Xpo Questions

LTL typically means local right? I’m interested because my wife doesn’t want me to go OTR and xpo has a student driver program that’s LTL. Im 21 and own a house, i have an interview tomorrow with them and I’m just curious to find out if this is legitimate

Brett V, LTL means less than truckload. XPO used to be Con-Way Freight and you will be local if you are interviewing for XPO freight and not XPO Lodistics. You could work the dock, drive daytime delivering and picking up freight locally in your area or work linehaul either daytime or nighttime and still work the dock when you get to a terminal of your dispatch. You will be paid hourly if dock or local and by mile if linehaul plus hourly if dock work performed. It's a good company overall but will have it's problems as anywhere can. I worked for Con-Way for 13 years on both local and linehaul as a driver trainer and enjoyed it. I hope someone who works for XPO will way in with the specific details for you. Good luck.

Welcome Brett.

As Navy Pop-pop stated LTL is less-than-load, where as TL is truckload. Prime, Swift and Schneider are TL carriers, Old Dominion, ABF, etc., are LTL Carriers.

If you are local for an LTL Cartier, 9x out of 10 you will be P&D , so typically local. For an entry level driver local work is very difficult and risky. Under the best of circumstances the first 12 months of trucking has a very steep learning curve. Add-in local driving and the curve is even steeper requiring management of multiple stops, congested urban driving, and frequent close quarter maneuvering. Very tricky stuff at times, requiring a more seasoned driver. For these reasons, local driving isn’t recommended for entry level drivers.

If however it’s your only option proceed with your eyes wide open, know what you are getting yourself into, invest some time reading Rob’s Diary in the diary section and hope that some of the other local and LTL drivers chime in with additional input. One other thought, follow one of the XPO drivers with a daycab and single trailer (pup or 48’). See what he has to deal with throughout a 12-14 hour day.

In the meantime, I highly advise you reviewing and studying the contents of theses links:

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road CDL Training Program
• CDL Practice Tests

I think it wise to have your wife read the first two links, especially Becoming A Truck Driver: The Raw Truth About Truck Driving. You really cannot succeed at this unless you and the Misses are on the same page (no pun intended).

Good luck!

Just some info on XPO. They are a huge international logistics company that jumped into trucking a few years ago by buying Comway. They then sold off the truckload division and it was bought by a Canadian company who wanted the CFI name. I was trained by and drive for CFI.

Hey Brett. So the previous guys gave pretty good descriptions on LTL. I just figured I would chime in as someone who worked for Old Dom. A similar LTL company to XPO. The job is difficult. No lie. If you're doing P&D there's not telling what kind of situations you'll find yourself in. OD even did residential deliveries. Let me tell you how much fun that was lol. You're gonna have to deliver freight of all kinds. I've delivered things from 55gallon barrels of resin to a shipyard. Snowblowers to a person's home. Pallets of ammo. Furniture. Long peices of sheet metal. A church steeple. The list goes on.

Going local isn't recommend for a new driver. I went local right out of school for the same reasons you're thinking of now. My family was too important to me. I did well with my first local company and moved on to OD. I screwed myself with OD because I had an accident during my probation period. Luckily it didn't cost me another job but it could have. So use that as a cautionary tale. It's a great job. Especially for a guy who doesn't want to or can't leave his family. But it doesn't come without risks.

Sorry I can't speak to the company personally, although I've heard good things. Actually thinking about applying to a spot that just opened up near me. So I'll just say this. Do your due diligence and research all your possible options. If in the end the XPO program fits your situation best than go for it. Just be warned that it's not an easy job and the likely hood of having an incident are going to go way up which could result in you screwing yourself in this job entirely.

Best of luck to you

Man that was some great advice Heavy C!

I'm so glad you jumped in on this one. Your experience adds a lot of weight to what you and others are saying. The diversity of experience in here is really helpful in a conversation like this one.

Man! Thank you guys so much for the feedback and support. I went to the interview and got offered the position! Told me to take my DT tomorrow. I think I’m going to go for it, I’ve been reading into the forums for the past month or so now and have read a ton of articles. I’m still trying to grasp the difficulty of local driving, but I won’t see it till I do it. I appreciate everyone’s opinion and it helped out a lot with my decision. Again thanks guys I will read into all this information you guys have given me and thanks for help out the young guy most people give the young guy the cold shoulder!

Brett, You have come to the best advice forum in the industry. You will not find any better advice anywhere than here. Read all the posts and try to understand and evaluate everyone's help and you will make the best choice that is for you. Like I side previously and in your other post XPO is a huge Logistics company that has purchased the former Conway Transportation companies here in the USA. You will make good money and have a slew of benefits too. With XPO you will either be a P & D driver [local in the city during AM], a linehaul driver running to different terminals or "meet & turns with drivers from other terminals either AM or PM or you might be strictly a dock worker or dock to driver. No matter which they offer you it is home every day or night as it may be and usually off weekends. Good luck and grab the XPO bull by the horns.

Man! Thank you guys so much for the feedback and support. I went to the interview and got offered the position! Told me to take my DT tomorrow. I think I’m going to go for it, I’ve been reading into the forums for the past month or so now and have read a ton of articles. I’m still trying to grasp the difficulty of local driving, but I won’t see it till I do it. I appreciate everyone’s opinion and it helped out a lot with my decision. Again thanks guys I will read into all this information you guys have given me and thanks for help out the young guy most people give the young guy the cold shoulder!

Don’t know if you’ve browsed this diary Rob T.’s local delivery diary But it’ll really open your eyes as to the daily challenges you might face going this route. It’s not that it isn’t manageable, it’s just the added stress of driving an 80,000 lbs behemoth on wheels with a bunch of 4 wheelers making your job that much more difficult.

I just drove thru VA, DC & MD during rush hour!! It felt like I was driving in NYC traffic. I felt the same tension I used feel driving around Manhattan every day. I hadn’t experienced it this bad in any other city since starting my OTR career with Prime back in March.

I wish you & your new family all the best. The better prepared you go into this new chapter of your life, the better your chances of success. God bless & stay safe.

Congratulations on the job offer. It would help many if you document your training in our training diaries section. Good luck to you.