ESTES Express (5 Year Review)

So you dont get paid too fuel?

 

Guess if i got paid for every drop and hook i wouldn't mind it so much anymore either lol.. i dont get paid for none of that only when wheels are turning..

 

Disclaimer: I no longer work at Estes and haven't worked for them for about a year and a half.

It was my understanding that hub/combo guys do P&D or linehaul, whatever the terminal needs them to do. When I was hired on at Estes in summer 2021, my terminal was so short staffed that we didn't even have the hub/combo guys because the terminal couldn't fill all the regular linehaul/P&D spots.

As for residential deliveries in tractor trailers, yes you do them with P&D. You either do them with a pup trailer or a 53' trailer.

One thing to note is that I NEVER did a residential delivery in your typical suburban neighborhood/subdivision in a 53 footer. I always went to actual neighborhoods in just the pup trailer and each time I went to an actual neighborhood with a pup trailer, it was to just drop off an empty pup trailer in the driveway for household moving or to pick up a loaded pup trailer that was dropped/sitting in the driveway that was already loaded by the customers and waiting to be moved to whatever terminal across the country it was going to for household moving. It should be noted that the customers were never allowed to have any vehicles in the driveway when we went there to pick up or to drop off a pup trailer. That said it was a pain in the ### because subdivision neighborhoods aren't meant for semi trucks and you had cars parked all along the sidewalk/street in front of the houses, that you had to maneuver around. Not fun.

Now that said, we also did residential pick ups and deliveries to residential houses in 53 foot trailers, but these residential houses were NEVER in an actual subdivision neighborhood. So they were houses on side roads or whatever. Those were a pain in the ### and you had to back into drivways with cross traffic moving both ways and nobody to spot you or to stop traffic or whatever. It was incredibly dangerous actually and if something happens, you the driver will be 100% at fault. But we reguarly got routed into these residential houses to do drop offs or pickups. I guess these people were running E-Commerce businesses out of their house or something? I don't know but I hated doing these. Again it was just incredibly unsafe. When I could I would just park in the street without having to back into the driveway, that was much safer. But there were other times where it wasn't possible to park on the street and get the freight out from the house to the truck from their long and non paved driveways in your pallet jack on wheels, thus forcing you to back into the driveway with nobody to spot you and to stop the impatient 4 wheeled drivers who didn't want to stop and wait for you to make your back.

Kao said no but actually, at my terminal in summer 2021 when freight was booming they were offering both city P&D guys and linehaul guys $100-$200 bonus (not including the CPM or drop & hook pay) to work linehaul on Saturdays and do a linehaul run Saturday. The terminal was short staffed though and freight was absolutely booming, so I don't really think that's a regular thing. I'm not sure P&D city guys would normally have the option to run linehaul on Saturdays whenever they wanted to, that could have just been a rare post Covid boom exception. But it did exist at my terminal and if I remember correctly, by the time I left the P&D city guys could still run a linehaul run on Saturdays but they weren't giving out the $100-$200 bonus for it anymore, just the regular CPM and drop & hook pay.

Again, not sure if that's a regular thing with city guys being able to run a linehaul run Saturday during the daytime if they want to at most terminals. You would have to ask.

At my terminal it was probably 50/50 manuals versus automatics. Estes had a weird system where linehaul trucks were supposed to be assigned to drivers, but it was never enforced. Drivers would complain but management didn't care. P&D guys did not have assigned trucks. P&D guys could take the linehaul drivers trucks for their daytime runs, as long as the P&D guys had the "assigned" linehaul trucks back before the linehaul trucks start run time. Of course there were often problems with getting the linehaul guys trucks back on time and often times P&D guys had no choice but to take a linehaul drivers truck during the daytime, due to trucks being in the shop and backup on parts and stuff. It was kind of a chaotic mess.

The linehaul trucks were usually newer although there were some I think that were up to 750k miles on them, so it wasn't like most OTR companies where they trade them in before 500k miles. Linehaul trucks had their share of junk trucks too. Linehaul trucks were more likely to be automatic, although that ratio was probably 60/40 for automatics versus manuals so it wasn't like 99% of the linehaul trucks were automatics. The P&D trucks were more likely to be manuals and more likely to be the absolute biggest pieces of #### trucks that you have ever seen in your life, I'm talking 1.3 million mile trucks that stunk and with a clutch that aged your legs by years at a time because it was such a POS.

Bottom line is that while at my terminal it was probably 50/50 in terms of automatics versus manuals, you weren't guaranteed to keep your "assigned" truck if you were linehaul and because there were still so many manual trucks, you need to know how to drive a manual because you will have to drive one, one day.

Also, the pup trailers seemed to be in much better shape than the 53 footers. There were some real POS 53 footers at Estes.

During good times you'll get paid better than OTR if you're doing linehaul and for P&D, you'll make more than starter OTR companies but less than the better OTR companies unless you're pulling in at least 60 hours in 5 day work weeks consistently, then you'll be making more as P&D driver than an OTR driver . Of course you also have to consider that your commute time is not free either, so if you're working 60 hours on the clock each week when you combine daily commute time then it's more like pushing a 65-70 hour work week depending on how long your commute is.

And oh yeah it's overtime after 52 hours if you're hourly at Estes, that includes P&D workers and somehow also includes dock workers who don't even have CDL's......How the trucking industry can get away with not paying people overtime after 40 hours if they don't even have a CDL and are just working the dock is beyond me, lol.

One good thing about Estes and that they took pride in when I hired on with them almost 2 years ago, was that they didn't and don't do mass layoffs like Old Dominion is notorious for. They'll cut your hours but try not to fire anybody. Estes is not a public traded company, while Old Dominion is traded on the stock market. So that plays a big role. Old Dominion generally has a better reputation than Estes, with the caveat that you better get some seniority at Old Dominion because if the economy tanks then they are notorious for doing mass layoffs and then they'll just hire again when the economy starts to pick up again (which the economy doesn't always pick back up right away after it tanks).

Anyways I guess I rambled a bit, but I hope this clears up some of your questions that you all had. LTL is probably better for the family man, while OTR is probably better for the single man. I would recommend Estes and LTL, but just be aware that LTL (whether you're doing linehaul or P&D) comes with it's own fair share of BS and is not the perfect, stress free job that a lot of guys make it out to be (I suppose the same can be said about any trucking job though).

 

Do all new hires run with a trainer for a week? If yes, is it training specifically running the route you are hired for?

 

So for new hires, how does seniority work if starting out on extra board and not an open linehaul route? Can city or linehaul bump extra board positions?

 

Still have to go to a center in person, or has any state advanced to online renewal yet?

 

So they pay 9.25 to break each set but do you get paid another 9.25 to hook sets?

 

The key word is “should not” but I assure you some states don’t honor other states… I honestly believe it’s for the money generated for the fingerprints and background investigation.

 

So one could almost say that Estes is recession proof… nice!

Has any of the older hands shared how Estes fared during the ‘08 ‘09 economic downturn?