Port Of Long Beach

Hey guys. Love the site and forums, I've been following closely for a while as I considered a career and then made the decision to begin attending a trucking school. I'm currently 3 weeks in to a 10 week program.

This morning a couple recruiters from Knight/Swift came in and gave the class a presentation. This job sounds really good. Dedicated run from Salt Lake City, (area where the school is located and where we the students live) down to the port of Long Beach and back twice a week. 5 days on and home for the weekend. According to them the guaranteed pay is $65 K / yr. No experience required.

From everything I've heard, it almost sounds too good to be true. Is this all smoke blowing up our asses? There's gotta be some catches. Anyone have experience working out of the port of Long Beach? Or any other ports? What's it like? Drawbacks?

Thanks for any feedback.

I work for a company that does nothing but strictly fresh meat loads that goes to the Port of Oakland every week. Our runs are different than what you described you would be doing. We pick up in Marshalltown IA, several places in Nebraska...I just parked for the night in Lexington NE where I will hook to my load tomorrow and start heading to the Port of Oakland. We also pick up in Greeley and Fort Morgan CO, Dodge City and Liberal KS and Guymon OK. We pick up usually on Friday or Saturday and deliver Monday or Tuesday weather permitting. Coming out of the port, we have two places where we get our new chassis and empty container, then get a load out of somewhere in CA or NV and pretty much all of them go to Cheyenne or the Denver area. From there we deadhead to wherever our load planner has us set to get another meat load.

First you will need to get a TWIC card, and the company should pay for it, most do. You could make the runs, and the company will have somebody shuttle it in or have you drop it off at a yard down in that area that they do business with. I've never been to Long Beach and our company does go there once in a great while.

I find doiing containers is a dirtier job than driving reefers or dry vans, but at almost 72, it's still an easy enough job. The company gave me a cheater bar to get the corroded doors open and because I'm only 5'4" and the door latches are above my head. If I can't get a door open, I can usually find a guy who has just enough leverage to get them open.

As for pay, as long as you are a company driver, you could make that kind of money your first year if you hustle, I suppose. I'm getting 53 CPM and run between 11,000 and 13,500 by per month. I stay out four weeks then go home to south central ID for a week. I just started doing this job in June after being fired in May from my last company because I covered my driver facing camera. So this past year, with being off 5 weeks, I still grossed $60,000.

If I think of anything else I'll post when I get up. It's been a long day and I need to hit the bunk.

Laura

Our ports division has a lot of good opportunities. There's a lot of perks at Knight that are not always discussed by recruiting sometimes, so it's worth your time to check their website and see what kind of opportunities are there and follow up with the recruiter.

Like any company though, your outcome depends on you. There's good and bad with ports. The wait times and finding frames are the biggest complaints I've heard from the guys that do it.

Some folks here have had a tough time with Knight, others have had great experiences. Weather your ports or a different division, your top gun (if you get selected for it) and your training is done OTR dry van , although they may have changed that in that you may be training with port guys if your doing ports, I'd ask your recruiter about it.

Every once in a while I'll end up doing a port run with dry van. I have to use escorts because I don't have a twic card. Interesting enough place, but totally different end of it than containers. I've also pulled empties from ports only to have to go put them back, but that's just the life of dry van lol.

Thanks for the replies. So are you basically pulling a flatbed trailer which then has a shipping container placed on it? How is that secured?

Also, when I talk to the recruiter about that credential I need, do I say "twick card" or "tee double u eye see card"? I don't want to sound like an idiot to him/her. :)

It's pronounced tee wick. The frames for containers aren't a bed they sit on more like a framework with tandems. I'm sure there's probably one of the more experienced folks in here that have pulled containers thst could hopefully give more info than me.

It's pronounced tee wick. The frames for containers aren't a bed they sit on more like a framework with tandems. I'm sure there's probably one of the more experienced folks in here that have pulled containers thst could hopefully give more info than me.

You're correct. Just think of it as two bare frame rails and some crossmembers. There is a pin that sticks up at the four corners and the shipping container (conex) sits on these pins and is locked in place for transit.

It's pronounced like "wick" but with a "T" in front of it.

That is a reefer can.. if you look under the chassis in front of the trailers, you will see the GenSet with the fuel tank that is used over the road. When it is taken off the chassis and put on the ground at the port and on the ship, then it is plugged in just like your refrigerator at home is.

Got to go get my load and start heading to Oakland. If you have specific questions, you can ask here and I'll answer him later or you can text me.. my number is in my bio

Laura

Wow those are some cool pictures! Thanks Laura. Travel safe.

Maybe you can see the chassis better.

Below is another way the cans are stacked.

Not sure what the ship's tower is called.

This is the racks that reefer cans are plugged in. The electrical banks are on each level and they are five high.

Laura

Looks good. Heck, better than my first job. Trip planning is a breeze since it's the same 2 trips every time. You know what's for lunch and where you'll be stopping every trip. Here are the things you need to worry about....

Traffic delays are common in Mexico's Gay District (some of the old-timers still call it, "California"). You have some control about when you arrive so traffic delays should be minimal half the time BUT you have no say in how long you will be delayed at the port waiting. While it's only a 10 hour drive from SLC to Long Beach, you may spend that much time just being delayed at the port and by traffic on your trip back turning a 20 hour trip into a 30. You can extend your 14 hour clock up to three hours by putting yourself in the sleeper berth for the port delays. This might make you legal but it makes for a long (17 hours) day and only allows you a 7 hour break when you do shut down.

Holiday traffic will be extra difficult since traffic will generally be bumper to bumper from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Ditto for any earthquakes.

Weather delays should be minimal, but you may see snow and ice near SLC. You know your local roads better than I do so I'll leave it at that.

Swift is good about maintenance so you don't have to worry about the truck. Trucks are usually retired at 500k miles and maintained properly. The trailers are a different story. A chassis is community property - not owned by Swift. Inspect your trailer very carefully. Issues with the brakes, lighting or tires will need to be dealt with, further delaying you. To secure the can to the chassis there are four levers, one on each corner of the chassis, you twist to lock the can to the chassis.

Knight/Swift is the largest trucking company in the US. Do a good job and there will be plenty of other opportunities available when you're ready to try something new. Dedicated? Yep. Linehaul? Yep. Flatbed? Tanker? Sure.