Two Days Of Fun And Adventure, Plus A General Update

I finally got to drive the manual tractor trailer. Considering I haven't touched a manual transmission, truck, since CDL school, it was trial by fire. The first day with it I had to go to a yard and fuel six locomotives. I should have used the straight truck as that yard is small. I had to turn around and thought I had the room, but there was a pile of railroad ties in my way. I had to move the out of the way. Railroad ties are quite heavy. That was hot, sweaty and dirty work. I got the job done. Then went to the refinery and refiled the tank, the trailer holds 7000 gallons. The straight truck only holds about 4300 gallons. I had emptied it fueling those trains.

there are only two people on for each shift except for Sunday when it's all three per shift. Last night they had too many locomotives to fuel for one person. The other guy had the straight truck and I had the semi. I had to got to a huge yard. While there I snagged a trailer wheel on a piece of concrete. I was coming around a tight turn and was blinded by a locomotive with its brights on. i could not see and thought I was clear. Well road service got there just as I finished fueling the last train and emptying my tank. When he finished, I went to the refinery, reloaded the tank and headed back to the office. There I did my paperwork and relaxed for the last couple of hours.

I am really enjoying this job and company. We work 60 hous per week. I am on night shift, my hours are 18:00 to 06:00, with Wednesday and Thursday off. I like the night shift, I am getting more rest. I have about a 10 to 20 minute commute, depending on traffic lights and traffic. it's 6 miles from my driveway to work. There is a cell phone for the fuel truck and one for the service (LST) truck. You hang onto whichever phone for the truck your assigned to that day. We are on either fuel or LST two days, then we switch. I have been on fuel the last two days, tomorrow, I'll be on LST. The fuel trucks have computers that go to the railroad. These computers keep track of the fuel in and out. They help us too. We have sheets that we fill out each day for what we did. That all goes to the railroad and our company.

Logs are much different for me we do not have a tablet in the truck. There are three tablets, you gab one when your ready to roll. We log into that tablet and then a truck. We can do that while sitting in the office. Once i go on duty, it has you log a pretrip, then I don"t touch it until I'm ready to log off. It automatically goes into drive and after we are stopped, it will go to on duty. I don't worry about running out of hours. There are days where we just sit in the office for a whole shift. Many days I'm done by 22:00. Then it's just wait to see if we are called. W have set things to do each day, but sometimes those things don't happen. We are on call for the rail road. The office is in a rail yard and we hear these trains all day long. the are constantly hooking and unhooking rail cars.

I enjoy being home every day, sleeping in my own bed, having my own bathroom. I miss the sights of this great country but not the life on the road. right now I have a little less than an hour and a half until it's time to go home.

Stay safe out there.

Scott

Big Scott,

It is a pleasure to read your new journey. I of course had the pleasure of meeting you in person at the Loves in Wytheville, VA. with my wife while we were rving a couple of years ago.

Your positive attitude is why you will be successful in this new adventure. It really seems like this is a good fit for you. Have fun and be safe around those locomotives.

Big Scott,

It is a pleasure to read your new journey. I of course had the pleasure of meeting you in person at the Loves in Wytheville, VA. with my wife while we were rving a couple of years ago.

Your positive attitude is why you will be successful in this new adventure. It really seems like this is a good fit for you. Have fun and be safe around those locomotives.

Thank you. It was great having that chance to meet up. If you're ever in Charlotte, hit me up. Never know if I'm available for a long or quick meet up.

Yezir, Big Scott. That all sounds great - especially sleeping in your own bed every night! Glad to hear things are working out for you!

Really interesting stuff about your new job. Please keep up the reports as new adventures happen.

BTW, didn’t you go vegan some time ago? How is that going? Just remember that if everybody did that I would be out of my job hauling dead cow. Lol

Sounds like a chill job! Glad you’re enjoying it. How much driving do you get to do generally? Are the yards pretty close together?

BTW, didn’t you go vegan some time ago? How is that going? Just remember that if everybody did that I would be out of my job hauling dead cow. Lol

I'm still vegan and very happy. I currently have two vegan cook books and I have been trying different things. last week I made cinnamon buns from scratch.

How much driving do you get to do generally? Are the yards pretty close together?

We usually drive an hour or less each way. But we can be sent to Agusta, GA., Raliegh, NC or other places. Today it was Charlotte to Greensboro and back. We have two other yards in Charlotte we service.