Pretrip For Doubles. Rough Night And Some Good News

So I have been pulling doubles for 6 months now and I have truly enjoyed it. The transition has been overall very easy. The biggest thing besides the extra time of hooking doubles is there are 2 additional pieces of equipment to pretrip. The converter dolly and the additional trailer. A few weeks ago I had to drop in one of our outlier yards where my company is renting spaces. I drop my loaded trailers and hook their empties and bring them back to my yard. When I hook up the empty set which is on a brand new trailer , I notice that the piston which comes out of the tow hook to secure my dolly is upside down.

So I have to break the set down and reverse the order which is ok since both are empty. When it is finished it is supposed to look like this

If you look at both pictures you will notice one barely has any overlap and one goes over the hook quite a bit. This prevents the hook from popping out. Well the thing that sucks was when I went over everything and checked my hoses to the dolly . A “bubble” appeared. Wasn’t there when I broke the set down but appeared when I supplied air the second time.. it can happen that quick

This sucked because I didn’t have anything to repair the hose with. It would have been as simple as cutting it at the bubble, and putting a new compression fitting on and screwing it in. But I didn’t have said fitting. I decided that I couldn’t pull the rear trailer so I had to leave it. Drive 1.5 hrs back to my yard. And drop the 1 trailer and the dolly , bobtail back and get the trailer I left. I normally only have about 8 hrs a day on duty time but I had about 20 minutes left on my 14 when I shut down. I went to maintenance the next day and got some extra hose and some extra fittings which I secured to my dolly for extra. I will NOT get caught off guard again. I am just happy I caught the bubble and didn’t have that line pop and have my rear trailer lock up while going down the road!

Good news is also I was recognized as shuttle driver if the month for our southeastern division for the month of November.

I am still enjoying my time here and feel that if you do your job correctly you will be paid fairly and left alone.

Congrats Sir!! Well deserved recognition.

We all work with or have worked with those folks who don’t pay attention to the details. We as drivers see those folks and after awhile so do the other employee’s be it office staff or shop staff.

You saved yourself alot of headaches not to mention lord knows what MAY have happened on the road.

I've never seen that before, had one or two trailers the ram didn't move on.

Good catch!

I have horrible luck with airlines on dollies, so I feel your pain there.

So I have been pulling doubles for 6 months now and I have truly enjoyed it. The transition has been overall very easy. The biggest thing besides the extra time of hooking doubles is there are 2 additional pieces of equipment to pretrip. The converter dolly and the additional trailer. A few weeks ago I had to drop in one of our outlier yards where my company is renting spaces. I drop my loaded trailers and hook their empties and bring them back to my yard. When I hook up the empty set which is on a brand new trailer , I notice that the piston which comes out of the tow hook to secure my dolly is upside down.

So I have to break the set down and reverse the order which is ok since both are empty. When it is finished it is supposed to look like this

If you look at both pictures you will notice one barely has any overlap and one goes over the hook quite a bit. This prevents the hook from popping out. Well the thing that sucks was when I went over everything and checked my hoses to the dolly . A “bubble” appeared. Wasn’t there when I broke the set down but appeared when I supplied air the second time.. it can happen that quick

This sucked because I didn’t have anything to repair the hose with. It would have been as simple as cutting it at the bubble, and putting a new compression fitting on and screwing it in. But I didn’t have said fitting. I decided that I couldn’t pull the rear trailer so I had to leave it. Drive 1.5 hrs back to my yard. And drop the 1 trailer and the dolly , bobtail back and get the trailer I left. I normally only have about 8 hrs a day on duty time but I had about 20 minutes left on my 14 when I shut down. I went to maintenance the next day and got some extra hose and some extra fittings which I secured to my dolly for extra. I will NOT get caught off guard again. I am just happy I caught the bubble and didn’t have that line pop and have my rear trailer lock up while going down the road!

Good news is also I was recognized as shuttle driver if the month for our southeastern division for the month of November.

I am still enjoying my time here and feel that if you do your job correctly you will be paid fairly and left alone.

Congratulations on your award! Well deserved I’m sure.

However, you failed to black out your name in the award announcement, the one in small print. So, now that the name is out, can you also give us your SS # and routing #?

Congratulations on your award! Well deserved I’m sure.

However, you failed to black out your name in the award announcement, the one in small print. So, now that the name is out, can you also give us your SS # and routing #?

I saw that also Bruce with the one in the title being blocked out. For once I could expand the picture, which I normally can't do, and was able to read the write-up.... and saw the info. Your comment was way funnier than what I was thinking early this morning. 😂

Congratulations Papa Pig! It's deserved I'm sure!

Congratulations on your recognition from management. Great catch on that ram installation.

Good news is also I was recognized as shuttle driver if the month for our southeastern division for the month of November.

Where are my manors?Sorry, I got so excited to see a post about doubles , I forgot to say congratulations on the award.

Congratulations on the award!!!

Bobcat Bob You just reminded me that I don’t see much about doubles on here. Would anyone like to see a how to of how to hook up or anyone that is interested in getting doubles like to see the components that you are studying for? I know it was all Greek to me and I passed the test without really understanding. Bobcat Bob would you be willing to contribute? We may have a different way of handling Dolly because if different types. We use silver eagles . Would you be willing to collab with a how to? Brett. Do you thing this may be something of interest?

Bobcat Bob You just reminded me that I don’t see much about doubles on here. Would anyone like to see a how to of how to hook up or anyone that is interested in getting doubles like to see the components that you are studying for? I know it was all Greek to me and I passed the test without really understanding. Bobcat Bob would you be willing to contribute? We may have a different way of handling Dolly because if different types. We use silver eagles . Would you be willing to collab with a how to? Brett. Do you thing this may be something of interest?

Heck yeah! I doubt that I will ever pull doubles, but I’d love to see more about the process/equipment. Great idea.

Congratulations on the award.

I've also never seen an upside down ram. That's pretty crazy.

I have horrible luck with airlines on dollies

That's the thing I like about my building. My dolly stays attached to my tractor. While it's not assigned, nobody takes it. My tractor is in the shop and has been for about a week, but my dolly is still in my parking spot.

The only time I leave my dolly and take one from the pool is when I'm doing a swap. I like my dolly and I'm not willing to part with it.

If I do have an issue with an electrical cord or an airline it's a 2 minute stop at the shop to get it fixed.