Schneider Bulk - Leaving For Training Today!

Well I will be driving to the Pittsburgh area this afternoon to start my Schneider Bulk orientation/training tomorrow morning.

Training lasts about 25 days. 10-11 days in the terminal doing paperwork, classroom training, range training, and so on; then another 10-11 with trainer doing OTR (no team driving, I sleep in truck and trainer gets a hotel); then another 2-3 days at terminal for more paperwork and final skills testing.

I will try to post updates when I can. Feel free to private message me if you have specific questions, I will try to answer as well.

Sounds awesome! Best of luck to ya! And we're hoping you'll be able to post some updates so we can follow along. Ya can't just keep us hangin!

Just arrived at the hotel. Nice big room, full kitchen, two beds. Shopping area around us, WalMart, Burger King, and all the typical American shopping center things you could want within walking distance (I drove my own car though).

Met my roommate in the lobby. He arrived with his wife and rented a separate room that they will stay in for the first few days here. Looked like she brought half their house with them lol. Seems like a nice guy.

Shuttle to the terminal is at 6:15am tomorrow morning. First thing we do is the Pre-Work Screen. I am a small guy so I am kind of worried...

Will update tomorrow I guess.

Glad you arrived and you're ready to go!

Fun, fun, fun!

Just got back to the hotel after first day. A lot of paperwork in the morning and pre-work screen. We started with 16 in class and lost 3 because of the pre-work screen. After that we did some some logbook review and general company introduction for the rest of the day.

I wish you the best of luck ThinksTooMuch.

Day 2

Little classroom work in the morning involving Tanker Rollover Prevention. Was a little scary learning how many turnovers occur during SLOW maneuvering in tankers... After the classroom lecture we had to take a computer based knowledge check on the subject, pretty standard stuff.

After lunch we were paired with our instructor and two other students. Instructor told us what he expects from us and what we should expect from him. He told us to ask questions or be beaten with a stick! Just kidding, but he did insist we ask questions, no matter how small they may seem.

Instructor took us out to the truck, we pre-tripped it the Schneider way (basicly the same as my school). There were a few added parts because of the pump and compressor controls for the liquid product. We also pre-tripped the tanker, which was basicly the same as my school except for the parts unique to a tanker, and the climbing ontop of the tanker. It was 90 degrees and we had to put on our safety helmets, safety glasses, and PVC gloves for most of the pre-trip... It is gonna be REAL fun when we have to put on full NoMex Suits in this weather!

Then instructor took us out about 15 minutes away from the terminal , he introduced us to SURGE. Then he pulled over and let the trainees drive for 15 minutes. Nothing fancy, nice and slow only up to 35 mph. Instructor was seeing how well we shift, telling us to up, down, skip, etc, etc. I was lucky at school we did a bunch of skip shifting both up and down. The other 2 guys did not feel as comfortable skip shifting.

Tomorrow we will be in the truck all day, no classroom.

Nice update! Love it!

I drove a food-grade tanker for a year one time and that was a really fun job. Talk about surge??? There are no baffles in food grade tankers the way there are in chemical tankers. It's like a huge thermos bottle. So if you have 48,000 pounds of liquid, it all moves at one time the entire length of the trailer. I've had it surge forward so hard that it knocked my hat clear off my head onto the dash and knocked everything off the shelves in the bunk. Sounds like an explosion!

But pulling tankers is pretty cool. It's an interesting style of trucking.

Love the updates! That sort of rundown is super helpful to those getting ready to begin their CDL schooling or orientation. Let's em know what they can expect when the time comes.

What caused the problem for the three that didn't make it through the pre work?

Looking forward to your updates. Keep 'em coming. Good luck!!!!!

Day 3

We did our pre-trip in the morning. First day they gave us all a few papers with the pre-trip, post-trip, and all that sort of stuff listed step by step. Instructor told us to keep the sheets with us as many months/years/decades as we need to and to just follow each step.

I drove first, straight out of the Operating Center. There's a nice hill going out of the OC so I got to practice skip shifting 3, 5, 7. We did a little curvy and hilly country roads today. I am having trouble getting comfortable with the shift lever, it is SO much different than at school. All the gears seem to be much closer together and it eases out of gear on the first clutch tap pretty easily. During one shift I was going from 3 to 4, and it came out of 3rd so easily that I popped it into 2nd by accident.

I drove for about 2 hours, both country hills/curves and highway. Then the other 2 guys drove. We've been driving with a full tanker with anti-freeze in it. I think Saturday and Sunday they are having us pull empty tankers, but not sure. From now on we do morning driving, then afternoon classroom.