Diesel Supply Shortage?

Not too completely highjack this thread here but I’m curious Spaceman how do you like fuel hauling so far? If I’m not mistaken you were a flatbedder before?

Yeah Dave, I'll always be easily identified as the lone guy wearing the brown San Diego padres hat out here!

Saw a “beagle” truck today (gonna start calling y’all that btw 😂) with two drivers in it but then remembered you said you were off today. Now that the weather is turning cold I won’t be in the terminals very much if at all until spring. If you see this rolling around at KM2, stop and say hey.

X4, Dave, will do. You could also tell my truck by the split windshield of the old Freightliner style, only one i think in the yard .

Not too completely highjack this thread here but I’m curious Spaceman how do you like fuel hauling so far? If I’m not mistaken you were a flatbedder before?

Hi Bird One, yes you are right, I was a company flatbedder for the Right Lane Gang at Prime when I initially started. I didn't make the jump direct to tanker but had a 15 month stint doing food service between San Diego and Los Angeles. Then I enjoyed a short time working with transfer trucks and super tag dump trucks in the quarries and job sites of San Diego, ultimately leaving them after needing to move cross country for family reasons.

So far my days are relatively short at 9 or 10 hours starting around 230-3 am. I'll be moving to a 3 pm start after training ends next week, slip seating with my now trainer. I run south west VA, southern west Virginia, and Greensboro NC areas for nothing but petrol so far. We have a chemical division but I'm focusing on fuel for the time being.

The work is surprisingly clean and safe for those wondering. Most days I come home smelling like nothing at all. Ensuring all gaskets and connections are tight and taking time for steps to be followed correctly keeps the product in the tank and not on my clothes. I'm still trying to round off the sharp edges for a while but I'm grasping the fundamental understanding fairly well. Sure beats tarping in El Paso at noon in August.

We are getting to the colder time of year soon and I've been promised fun runs to rural west Virginia as a rookie. I'll be focusing on not trying to do too much under threat of snow or other weather, especially since we aren't allowed to chain up (sparks). The future seems unknown for the long term but is solid presently. Most drivers around me at the loading racks are friendly and seem content with their work. The company I chose has lots to do and not enough drivers to do it with so I'll have as much as I can handle. Can't ask for more than that I suppose.

As far as tanker goes, you are doing good grade? I have five compartments on my trailer and don't get a great amount of surge as a smooth bore I imagine. For some reason I thought you were LTL?

I’m lucky enough to be able to do reefer and dry van in addition to food grade. But lately it’s been mostly food grade. Currently getting live unloaded. Had skim milk for a salad dressing company. For me personally I don’t think the surge is all that bad. I pull it like I do any other trailer. For the record I’m not saying a new driver should jump into doing food grade.

I was at one point going to work for ODFL but it ended up not working out. No big deal or hard feelings towards them. At this point I’ve been with my current company over 4 years.

It’s interesting though you said the work is surprisingly clean and safe. I’ve always wondered about how bad the fumes would be. Because I have talked to a few fuel haulers while the were unloaded and Maybe there connections were half assed because it definitely felt like I was breathing in gas lol. There are a ton of fuel hauling companies in the Chicagoland area always hiring always advertising for 30 plus an hour plus ot usually but it just hasn’t quite appealed to me. Although I’ll say their tractors are usually brand new.

It’s interesting though you said the work is surprisingly clean and safe. I’ve always wondered about how bad the fumes would be. Because I have talked to a few fuel haulers while the were unloaded and Maybe there connections were half assed because it definitely felt like I was breathing in gas lol. There are a ton of fuel hauling companies in the Chicagoland area always hiring always advertising for 30 plus an hour plus ot usually but it just hasn’t quite appealed to me. Although I’ll say their tractors are usually brand new.

There are certainly ways to get filthy hauling fuel too. Right now I’ve got a good mix of dyed diesel and 89E10 all over me. Had gas on earlier in the week so I had to bucket drain it off to load the diesel for heating oil deliveries today. My whole truck smells like gas and I’ve got a pretty good headache from the fumes. I don’t have that problem on the big truck but in the straight truck, I get filthy. Between getting splashed, dragging the hose through god only knows what all day(then gettin it all over me) and people’s nasty basements, I usually stink pretty bad by the end of the day. I hate doing this heating oil stuff but I sure do like the M-F daylight hours and no weekends 😂

Spaceman, I’ve seen that tractor around town recently. I’ll have to keep an eye out. We only run in VA (at least I do) but we go pretty far out. We don’t do a lot of gas stations but more commercial locations and pump loads. If you get bored at eagle, we need drivers too.

. I'll be one of the only "team" day cab crews (training) in a company truck that sounds like "beagle."

Beagle eh?

Suddenly I have the image of an excited tanker wagging their tail in the air.

Wow. Forgot to empty compartment 1 AND forgot to check landing gear before detaching? Bad day.

At least the driver could get some pull ups in on one of the rear axles while waiting for the manager to finish setting up for the termination meeting.

It’s interesting though you said the work is surprisingly clean and safe. I’ve always wondered about how bad the fumes would be. Because I have talked to a few fuel haulers while the were unloaded and Maybe there connections were half assed because it definitely felt like I was breathing in gas lol. There are a ton of fuel hauling companies in the Chicagoland area always hiring always advertising for 30 plus an hour plus ot usually but it just hasn’t quite appealed to me. Although I’ll say their tractors are usually brand new.

There are certainly ways to get filthy hauling fuel too. Right now I’ve got a good mix of dyed diesel and 89E10 all over me. Had gas on earlier in the week so I had to bucket drain it off to load the diesel for heating oil deliveries today. My whole truck smells like gas and I’ve got a pretty good headache from the fumes. I don’t have that problem on the big truck but in the straight truck, I get filthy. Between getting splashed, dragging the hose through god only knows what all day(then gettin it all over me) and people’s nasty basements, I usually stink pretty bad by the end of the day. I hate doing this heating oil stuff but I sure do like the M-F daylight hours and no weekends 😂

Spaceman, I’ve seen that tractor around town recently. I’ll have to keep an eye out. We only run in VA (at least I do) but we go pretty far out. We don’t do a lot of gas stations but more commercial locations and pump loads. If you get bored at eagle, we need drivers too.

I don't know anything about that straight truck work but sounds awful. You said you bucket drained for the diesel to go in, why did you have to drain so much? Refused load?

I'm switching to different tractors next week apparently. I also get to certify during the first wintry Mix Tuesday. Adds a little spice to the experience. Off to west Virginia this morning then up by the troutville scales for another. Keep the rubber side down, way down.

I'm switching to different tractors next week apparently. I also get to certify during the first wintry Mix Tuesday. Adds a little spice to the experience. Off to west Virginia this morning then up by the troutville scales for another. Keep the rubber side down, way down.

The best advice for fuel tankers in snow is make sure compartment one doesn't get drained until the last stop. Weirdly enough, everyone runs chains if needed around here without a second thought.

Interesting about the shortages down there, nothing like that at all around here. In fact, our main refinery has been running gas sales for the last two weeks to try to get rid of some inventory-makes it a pain because every fuel hauler in a tri-state area comes crawling out of the woodwork, and rack times are now three plus hours. I haven't had an allocation problem in over a year though. We pull out of three actual refineries and a dozen or so tank farms. I know a couple of our tank farms have been pulling diesel storage loads out of the refineries for winter blending for the last couple weeks at probably a million-plus gallons a week. Odd how we have a glut of product here and you have none.

That tipped over trailer is a good example of why we NEVER drop a loaded trailer-we're so nose heavy, the landing gear will insta-collapse. We'll pump off the front compartments if we have to.

Touching on the topic of fumes from earlier, may just be a NY thing, but they are super strict about vapor recovery around here. The driver and the company will both be fined if caught without the vapor hose hooked up properly. Anyone can blow you in to the DEC, even the attendants-fire marshals like to go around checking this out too. So, I can dump gas all day, and still not smell like it end of shift.

Wow. Forgot to empty compartment 1 AND forgot to check landing gear before detaching? Bad day.

At least the driver could get some pull ups in on one of the rear axles while waiting for the manager to finish setting up for the termination meeting.

The landing gear are down, but these tanks are so front heavy with product in compartment 1 only that they'll nose stand anyway.

I don't know anything about that straight truck work but sounds awful. You said you bucket drained for the diesel to go in, why did you have to drain so much? Refused load?

Yea I had to bucket drain the gas out so I could load the off-road to make heating oil deliveries. Can’t be putting gas into peoples home tanks. I had dropped the gas so I didn’t have any in my line but there were a few gallons in the load heads.

I’m back on ethanol today so I’ll be spending most of today at buckeye.