right back on the interstate thinking ok, weigh station is just ahead, guess what, no station. Hmmm, WTF where did it go. I kept looking in my rear view for smokey to come chase me down, but nothing, was I dreaming the whole thing, didn't think so. So once Ernie woke up, I told him about it. He says it was a port of entry and I was supposed to turn right at the bottom of the hill,,,Hmmmm. O-well, hope I dont get busted down the road for that one.. Its been a blast so far. 8500 miles in less than 2 weeks and the first week was going as solo, now were driving team.

Its been a few day's since my last update. Normally update on my laptop but haven't had a good enough signal to connect thru my phone. Only weak 3G service. So I'm relegated to update on my phone. Since we left out of no wheres ville after Thanksgiving we delivered to Pennsylvania. After un loading we dead headed a few hundred miles to Fostoria Ohio. Load was supposed to be ready so we arrived super early in the morning.

Shipper says its not ready go park and wait. Well. That's what we truckers are good at doing. Waiting! So we wait and wait and wait some more. After many hours we go check and see what the heck is going on. Oh. Forgot to mention only facilities was a stinky outhouse. So. Underpaid person in charge says computer servers crashed. All data lost. Unknown how long till fixed. Its Sunday. Need computer geek to show up. Replace server recover lost data. Well we call FM. Tell him to take us off this load. Give us something else. We head back to TS 30 mins away and wait. Well. Next morning we get our new assignment. Back to Fostoria. Pick up same load. Computers got back on line by midnight. Tonight were waiting to be unloaded at Walmart DC in Kentucky then getting load taking me home for the weekend.

Had some hometime this past weekend. was nice to be home, took care of a little needed business there. Then headed back out on Monday morning. we got a late load assignment that could have been handled by a solo operator but were bringing home the BACON, so to speak. since our load is a bunch of Bacon. More of the same, hurry up and wait. have 12,000 of my 30,000 miles so far before my upgrade. everything seems to be going great. Miss my girl already. Hope she knows that.

Another update.over 15K miles now so training is halfway over. we have been getting some sweet runs lately delivering FedEx from PA to Dallas, Then Dallas to NJ and now another to parts unknown mid west. there very quick but long runs, very fast turn around, no hurry up and wait like it has been. Having a great time so far.

Well, Here's a new twist to the hurry up and wait game. After the sweet FedEx runs we had were back to hauling chicken parts. So we arrive at The Tyson Food plant at Noon like our appointment called for. after checking in with the underpaid security guard, ( who must be celebrating Christmas in her own style by having bright red hair) we go to the receiving office. the guy in charge tells us to just drop the trailer and come back at 6:00 pm and it will be ready. OK, so we go to the closest TS and have lunch and chill.

We arrive back early at 5:30 and the trailer is right where we left it, go figure!, so the yard dog tells us to hook up and back into door #3, (I should have been looking for Monty Hall, kinda feels like lets make a deal) I wish I had picked Door #4. So while were endlessly waiting two other trucks back into door #4 get loaded and leave, and they haven't even started loading us yet. WTF, so I go inside and the girl behind the glass is busy filing her nails, I asked what the hold up was, we were backed into the dock for 3 hours by now.