Indian River Transport, Co. - Winter Haven, FL.?

No more loads up Montreal way or New Brunswick? Thats where guys were running to when I worked there.
Sounds like your doing real good on that run probably more like 3500+ and then the crossing pay.

 

as we all know, IRT is on the GOB system, so either they don't have that run anymore or someone else is eating it up. I was on the Auburndale, Fl to {insert city}, Canada and then Thornbury, Canada back down to Auburndale, Fl or Arcadia, Fl for almost a month, but the pull'd me off and now i'm doing the port again which really doesn't bother me because i can make more on the port then those long arse runs back and forward between Florida and Canada.

The money is possible at the port, the only hard part is the timing. If it's concentrate i have to be back at the port before 1530, NFC i can get in as late as 1900. No scales are open late at nite which means i can burn all the way from Canada back to the Jersery and just use the hours i spend waiting at OJ's and the port to load as my break and keep on rolling.

I'll usually burn up Monday and Tuesday, slow down on Wednesday so my clock can catch up with me, and then burn it up again Thursday and Friday. The 34hr breaks feel sooo good on Saturday!!!!

When it's time for home time i'll deliver in Canada and reload in Thornbury bound for Florida. Deliver late Thursday/ early Friday, take the truck to the terminal and go home.. show back up around 9am and let them know when i'll be ready to roll again and they'll put a preplan on me then..

That usually how my month plays out.. I like it because it's predictable.

 

Gotta love that. Easy miles easy money.

 

when i type and read it, it seems easy enough, but it's really not.. mostly because of the whole time issue.

just for everyone who's never load'd at the port.. it'll go something like this.

Port opens at 0700, when i say open, i mean that's when the big ole security guy opens the gate so we can go to him and check in and find out if we get a bay to pull into or have to go wait.

It doesn't matter what time you get to the port, it really doesn't matter where you're standing in line, it really doesn't matter if you're first to actually give im your PKup number or not. Local (Johanna) has priority and then it goes by late loads, and then everything else.. There are four bays, two for NFC ("Not From Concentrate" or single strain juice) and Concentrate. If there are six trucks loading NFC and two loading concentrate, and you're the third concentrate, you could be the last to check in and still be the third or fifth truck out of the port. It just all depends on the loads and where they're going.

If i make it into a bay by 1000, takes a little over 1.5hr to load, give 30min for paperwork, i can be rolling north by noon. It's pretty much a 9hr drive to any one of our customers in Ontario so i'll either be drp n' hook, or live unloading around nine, unless it's Pickering then i may have to sit and wait for an empty. If it's live unload then that's 3hr with no line which means i can't get out of there no earlier then midnight. Hammer on it all the way back to the port, but i have to stop at OJ's for a wash which is anywhere between 4-6hrs (no b.s, ask anyone) then puttt ova to the port to reload. use all of that waiting time to make a break, then head to the truck stop for fuel (gotta plan fuel just right because it's a hard time on our fuel cards) and Keep rolling north.

I dont have to really be in a rush to deliver the second load, because i dont have to be in a rush to pick up the third load. all of the loads interact with each other. so if i'm slow on the first, it's gonna mess up my time for the second load, my fuel, and possibly my third load which may make me miss my fourth load.

Sometimes i get it all just right and i can get a fifth load on pay roll on Monday, but then i'm wide open for the rest of the week so i can still make the other four before Friday, (usually i pick up the forth on Friday and deliver it Saturday instead of picking it up Friday and delivering it Friday.

It's a crazy balance. People always look at me crazy when i'm in the fuel isle raising sand because someone wanted to park and order a sub, but it's usually because i'm tryin to stop my clock and their b.s is messing with my schedule. We're not push'd hard, or told to run hard, i just do it because i can. There's not too many jobs you can go get that will give you the ability to make as much as you want. You as a driver just have to be smart about it.

If i'm tired i pull over and take a two hour nap, i run the routes often so i know where all of the rest areas/parking areas are, even where the off/on ramps with the huge shoulders are. I don't do the one eye open thing.

 

I hear ya driver nothing easy about 500 to 1000 mile days especially after a month of em. But in Hindsight after I worked there I liked the fact that once it was loaded or emptied it was time to roll for at least a day. But I totally know what you mean.

On one load after running straight through from Lindsay Ca to Dalhardt Tx I called in expecting to be told to deadhead back to CA as usual. Instead I had to haul butt up to Longmont Co to get washed out before the wash closed to load in Greeley Co for Texas. I thought all I have to do is drive this truck but man sometimes it felt like a one man team. But I have to tell you I loved it.

I have to laugh when I see drivers on TTR say no one can run 3500 miles or more a week. They don't really know whats going on in that truck passing them.

Never ran a load up to Washington or Oregon when I was there I only ran East West would like to hear how some of the North south California guys are doing.....

 

Running about 3500 miles a week pulling Lone Star loads, running from Hereford to Dallas, Austin, Lafayette, N.O., or Shreveport and back

 

That's exactly how i feel alot of the time, i'm not upset about it or anything, i actually like it. They give us the tools needed to make the impossible happen, so why wouldn't i make it happen. Sometimes I'll cross another IRT driver, and we're out shooting the breeze and they'll start sayin how they're not getting any miles, and i stand there confused, but later in the convo they'll tell me how they only do one type of run (usually something simple) and how they refuse the NE (which i though we were forced dispatch). Or how they spend so much time waiting for washes, loading, and unloading. I'm not sayin this for all IRT drivers, but enough of them shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to their miles.. People tell me i have to run illegal to get the miles i'm getting.. but i can actually count the times my book wasn't legal, most of the time i can either make it a split berth or i'm only an hour away from it being a 10.

I hardly ever here anything from the west, east drivers, or the guys running I5. I've only been out there once, didn't like it, don't plan on goin back. Only been to the Mid West twice, it was alright. Fast roads, not many grades, but they already have drivers that are eating all of that freight up. So i just stick to what i know, and where no one wants to go. It's a challange getting in and out of Jersery (especially the port!!!) but it works for me.

anything is possible it you push hard or time it right, i was able to get 3400mi in a week over at Knight with a 66mph truck, elogs and qualcomm. four hour waits at shippers/receivers. I knew if i came over here i'd be able to make it. I dont know why the trucking community believes that in order to make miles you either have to have an 80mph truck or be on paper logs.. Those two things just makes it easier.

 

I am approved to go to work with in IRT and live in Mobile Al would I still be looking at a bunch of northeast running?

 

I cannot tell you what you will be doing a bunch of. I think it kinda depends on what you make of it and how dispatch will treat you.

BUT you will certainly go up the east coast. Most peoples first load out of winter Haven is a load to Johanna in flemington NJ one of their biggest customers. And there is no shortage of loads out of the Port in NJ. Even myself living on the West coast would get stuck running a couple east coast loads before getting out of there.

But if you are a Hard Charger they will keep you MoooVin! Get It Mooo like a Cow. lololol

 

I am not afraid to run, so it might just work out.