This is great. I do this frequently; when I get back to the D.C. with a little extra time, but not quite enough for a second load, I always ask if any trailer shuttling needs to be done either to Mauser's Potato farm or from the Jonestown terminal.
Since they know I am usually willing to do this type of work, many times they will ask me. It's easy money and overall helping dispatch and the DLs maintain a smoother operation.
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
I, too, ask for extras if I'm sitting babysitting a load with a firm delivery appointment and have time to kill. I get paid well for completing these little "honey-do's" for dispatch or load planning. Sure beats sitting around twiddling my thumbs, bored. For instance I came back from the East coast with a very high value load. I could have easily delivered it a day and a half early, but the consignee was closed on weekends so my delivery appointment couldn't be bumped up. Not wanting to babysit this thing at a truck stop I brought it to one of our terminals with a secure lot that was 2 hours away from the consignee. I arrived with 7 hours of drive time available. Called dispatch and said, "gee I'm sitting here, can't deliver yet, but I've got hours if you need anything done". Naturally they were thrilled and said they'd find me something. Turns out another driver had run out of hours in Gary, IN but was supposed to deliver a load in the western suburbs of Chicago that evening by 1800. I dropped that trailer, found the best empty I could find, took it to the other driver at the TA in Gary and delivered his load for him--early too. It only took me like 3 hours to do the whole thing but I made an extra $150 for my efforts lol. If I'd have said nothing, I could have easily sat there and taken a ridiculously long break or go make some extra money and still have a longer break.
Make things happen and your company will LOVE you!
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
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Well as many on here have stated in some form or another. There’s $$ out there to be made it’s just a matter of who’s gonna make it. So I had a load of lumber coming out of Arkansas to deliver in Ennis TX that was due this morning. Since I knew I would be getting there last night I emailed my dispatcher and politely ask, “You think you might have anything in the yard I could run in the morning while I wait on my next trailer is loaded.” Reply: Come see me at 07:30. So I show up and he says there’s a concrete barrier company about 10 miles away and we need 4 loads from there to our new terminal site (about 35 miles round trip). So I run 4 loads of 3 30’ barriers, takes about 4-5 hours. I called a little later to let him know I had finished & would drop off the paperwork for him tomorrow. As these were basically in house loads there wasn’t really any set pay for them but he did let me know that for my efforts this morning I made an extra $243.00 today. Now I know there’s not always something available for you but it never hurts to ask.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
Dispatcher:
Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager
The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.