How's Everyone Doing? How Is Freight? Not Many Posts Lately

TCB I understand completely The entire month of April I pulled 5 loads. My dispatchers and planners said it was slowing about 4 weeks ago, but got really nutty 2 weeks ago. I’m just making the best of it

Ironically, the 2400 dispatch that I got two weeks ago was due to a plant closing in Kalifornia and sending it's machinery to a plant in South Carolina. I am hoping that once the economy opens back up, that I will get some of those Walmart surges that I used to get.

These past few weeks and months things been good, getting 40hrs a week and trying to haul asss. How ever this week I’ve been told fright has slammed to a halt up in main for us. It doesn’t help one of the paper mills we haul out of blew up

These past few weeks and months things been good, getting 40hrs a week and trying to haul asss. How ever this week I’ve been told fright has slammed to a halt up in main for us. It doesn’t help one of the paper mills we haul out of blew up

Seems like different companies are having different levels of success, for instance CRST Expedited just gave me a contingent offer letter so that they can pay for my full CDL cost plus housing and they told me today that they dont have enough drivers to cover all the freight they need to move.

I've been running steady since starting back at Crete three weeks ago. Most days I need to run about 500 miles to stay on schedule. Always pre-planned for the next one in advance, too.

The worst so far has been today. I delivered at 0900 this morning in Phoenix. The next one goes from here back to Dallas. Only issue is it won't be ready until after 0600 tomorrow, so I'm sitting most of the day here at the terminal , and I hate hot weather. It's supposed to be 103 degrees this afternoon.

The Crete COO was on the Dave Nemo Show this morning. He stated our freight hit the slowest point two weeks ago. Our forecast shows it picking up each week for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, everyone will see this happen.

With everyone staying home, fuel hauling slowed right down. My company offered voluntary layoffs for anyone that wanted it, which a bunch of the senior guys jumped on after the $600 increase. Fortunately, we’re diversified enough that they had work for anyone who wanted it, so I’ve been enjoying the change of pace. Spent a couple weeks hauling propane and butane. Then a while hauling asphalt, a couple days of wax, then some carbon black for a week. Just picked up a new contract for storage on the other side of the state, so the last week have been turning and burning across the state-don’t even have to load, just jump in a new tractor and go. Finally managed a 700+ mile shift for the first time in my career the other night. I’ve hit my 70 every week since this has started. Life is good (although I am looking forward to getting back to 55 hour weeks.).

Still furloughed. Haven't been given a call although last Friday it seemed like a lot of people had been probably only for that day.

How did it go with applying for your unemployment? Has it started yet?

Fedex Freight is doing Voluntary Furloughs until Jul 31. We are actually consistent so far. The mask is a PITA though.

How are you OTR company drivers doing? Business seems to be dropping off some of late. Hopefully everyone is hanging in there!

Interesting to see how things have ebbed for some and stayed the same for others. I think it all depends on your lanes and the industry.

Our volume is down 20% from last year but we still get many manufacturing picks. Freight rates are very, very low and FedEx is taking advantage of that - both to the detriment of their employees and O/O.

However, I also believe that as we climb out of this that manufacturing will explode and freight along with it. It's hard to spend several trillion dollars and not have it being spent at some point.

Case in point: FedEx Ground, FedEx Express, UPS Package and Amazon are all doing huge volume right now. People aren't out shopping but they ARE sitting at home and spending money. Also, anecdotal yes, every Lowes I go to - parking lots are packed. People are spending this time blowing their money and improving their homes.

This is not a typical contraction. This is a manmade/governmental contraction. Hopefully it will result in an economic firestorm.

I've been running my hiney off, except last week I had an emergency dental appointment on a Wednesday and just took the week off instead... I needed it. On my way to North Dakota with packaging from IP for one of those good old ND pasta manufacturers.

Its been real good for delivering to grocery stores for sure. Our chain is now limiting people to 4 fresh meat items per visit due to so many packing plants having outbreaks. I'm guessing people are going to start panicking more and it'll get even busier. Most of our loads qualify for the HOS declaration so I've been working just under 70 hours a week on a 4 day week. Many of these hours have been sitting waiting on backhauls to bring back to the DC. A couple weeks ago I sat for 3 hours to pickup 1 pallet, drove 50 miles then waited 5 hours on a full load. The next day I spent 5 hours waiting for a load in KC. I've been driving less miles than normal but getting more hours due to all the waiting I've needed to do. 16 to 17 hour days seem to be the norm lately. Today I'll only get around 10. Took a 2 store 360 mile run with no pickups. Brightside is with the long days despite not working many extra days I've already grossed around $35k this year.

I was told by a friend yesterday, CTST has 40 brand new International tractors sitting at the Riverside yard Musta got better deal, since majority of their tractors are FL Cascadia's Supposed to get rid of 200 older tractors. Dunno if other terminals have gotten a batch of new 1s too