A humorous start to my day.

[Tobin S.]

I had three deliveries to make in the Seattle area this morning. I haul LTL freight which means less than truck load. What they do at my company's terminals is have local drivers run around a city all day picking up freight for partial truck loads. After they get everything together back at the terminal they sort the stuff according to the area of the country it's going to. Once they have enough freight together going to a certain area to make a full truck load, they throw it on a long haul truck (me). I haul it across the country then either make the deliveries myself or take the freight to another terminal where they'll unload it and have local drivers make the deliveries.

I had to make the deliveries myself this time. I had already made a delivery in Spokane last Friday. I made the second stop this morning and it was the heaviest portion of the load- 14,000 pounds of paper on 12 skids. Everything was going good until the last few skids. The guys that load my truck at the terminal are in a hurry and they also have to cram as much stuff on my truck that they can. Those two things combined can make for some strange and inadvisable loading procedures. That means that sometimes things like this happen:



That is a 1200 pound skid of paper on top of a 55 gallon drum of anti-freeze. The drum was starting to crumple like a pop can- one side was bent in. Fortunately, the drum was not leaking and the product could still be used. :crazy:

[auntAgonist]

1. good grief!

makes ya wonder, doesn't it?

:wtf:

PS on edit. Check my facebook for an update when you get a chance.

[Tobin S.]

4. I just saw you over there

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. I hope D is holding up okay.

[auntAgonist]

6. Thanks Tobin. It's been a really sad day with more to come.

He's taking it quite badly :(

keep safe and keep posting

:hug:

[Ikonoklast]

2. Oh, boy.

That is all kinds of not good...I hope you forward that pic to Safety and ask them to please look into it.

If that thing started to leak...ooof.


And no dunnage between those barrels and the wall of the trailer, to keep them from sliding sideways with all that weight on top of them?

Even three empty pallets turned on edge would have helped, but there's nothing but air to stop that pallet from toppling.

When I had to load freight like that, LTL that went in the order it was coming out, we would use a nail gun and dunnage and build a wooden 'cage' around those barrels to support whatever was placed on top of them. It would take all of five minutes.

Barrels should always be placed on the floor, but someone needs to be a little smarter about it.

[Tobin S.]

5. Oh yes

The terminal manage is getting an e-mail and so will safety.

[elleng]

3. OH GEE, sorry to see this!

Due to my ignorance, I've just assumed that everything y'all hall is set up hunky-dorey! Guess not!

:hi:

[elleng]

7. DAMN! That's HAUL!!!

[Tobin S.]

8. No worries, ellen, I knew what you meant.

These types of loading problems I think are common with LTL freight. When I'm hauling full truck load stuff, which is what most drivers do, stuff like what happened in the OP doesn't happen nearly as much.

[elleng]

9. But you're mostly LTL, right?

How do you/will you/would you get full truck load?

[Tobin S.]

10. By full truck load I mean that all of the freight is going to the same place

and it's usually all the same product. My LTL loads fill up the entire trailer, there's just all kinds of different freight on there and I might have deliveries at 3 or 4 different places.

[elleng]

11. NOW I get it! Thx

[rrneck]

12. Yeow. I just had a warehouse flashback.

Glad you didn't have a mess on your hands.

[Tobin S.]

13. kick

Cuz I ain't got nuthin better to do.

:dem:

[MiddleFingerMom]

14. I'm glad you're sending the terminal mgr and safety an email...

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...will you include that picture with it?
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I used to have a friend who was an inspector for rail cars for Conrail
in Pennsylvania. He used to have to crawl under tanker cars and said
sometimes stuff DRIPPED on him. I asked him if he ever worried about
that and he said, completely straight-faced, that surely "they" would
tell him if it were something harmful.
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He made INCREDIBLE money... but DAMN!!!!!
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Stay as safe as possible, Tobin (and thanks for the nod about the
word salad the other day).
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[Tobin S.]

15. You're welcome

Yes, I did send that photo in as well. I don't know how I ever got along without modern technology. When I started trucking 14 years ago I didn't even have a cell phone. The fanciest piece of electronic equipment I had in my truck was a CB, and not a very good one at that. Now I have a cell phone, satellite radio, fancy schmancy CB radio, laptop, and a digital camera.