Crete / Shaffer Or Schneider - Southeastern PA

Hello everyone! After 3 years of research and just plain old timing, my family and I are about to start our life in trucking. I start evening classes (8 weeks long) in May. I've done plenty of research into trucking companies with orientation and terminals near our home. Needless to say there are LOTS of trucking opportunities around Carlisle, York, Harrisburg and Lancaster PA.

At this point we've narrowed it down to Crete Carrier, Shaffer Trucking or Schneider National. They all have orientation and terminals within a 1/2 hour drive of our home. All seem like great companies. Still not sure about whether I'd be interested in dry van , reefer , or tanker. SNI seems to offer more opportunity, Crete/Shaffer have their positives. Anybody out there familiar with these outfits, especially where we live? It seems that opinions fluctuate due to whether or not drivers get their miles, and it seems that we live where a lot of freight is available. Just trying to steer clear of NYC ;) Both Crete/Shaffer and SNI have dedicated and regional accounts in our area. Thanks for any input! Bill

Steer clear of NYC? Pittsburg is way worse. But anyway why focus on just companies with terminals near you? You are eliminating about 98% of the companies out there. I drive for Werner and they have no terminals any where near my house Where you live only plays a 1% into your ability to work for a company. The rest is up to you. If your concerned about home time then don't be. It does not matter if you live 10 feet from the terminal or 500 miles. You home time will be the same. Every 3 to 6 weeks on average.

Either company will be a great company to start with and even stay with. Though SNI has more divisions you can get good miles with either company. The main deciding factor that makes and breaks a driver at a company is attitude.

Do you have any specific questions about Crete? I guess you are interested in running out of their New Kingstown terminal?

I started with Schneider in 2000 began with a dedicated account PPG that was over the road included Canada, I liked it well enough, however I had the opportunity to switch to a Wal Mart account in Bedford Pa, that was the best driving job ever. You delivered to Super Centers and Sams Clubs (new buildings with lots of room to back into docks). I know they have built new distribution centers so I can't tell where the delivery lanes are now, (from Bedford) but there is plenty of miles and the people then working for SNI were great, it was like family. That was when Schneider was doing in house training.

Hello everyone! After 3 years of research and just plain old timing, my family and I are about to start our life in trucking. I start evening classes (8 weeks long) in May. I've done plenty of research into trucking companies with orientation and terminals near our home. Needless to say there are LOTS of trucking opportunities around Carlisle, York, Harrisburg and Lancaster PA.

At this point we've narrowed it down to Crete/Shaffer or Schneider. Both have orientation and terminals within a 1/2 hour drive of our home. Both seem like great companies. Still not sure about whether I'd be interested in dry van , reefer , or tanker. SNI seems to offer more opportunity, Crete/Shaffer have their positives. Anybody out there familiar with these outfits, especially where we live? It seems that opinions fluctuate due to whether or not drivers get their miles, and it seems that we live where a lot of freight is available. Just trying to steer clear of NYC ;) Both Crete/Shaffer and SNI have dedicated and regional accounts in our area. Thanks for any input! Bill

Do you have any specific questions about Crete? I guess you are interested in running out of their New Kingstown terminal?

Do you work for Crete? Yes, New Kingstown is in my backyard - so to speak. I've spoken w/ recruiters from both Crete and Shaffer. Seems like Shaffer has more opportunity for dedicated and regional lanes out of Harrisburg / New Kingston, not sure if that's because it's 'Shaffer territory' or not. I've seen posted on more than one forum (not this one) that Crete tends to have more consistent miles. Not sure how relative that is to certain spots in the country. I'd imagine if anything that Shaffer would have more consistent miles in my area, but then again, what do I know? That's why I"m asking ;) I"ve also been told by other drivers, and the recruiters, that if there's a lack of freight on the Shaffer side, I could pull a Crete van for some miles.

Steer clear of NYC? Pittsburg is way worse. But anyway why focus on just companies with terminals near you? You are eliminating about 98% of the companies out there. I drive for Werner and they have no terminals any where near my house Where you live only plays a 1% into your ability to work for a company. The rest is up to you. If your concerned about home time then don't be. It does not matter if you live 10 feet from the terminal or 500 miles. You home time will be the same. Every 3 to 6 weeks on average.

Either company will be a great company to start with and even stay with. Though SNI has more divisions you can get good miles with either company. The main deciding factor that makes and breaks a driver at a company is attitude.

Thanks for your response. I have my reasons for looking for companies that are close by w/ terminals. One of which is because for the long term, I am not interested in OTR but more regional or local - preferably a dedicated account if available. SNI requires that you live within a certain distance of those terminals / cities where dedicated or regional jobs are offered.

Phil P. - You confirmed what I've seen and heard frequently about SNI, that it's a great place to work, and feels like family even though it is a large corporation. They have a lot of opportunities for regional and local jobs where I live. They also have the tuition reimbursement, which is a plus. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they have any local tanker jobs available, and I'm not sure if they need to offer jobs where you are in order to train for tanker. I"m still deciding on what I might be interested in to start with: dry van , reefer , or tanker. Seems like dry van might be easiest in the beginning, but I"m not trying to limit myself. Plus I won't know till I just get some experience. I'd love to try all of them eventually.

Crete recently advised drivers to avoid the shop at New Kingstown for a month. They were trying to get the terminal prepared for the new dedicated accounts. Crete and Shaffer both have a main freight lane in the Northeast. Shaffer can pull Crete trailers, and vice versa. Shaffer pays 1cpm higher than Crete. Each company has their own dedicated accounts also.

Here is my training diary:

My Time In Training With Crete Carrier Corp.

Go with Schneider and pull a tanker out of the Carlisle, PA terminal. It will be OTR or Regional , only local tanker jobs for Schneider around us are in NJ, that's where all the customers are. But Schneider has local intermodal jobs out of Carlisle, and other local stuff as well I believe. But you need experience for those.

I worked for Schneider Bulk my first 6 months of my career. I loved it. Got amazing training. Loved the people I worked with. Only left because I got something local with US Xpress. I ran from NJ down to Houston a lot, so was always stopping at the Carlisle terminal before I went down I-81... so freight shouldn't be a huge issue I would assume.

Crete also has a lot of freight around here. I see them all the time pulling Wal-Mart trailers. They even have a local intermodal job around here somewhere as I've seen Crete daycabs pulling rail containers. I didn't think Crete hired new drivers though, only 4+ months experience last time I spoke with them.