Life Of A Tank Driver

Several tanker companies hire new cdl grads. No experience required, only need a cdl school diploma. Schneider Bulk CTL Transportation Superior-Carriers Tidewater Transit McKenzie Tank Lines SVTN Girton Propane Service Trimac Transportation Western Dairy Transport Dairy Farmers of America

Tanks for the continuing updates Dan (see what I did there?).

Nice of you to come back occasionally and keep the board updated on your progress - we appreciate it. Congrats on your milestone(s) of 14 months and 100K miles.

Several tanker companies hire new cdl grads. No experience required, only need a cdl school diploma. Schneider Bulk CTL Transportation Superior-Carriers Tidewater Transit McKenzie Tank Lines SVTN Girton Propane Service Trimac Transportation Western Dairy Transport Dairy Farmers of America

We "typically" don't recommend newly minted CDL drivers go right into tanker out of school. It might be better to get some miles & experience under your belt, learning how to operate a rig - before taking on the added complications of 40K+ lbs of load that sloshes around all the time.

Food tankers are always "smooth bore" - meaning have one single compartment with no baffles or bulkheads - this assures a sanitary CLEANOUT. The wrinkle this adds, is that the entire load is moving back & forth/side to side (versus baffles which slow the motion of the liquid load). Most of the majors that do training, are hauling food grade tanks.

I'm told that you haven't lived, until you have to stop rapidly for that traffic light, and had your load slam forward with such force, that it pushes you into the intersection. There's also the added factor of having to do washouts (eats clock time) and most loads are "live loads" (though as Dan has mentioned, he does get some "drop and hooks").

Not trying to discourage folks that are interested in tanker - just suggesting you get some miles under your belt, before taking on the added complication.

Obviously, it worked out OK for Dan.

Rick

Got served some humble pie. i've been with prime now for almost a year and a half and these last 6 months or so have been going pretty well. no accidents of any kind, been on time for most of my loads and my driving skills have gone to a new level. i now feel like i can navigate even the toughest terrain with the proper trip planning. i drive mainly northeast and ontario, and while traffic sucks and you have to be alert 100% of the time, i feel comfortable behind the wheel. im relaxed and at a good place.

i really enjoy prime, they treat me well and they let me do my thing without asking questions which is really nice. however the one thing they dont offer is more hometime which is why i put in an application to a local company offering hometime every other day and a full weekend. pay is 20 hour so about the same as im getting now, maybe a little less but it will be more consistent. they hire new graduates and my friend who graduated with me from cdl school started with them. i've talked with their recruiters and feel like this is the place for me. just yesterday i got a reply from my application saying i was denied because of a minor accident over a year ago(backing, hit another trailer) and one 10 months ago where my truck rolled into another trailer. both incidents caused minor damage no police, no witness, except me telling my company what happened. i put it on the application because i didnt want them to find out while i was at orientation and send me home. i asked why it was denied and the lady said because of those 2 incidents. that really brought my confidence down quite a bit. they will hire a newbie but not an experienced driver. i was getting really excited about them because everything i have read said they are an excellent company.

not sure what im going to do next. i could look harder for other local jobs, but so far have not found anything quite like them. or i could stay with prime, like everything about them except for the hometime. the longer im out on the road the more i miss the normal things in life.

anyways on to other things, more specifically trucking things :) i had a really proud moment about 4 months ago. was driving along in the midwest and came along a sign saying accident, expect major delays. im thinking crap im gonna be late, so i stopped on a off ramp and checked google maps. sure enough there was a loooong red line covering maybe 5 miles from where i was to the accident scene. figured this might take an hour or 2 so i winged it and drove through some back roads and made it on the other side of the accident in 20 minutes. cant know for sure, but im guessing i just saved my self quite some time and passed some more experienced truckers.

on the flip side, a couple months ago i was driving down i75 in kentucky and there was an accident ahead of me maybe 20 minutes earlier. wasnt able to find a way around, but i did get a nice 2 hour nap right on the interstate lol.

been reading this forum quite a bit and have noticed how different the experience is with reefer/dry or flatbed vs tanker. both good and bad. for instance the good for a tanker is that we dont have tandems to worry about, our load is always balanced heh. also our trailers are shorter 46' vs 53' not to mention we hardly ever have to scale at a truck stop. 95% percent of our shippers or receivers have a scale for us to use, or go by what they had in their tank before and after they put it in our tank. we also dont back in a dock whith 5-10 other trucks in a very tight situation. most of the time it's only me or maybe 1 other guy near me. 50% of the time no shipping office to deal with, just a guy who comes knocking on your door asking for the paperwork.

but the bad side(or good if you like to be active) is that we have to supervise our unload, whether we pump or the customer pumps. averages to about 2 hours from start to stop. so less time in the sleeper to sleep which i like to do lol. not to mention in the freezing cold we still have to be out there. granted you dont have to be staring at the connections the whole time, but you do need to keep tabs on it and constantly checking up on it. also on occasion the pump can give you headaches and you might have to use a torch to heat up the pipe in extreme cold temps or replace a seal because its leaking. i had to use my torch once this winter. we also have to go to tank washes after every load. sometimes its a drop and hook , but other times its a long wait,2-5 hours usually.

I appreciate your updates Dan. At one time I was in touch with Prime about their northeast tanker gig. I had a recruiter and had sent my info and was approved. I wound up taking the "easy" route and decided to jump into LTL out of trucking school as a linehaul driver and pull doubles.

Thanks for continuing to update your story. Hopefully you'll find something that gets you home more often eventually. In the meantime, I hope you continue to enjoy your time at Prime and keeping learning from new experiences.

Pulling doubles scares me more than pulling a tank to be honest. there have been a couple times where i have missed a turn or drove past a shipper/receiver. i had to back up(nobody around) but dont know how i would do that with 2 trailers. once you over commit, you can jack knife the trailer and only way to correct it would be to pull up again i think. do you guys back up to a dock or just drop it off on the side of a lot? im also curious about why i see so many double trailers right next to toll booths. there is usually a huge lot as soon as you go through one of the toll booths. is that just a storage area?

I'm not sure about what you saw by toll booths, but there are certain areas in particular states where you have triples lots, also places for LCVs like turnpike doubles up in NY. These are meet spots where a driver might pull doubles and swap out with a triples guy. We have a meet spot like that in Ohio. Fed Ex Freight and UPSF uses it too. Outside of a designated triples lot you might have seen, you could've just seen guys swapping out doubles or taking their 30 ... or a nap.

Yes, you can back doubles, but it's an arduous task. A couple feet is doable without getting your dolly jumbled up, but any more than that is a feat of acrobatics. Lots of slithering and squirming. It's why I usually stay away from truck stops or places where I might get trapped. This is why lots of linehaul drivers just pull off to the side where you might not be allowed to park, or in a fuel bay so they can just pull straight out. It's easier to just try to avoid having to back up, and often it's just quicker to break the set and get it turned around by re-hooking - which is also a pain.

At terminals you might just drop a whole set as a relay, or break it and back individual trailers to doors or spots in the yard.

Honestly, I'd rather pull a set than a van. Besides not being able to really back up easily, you can take tighter turns with a set since it bends in the middle. I've hauled bulk liquid loads in totes already and have experienced probably just a taste of the surge you tanker guys can experience. It's all a matter of getting used to pulling a different kind of trailer.