So Now It Has Come To This.... It's Great.

Can anyone guess what I have been up to? And if you say THAT of which you were think just know I only do THAT on the second Saturday of the fifth week of the 13th month of the year. Just so ya know.

But seriously. So may remember a while ago there was a thread about ABF and of course I responded with what little I knew of them. That knowledge came from working with them... Sort of.

No I don't work for ABF. And if there is a god up in the sky, since everyone looks up to ask "Why God oh why?" where else would he be, I never will.

Now I am not bashing ABF. They are a good company. One of the better ones to work for except for one thing. They are Union. But enough of that. Don't want to get started on the union or I may never stop.

We still work for Werner. Can't think of a single reason to leave. Besides their insurance makes all others seem worse than welfare. :D we have officially entered into the doubles fleet. I was one of those people that used to despise double and triples and spoke out against them as being dangerous. I was speaking from a place of the uninformed. It's the the equipment that is dangerous. It's the people pulling them.

What made me even try them some was guaranteed miles or money. However you want to look at it. We have no problems with the miles we are getting now. Most times it up around 6500 to 6800 a week. But every once in a while, due to hours or home time or whatever else can pop up, you might have a not so stellar week. Pulling a mix of doubles and 53 foot dry vans maximizes our revenue. Here is the deal. If we pull one set of doubles only once then we are guaranteed 5000 miles for that week even if we sit the rest of the week, which we won't, but ya never know. Now we still get normal milage pay and will still get our normal miles each week but if something were to happen and we pulling one set of doubles then we still get 5000 miles for the week. It's a win win for us.

Oh its far from perfect and as most know I am pretty blunt when I have something to say but this time I will refrain from speaking against the drivers of that company. Man is that a hard thing to do but I won't because we do our best not to bash a company or or their drivers.

Had to stand across the dirt lot just to get the entire thing in view. Yes and it's longer than a truck and 53 foot trailer. Notice how far back the 5th wheel is? A lot of space there. My 5th wheel is 18 inches father back than a normal trucks. The 5th wheel has to be that far back so the back of the frame rail don't hit the landing gear but the 5th wheel and be slide all the way up to the right spot to be legal on any 53 foot trail. Over all we are about about 10 foot longer than when we pull a 53 foot trail.

Does driving doubles change your rate of pay? It seems like backing with doubles/triples would get complicated.

Does driving doubles change your rate of pay? It seems like backing with doubles/triples would get complicated.

It certainly should raise the pay a bit.

You can try backing em and it will work for short distances. But you'll be there all day if you have to try to get it to go around a curve or go longer distances so you'll normally pull through when you can or back one trailer at a time.

And backing em isn't the problem - stopping on slick roads is the problem. Now you have two different places on the vehicle you can jackknife.

Guyjax, how old are those trailers? Do they at least have automatic slack adjusters? Cuz man you really have to have both sets of trailer brakes adjusted properly with doubles.

Does driving doubles change your rate of pay? It seems like backing with doubles/triples would get complicated.

You don't backup with double and triples. The are 3 pivot point. Can't control all of them.

Does driving doubles change your rate of pay? It seems like backing with doubles/triples would get complicated.

It certainly should raise the pay a bit.

You can try backing em and it will work for short distances. But you'll be there all day if you have to try to get it to go around a curve or go longer distances so you'll normally pull through when you can or back one trailer at a time.

And backing em isn't the problem - stopping on slick roads is the problem. Now you have two different places on the vehicle you can jackknife.

Guyjax, how old are those trailers? Do they at least have automatic slack adjusters? Cuz man you really have to have both sets of trailer brakes adjusted properly with doubles.

Yea they are modern trailer. Slack adjusters and everything.

It's double set fever on this forum.

LTL is not joke. No sooner than I pull in the driveway with one set of doubles with 15 minutes I am hooking up to another set and heading out. No waiting on loads. Only reason you sit is if your out of hours.

LTL is not joke. No sooner than I pull in the driveway with one set of doubles with 15 minutes I am hooking up to another set and heading out. No waiting on loads. Only reason you sit is if your out of hours.

So I"ve been told! I suppose that's one reason why the linehaul guys make some bucks, and are probably really tired.

Guy, anymore tid bits you can give about hooking up a set of doubles? I start my job at an LTL company on Monday. I'll be pulling doubles running linehaul. I'm all ears if you've got anything to say!

Guy, anymore tid bits you can give about hooking up a set of doubles? I start my job at an LTL company on Monday. I'll be pulling doubles running linehaul. I'm all ears if you've got anything to say!

Once you get there you will be trained on how to hook up and unhook the trailers and the dollies. Have no worry about that. There is no secret. There are to two ways to up and unhook trailers and dollies. The right way will give you a bright career in trucking. The wrong way just might kill you. And that's no lie.

Everything will be gone over I trying but the dangerous part I want to point out is the dolly. In and of itself it's harmless unless it rolls on top of your foot then you will be limping around with a flat foot. Lol. You will never see a dolly hooked to a trail on the 5th wheel unless it's first attached to a trailer and locked into place with the pintel hook. Reason is if the dolly is released from the pintel hook before the last trailers weight is taken off the 5th wheel the dolly arm will fly up and possibly hitting up.

Example would be... Ever jumped on a teeter trotter? Seen how fast the other side flies up? Now imagine that teeter trotter is the dolly and instead of human weight moving the teeter trotter you have 12,000 lbs pushing down on one side and the other side flies up faster than you can blink. If I had to give it a speed it might be 400 to 500 feet pre second. And those dolly arms are solid steel where it hooks to the front trailers pintel hook. I don't even want to know what would happen it one made contact with your head. Not a pretty site.

The only other thing, which you should be shown during trying, is the plunger. It's a piece of shaped steel that when the brake are released it pushes against the eye hole of the trailer dolly and helps hold it in place in the pintel hook. When the brakes are released the plunger is held in place with about 6,000 lbs of pressure against the eye hook of the dolly. If a finger is caught between the plunger and the eye hook it will flatten it. Not fixing the finger. There will be nothing left of it. Basically your finger would become jelly.

Other than those two things it's not much different than a 53 foot trailer except, even thought I am in a full sized truck and over all 10 longer than a normal truck and trailer, I can go into places and get out of places a 53 foot could not.

Like I said you will be shown how to do your job during training. Look, listen and remember cause your life may depend on it. Ask questions about everything. Even the same questions. I will tell you what I used to tell my students when I was a trainer... "If there is a doubt then there is a question... Ask it."