Help With Terminology; Linehaul, Regional, LTL, Dedicated, Etc...

As most of you know I'm going to school in January, and I've been browsing craigslist for transport jobs. My area of the Twin-Cities has tons of potential local jobs, but the problem I'm having is figuring out what is "local". I'm seeing routes as Linehaul , Regional , and LTL. I understand LTL as less than a truckload, I believe. That would be like cartage companies. I'm assuming little companies to Conway. Some craigslists posts say local, and the next thing you're reading it says you'll have to do a couple nights OTR , too.

I know some companies have regional routes, does that mean I would be gone 1-3 nights? Or am I completely missing something. I've been looking at jobs for a couple months because I'm trying to figure out where to apply to for local opportunities. I do realize that I may not get local first, but that's definitely where I want to start first.

Where would the right key words be for local opportunities, regional, LTL, Linehaul, dedicated, beverages or other words I'm missing?

I may have rambled on...

Hi Brian,

Linehaul generally means the LTL company drivers that drive at night between their home terminal and a re-ship terminal, work the dock overnight unloading and reloading trailers. It usually pays mileage for the driving portion and hourly while working the dock. For Con-Way, anyway, everyone usually has a lift truck to use, so it's not by hand, unless it's something that requires it, but usually everything is palletized. Also, TMC uses "Linehaul" as the term for their regular OTR drivers.

Dedicated is for a Company that has drivers that only pull freight for a certain customer. They deliver all the merchandise from distribution centers to the customers' stores. I'm sure there are other scenarios for dedicated, but I think this is basically the theme. We have three different stores distribution centers in my area, Meijer, Target, and Wally World, and they all have several different companies pulling their freight.

There are regional OTR situations where you can get home sometimes during the week, but that depends on where you live in relation to pick up and delivery locations. There are a lot of regional fleets that want you out two weeks. And some that will try to get you home most weekends if you want.

If you read up on or call Con-Way, I think they let you move into local P&D (pick-up and delivery) after a certain amount of time driving for Con-Way Truckload. Generally, when you start with an LTL company, you are low man on the wheel, and you cover for whatever they need covered, be it peddling a local route during the day, or overnight linehaul, or a combination of the two. Yes, sometimes they will call you in to do some afternoon pick-ups, then have you hook up a set and do an overnight linehaul. But when you get more seniority, you get to bid on what you want once a year. The highest seniority driver gets whatever route he wants, then down the line. I know a lot of drivers that want some linhaul routes, because the combination of mileage and hourly pays a lot, especially if you're making top rate.

I know I have been rambling long enough, but I hope this helps.

I'm sure someone else will chime in soon an fill in what I've missed or got wrong.

Good Luck in your search!

Thanks for the input of a lot of information! I'll definitely being using it when I start applying. I want to make sure I'm applying to the correct area of work I want. I know there's a few companies I'm interested in, but since I'll be new I want to get more applications out there for local work.

Maybe someone could put together a glossary of industry jargon for those of us looking into the trucking industry as a career. Learning to speak the language can be as difficult as learning all of the technical information.

For example, living in Florida, most of my family work in the medical field in doctors offices or nursing homes. For me,family dinners are very frustrating when the discussion turns to their work. They carry on entire conversations in acronyms and jargon and I can't follow any of it.

Just a thought, could be fun and informative at the same time.

Maybe someone could put together a glossary of industry jargon for those of us looking into the trucking industry as a career.

That's on my to-do list but I haven't gotten to that yet. Sorry about that.