Dick Williams (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kaseymoe) wrote,@ 2005-03-19 07:16:00 |
|
Any samples?
Trip 18 for 2005 - North Kansas City MO to Anderson IN with a Bud truck March 17th, 2005. Trip 377 in The Life.
The job - move a 1991 Ford 8000 beverage truck from a distributor in North Kansas City MO to a distributor in Anderson IN - about 30 NE Indianapolis. Time parameters - deliver during their business hours 7 am to 5 pm weekdays. Pick up anytime during biz hours.
Prepped the truck Wednesday 3-16-05 in NKC - turned out this was another beautification project. Funny how the bev outfits, soft drink and beer distrubtors both, spend money strictly on the looks of their old units - rehab the body, new paint and decals and don't do much for the cab. All for the outside look and nothing for the driver. In general bev trucks are austere - most don't have air, this one had no radio. In general the bev outfits equip them minimally.
This was an older unit - 1991 Ford 800 chassis with a Hackney beverage body that had just been rehabbed by Hackeny down in Independence, KS. It was repainted and in new Bud decals. Looks 10 - Dance 4.
I got it from the sending outfit at 2 pm Wedneday - planned to drop it in Anderson around 3 pm Thursday, 3-17-05. The distance is 533 contract miles - about 10 hours driving time, then add 2 hours for mess around time for total of 12. But I never like to plan a night drive for the exact timing so always want some padding for a cab nap - in this case I planned to leave around midnight Thursday morning giving me several hours of padding.
You have to always think about the return and how to get back home. This one proved tough as there was one bus a day out of Anderson - actually lucky to have that one bus with Greyhound's diminishing route structure. The one southbound bus leaves Anderson at 8 25 pm - goes to Indianapolis and then another long wait at either St. Louis or Indianapolis - six hours in one place or the other - then either way Kansas city at noon on Friday. So the return would entail a 5 or 6 hour wait first in Anderson for that night bus and en route somewhere another 6 hours for a connection. Bad deal. I worked the web for probably an hour - trying for a better formula. Thought I might get a bus to Chicago and use Amtrak but timing just didn't work since I was boxed in by the receiving outfit's requirement that I drop when they were open. No blind drop permitted and that too is typical of bev outfits. They like to lock their trucks up in their yards and don't usually allow me to drop and run as many other receivers will do. There was no other way - I even considered hitching to Indy but that's so unreliable and I'd still have to allow several hours to do that - so I never actually tried it.
Prepped and signed out the truck around 2 pm Wednesday, drove my pickup to downtown KC, parked it on Quality Hill where I've not yet lost any windows to vandalism, took city bus back to NKC and moved the Bud truck to a K Mart lot near our house - walked two miles home and was ready for departure later that night. Even got a couple of hours of sleep - Gay drove me to the unit at midnight and I was off the K Mart lot about 12 30 am.
I hoped to stay with it past St. Louis then shut down. But around I-70 MP 169 I decided I was getting too tired to do St. Louis impaired - it's about 45 minutes across the metro area. It's not smart to drive the open road when fighting sleep and it's even worse in a city so I try not to enter any big city in that shape - just too many more things to react to and there's no disputing the fact that reactions are slower when I'm tired. So even though it'd mean getting in the STL morning rush I shut down about 40 miles west of Warrenton at an exit ramp to get a couple of hours of cab nap time.
Sleep isn't easy in a truck with two bucket seats and no open floor space. It's hard to find a way to bridge across the two seats. Oh, I usually find a way and it seldom works. That night it was to be my backpack on the floor with my briefcase on top of the backpack.Sounded pretty good till the weight of my butt smashed things down and everything went out of kilter. Basically it can't be done. I do want to try making up some disposable plywood bridges - about 21 inches long by 12 inches wide - then just throw each one away when I'm done with it. Hard to carry it around anything large and ridgid once I'm a pedestrian unless it fits in or can strap onto my backpack.
Somehow, I got about an hour and a half nap - back up at 6 am Thursday for the drive across STL. The nap and daylight did the job. This truck had zero fuel at pickup and I had added 12 plus 25 gallons so far - 37 gallons total. Was hard to tell the mileage I was getting - the odometer was worse than inop - it was turning but off by 27%. In 100 miles it would register 73 miles - at least it was a consistent 27% low but that makes the head math a double challenge. Also there wasn't a placard on the tank so I wasn't sure if I had a 40 or 45 or 50 gallon tank - looked like a 45 gallon tank but never did know for sure as I didn't do an initial fill from empty.
I usually track how many miles I get per 1/4 tank - in this case it seemed to be 110 miles crossing Missouri - implying about 10 mpg which was good - I was pleasantly surprised but not too trusting of that calculation since there was much I didn't know. I was tracking miles by mile post instead of odometer - 252 miles to cross Missouri, 160 across Illiinois and 80 to Indy then about 30 beyond to Anderson was the estimate.
Open road Illinois by 8 am. One thing I like about STL - RED 104.1 - an FM station playing "Rat Pack" music, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and newer retro artists like Michael Buble. I always get about 2 hours and 120 miles out of RED when transiting STL.
I got the bypass lane at the IL I-70 scale house. If you have to scale then the bypass lane is the way to go. No problem as I was in specs logbook wise and would be the whole trip. If I didn't shut down again I'd be well within the 11 hours driving and 14 total on duty time allotted by the Jan 2004 DOT regs.
Congress just agreed to stay out of the Hours of Service issue - there was a proposal and potential House amendment that would have liberalized the Hours of Service - permitted more on duty time - mainly an initiative by a Wal-Mart friendly Rep from Arkansas. But he didn't push the amendment and Congress stayed out of directly writing trucking regs. Wal-Mart was unhappy, the Teamsters and traffic safety folks were happy. Guess I was happy too in the interest of common sense but I would actually like to see one additional hour of on duty time - total of 15 versus 14 hours. That would fit my particular needs and allow an additional hour of on-d uty non driving time for more flexibility in napping. But it would be abused - heck we abuse the hours now. Sort of like setting a speed limit at 70 to keep people under 80.
Got to Indy about 11 am my time, noon Eastern Time, then Anderson at 1 pm. I opted to take US 36 up to Anderson - no good reason just curious as I was from St. Joe which is also on US 36. One bit of good news about Indy - this may have been my first trip across the city without the construction barrels around the airport and/or the I-465 area on the east side. Lots of new concrete and the barrels are gone. That was pleasant. Seems both were lengthy projects - especially on the west side - I'd deem that a 30 year war as there's been one widening project after another around the IND airport. All done.
continued
I've driven trucks in beer company livery before and one thing is guaranteed; some guy will ask for samples. This trip I got that twice en route at fuel stops, even at 2 am. "Hey, got any samples?" Answer's always "Sorry, empty." I may start saying "No, but the next driver will have a 30 pack for you, guaranteed"
I'd guess the regular drivers hear it all day every day and must get pretty tired of such a clever line. One guy also asked for tee shirts. Do beer route men just go around giving stuff away? I don't think so and in fact I'm sure it'd be illegal to give out beer. Just hopeful questioners all across this land.
One minior Mapquest let down at the end game - Mapquest put the destination star 1/4 mile south of Cross Road when the place was actually 1/4 mile north of Cross Road. Half a mile error that took about 3 miles to rectify. I was nearing min fuel - but wasn't sweating bullets yet so didn't feel compelled to add any cosmetic last two gallons. I'd picked this truck up on empty so they'd get it close to empty or I'd be making a donation to the Budweiser distributor and didn't want to do much of that.
Dropped the truck around 2 pm ET - guys swarmed all over it and a mechanic got under it. They'd bought it from a broker over the internet and this was their first look apparently. When they start picking over the mechanical items like driveshaft and brakes I put on my "I'm only the driver" face and tell them I only do a basic safety and body checkout - the rest is between them and the seller.
Actually it'd be great if they'd reject the truck and let me take it back to KC - I'd get a revenue run and a way home. But that didn't happen - they signed for the truck - I did my triple check to see that I had all my stuff out of the cab and my plates and placardd and I was back in familiar territory - pedestrian without a clue. Beer outfits sometimes come up with a ride - not always and there's no guessing which it'll be. In this case I asked which direction the Economy Lodge was and they knew it was quite a ways across town so one of the bosses volunteered a ride - which I took.
The Anderson bus stop is a Patel Motel - the Economy Inn as noted. They do sell tickets and since my pass had expired a couple of weeks ago I had to buy my way home - $75.30 using my senior citizen discount. I had about 5 hours till bus time. Walked across the road to the Mounds Mall - ate fast food Chinese - I always go for the Chinese and later hate myself for it but it's good at the moment. So still 4 1/2 hours to kill. The mall, very reminiscent of the old Pupplyland skits on SNL, had a movie and they even had mid afternoon show times so I opted for Keanu Reeves in Constantine.
I was dead tired so didn't know for sure if I was paying $5.50 for a movie or for 2 hours in a dark place - not a quiet place - to sleep. Turned out sleeping would have been the wiser course. I about half got the movie - no only about 25% I think. Something about demons, deals with Satan, smoking and a sacred knife. I could not write a coherent 25 word precis of the plot. Didn't get it although I still like Keanu Reeves. It was a comic book story line turned to a movie for those who follow detective John Constantine. I made a bad choice - should have seen Meet the Fokkers for the 2nd time or Hitch probably.
Did my post trip paperwork back in the food court - I had to manufacture the state mileage numbers since the odometer was so far off. Tried doing the math to resurrect the odometer numbers but that didn't seem to come close to the contract miles so went with Interstate mile post miles - still over contract by quite a bit and not sure why but didn't dwell on it as it doesn't really matter. We're paid by contract. Find a shortcut and we win - go over and we lose.
My next hour and a half was spent with two guys in a sort of side lobby to the motel which serves as bus stop waiing room. This location has only been the bus stop for about 2 months. The Greyhound passengers will trash (are trashing) the lobby and they'll soon put a bench outside and a sign on the door -"No Bus Passengers Inside". Guaranteed as we bus passengers can be pigs. One disgusting example of rider pigdom occurred during this wait and it surprised even unshockable me.
One of my buds had just been released from county lockup and the other guy seemed well versed in the ways of county lockup himself. I couldn't hold up my end of the conversation very well so largely sat it out. Even turned down the vodka one of the guys offered. He had decided to get drunk on vodka and beer before boarding so he wouldn't get caught drinking on the coach.
One hour run to Indy then a choice. I had looked at the sked and faced a six hour layover in either St. Louis or Indianapolis. I opted to do the long stint in Indy - I arrived around 10 pm and would be there till a 4 am coach to STL. Long time but much easier waiting at the Indianapolis station than in St. Louis. St. Louis is cramped and busy, very uncomfortable seating and at night nothing's open nearyb iin the way of a place to eat. Indy's terminal is bigger, wooden benches instead of Greyhound's chicken wire seating, and several places to eat or drink nearby - a White Castle that's open 24/7 and the Slippery Noodle Inn - one of the premier blues clubs in the country. So I opted for Indy for my six hour wait - it's a combined Amtrak/Greyhound station - always a Deputy Sheiff on duty as guard and it's an ok place. I did the White Castle - thought about the Noodle - only $5.00 cover for two bands but didn't want to drink, didn't want the crowd scene - this was St. Patrick's Day night - and went back to Union Station - made my nest, stretched out and slept on and off from about midnight till 3 30 am.
They used to have signs posted all over the station - "City Ordinance - No Laying Down in Terminal". Sort of a crazy sign but I noticed the signs were gone this trip and even asked the Deputy about it. He said they were no longer enforcing the rule so with that bit of official OK I enjoyed the hospitality of Greyhound Lines, got horizontal on their bench and dozed for a few hours. Had quite a bit of company in the horizontal dozing thing - seems quite a few pax have long connections there. One consequence of Indianapolis being a major Interstate hub I guess - take a look at a map - lots of intersecting Interstates in IND - more than most places. Interstates 70, 74, 65, 69 all cross or stub into IND.
Out of there on a full coach at 4 am - one hour layover in St.Louis which made me doubly glad I'd spent the long wait in Indy instead of STL. They had to add a coach out of STL for KC - in fact two coaches were full so about 100 pax making the trip. Dozed my way west across Missouri - KC at noon, city bus across town to my truck and home by 1 30 pm - still pretty tired but glad to be home.
Dispatch will spiff the trip a bit to help out some with the extra time that came about from the lousy connection schedule. That was probably the worst set of connecting times I've had in my four years of this work - but I got through it none too much the worse for wear. Tthe trip home from drop back to my door was about 24 hours - 12 hours more than the eastbound revenue run. Most aren't like that but with Greyhound cutting routes and stops there may be more of these lengthy returns in the future.
Trip stats: Contract 533 miles - my miles I estimate at 572. Fuel purchased 55.803 gallons for $120.58 - average cost 2.16 per gallon. Fuel economy estimated at 9.7 mpg - odometer off by 27% so no firm figures. Expenses: City buses $2.00. Lagniappe for courtesy ride - $2.00. Bus ticket $75.30. Postage and copies - $0.67. ATM fee $1.50 and meals estimated $17.00. Movie $5.50. Trip will pay approximately 533 times .69 cents per mile plus a $35 spiff or $402.00. Net after fuel and expenses - $182.00. Ok for the twelve hour run to Anderson but not nearly enough for the total time involved - 36 hours KC to KC.
This trip was partly an FTD run - Favor to Dispatch. They needed a KC driver and I was the only one in town for a short run plus my two previous trips had been good ones - both prior units were fueled at pickup so I made out like a bandito on two runs and give a little of it back on the third run. Overall when I average the three trips I'm ok. And Dispatch got a truck moved that otherwise was a longshot. We sometimes lose jobs when no driver can make the pickup on the shipper's schedule.
Off the road for a week. We have a new granddaughter - Tori Lauren - down in Cumming Georgia and we'll drive down there to meet and greet Tori Lauren. She joins grandson Riley who's 4 1/2 - and mostly unimpressed with baby sister although he does admit she's cute.
Info on several other trips of the year are online in the Driveaway and Transporter Lounge - a Yahoo group for driveway folks. You have to join to post but its set up so anyone can view the message archives. That's at: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/D
Also two other online driveaway journals - where the drivers have been more faithful to their journals lately are:
Jim B out of St. Paul: http://www.geocities.com/jimonthewayhom
Nice detail on his trips and the money end of the work.
Rogers S. from Phoenix: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gaucho
Airline employee who moves RVs around the western US on days off.
There area two recent and unfavorable developments affecting this work. First Greyhound is continuing to cut back on routes and stops - they did it last August in the Northwest region and more recently across the Southwest quarter of the country. April 3rd, 2005 will see quite a few routes cut and stops eliminated in MO, AR, TX, NM and other states.
One in particular that will affect me is the end of a daily run from Memphis to Springfield MO to Kansas City. I use that when I can on returns from the southeast and always enjoy it - the coach is usually lightly loaded - good for me and the reason for the end of the route - it's off the Interstates and goes across the Missouri Ozarks. But no more and a lot of small towns will be totally cut off from public transportation.
Greyhound doesn't have to ask permission to drop routes - they only have to inform the state and riders of the change - they're unregulated and Greyhound's taking a meat cleaver to local routes and small town stops. That hurts already and the trend will continue when they take their cleaver to the southeast and northeast. However I'm more affected by these midwest cuts since I live and work here. In some cases other lines do come in behind Greyhound but it's hard to ferret out their schedule info and they often don't connect as well with Greyhound as the former Greyhound skeds.
The other trend is likewise troublesome - air fares. They're going up. Fast. Two years ago I could book one-way LAX-MCI for $139 - even last minute. More recently LAX to MCI went to $189. If my westbound trip was in an Isuzu NQR there was enough money in the run to make it still worthwhile to fly home but now the fare when I last checked was $268 and that just gets too far into the profits to make the trip worthwhile.
I just looked at www.cheaptickets.com for LAX-MCI a week out - Saturday 3-26-05 and the lowest fare they're displaying is $325.00. Amtrak's still a good deal at $126 but in summer they fill up and it's hard to get their lowest fares. Plus it's two nights enroute back to KC out of LA or Fullerton. The only good workaround is finding a return revenue trip - and that entails sigining on with an additional and probably larger outfit which I've so far resisted doing. I like DUSA and frankly don't want to drag another set of papers and plates around with me all the time. One notebook of permits and papers is heavy enough I'm not anxious to add a second set of everything.
Some drivers will still opt to do the west coast trps and some don't mind working at close to break even just for the travel. I do this work for the money - the travel is a side benefit but I'm not doing this to lose money or to break even. If I can't on average make $125 to $150 a day for "days out" and after fuel and return transportation costs it's not worth doing. Some trips I do considerably better than that some not so good but that's the low end of what a driver should make. Even so it's in the neighborhood of $12 an hour for driving time and that's not much.
So between Greyhound cuts and the rising air fares -- directly related to crude oil increases - there's pressure on this work. I didn't mention fuel cost itself. For me the surcharge we get mostly compensates for increases in fuel cost and I can actually play the system to some extent by picking jobs. In an Isuzu NQR which gets 11 mpg and by fueling in states where fuel is below the national average like MO, OK, IN I actually make money the more diesel prices increase. Sounds crazy but our fuel surcharge is based on units that get 7 mpg. In an Isuzu I gain on the bands in the chart so higher diesel prices means I make more per mile after fuel cost and the surcharge is figured in. And the higher it goes the more I gain so bring on $2.50 or $3.00 diesel - which is where we're headed. I'm sort of whistleing past the graveyard. Other factors work against me as fuel goes up even if the surcharge structure softens the blow.
If I'm in a rig that has fuel at pickup I make out great. The surcharge tjem is pure profit. In an unfueled truck that gets less than 7mpg I eat it - and big time if going to high diesel states or running with a small tank where I can't "tanker" my own cheap fuel. About the worst combination is a trip west in a Freightliner FL70 or FL80 (7 or 8 mpg) with a 45 gallon tank. The NQR is a big nuisance with its tiny 30 gallon tank but the 11 mpg makes up for the small tank somewhat.
More than ever you have to research everything about a trip to see if it's one you take or pass on. Even towing and driving your own truck or car home has gotten more expensive with higher fuel costs - that's no longer a minor cost unless you're getting 45 mpg in your dinghy or Toad as the RV'er call their towed vehicles.
Lots of math in this work - you can still make money but you have to pick trips, manage fuel, live cheap and research your deadheading legs before committing to any one job.
Happy trails
Dick Williams rjw@kcsky.net
Kansas City MO usa
Associated with Driveaway USA
www.drivewayusa.com
Trip 18 for 2005 - North Kansas City MO to Anderson IN with a Bud truck March 17th, 2005. Trip 377 in The Life.
The job - move a 1991 Ford 8000 beverage truck from a distributor in North Kansas City MO to a distributor in Anderson IN - about 30 NE Indianapolis. Time parameters - deliver during their business hours 7 am to 5 pm weekdays. Pick up anytime during biz hours.
Prepped the truck Wednesday 3-16-05 in NKC - turned out this was another beautification project. Funny how the bev outfits, soft drink and beer distrubtors both, spend money strictly on the looks of their old units - rehab the body, new paint and decals and don't do much for the cab. All for the outside look and nothing for the driver. In general bev trucks are austere - most don't have air, this one had no radio. In general the bev outfits equip them minimally.
This was an older unit - 1991 Ford 800 chassis with a Hackney beverage body that had just been rehabbed by Hackeny down in Independence, KS. It was repainted and in new Bud decals. Looks 10 - Dance 4.
I got it from the sending outfit at 2 pm Wedneday - planned to drop it in Anderson around 3 pm Thursday, 3-17-05. The distance is 533 contract miles - about 10 hours driving time, then add 2 hours for mess around time for total of 12. But I never like to plan a night drive for the exact timing so always want some padding for a cab nap - in this case I planned to leave around midnight Thursday morning giving me several hours of padding.
You have to always think about the return and how to get back home. This one proved tough as there was one bus a day out of Anderson - actually lucky to have that one bus with Greyhound's diminishing route structure. The one southbound bus leaves Anderson at 8 25 pm - goes to Indianapolis and then another long wait at either St. Louis or Indianapolis - six hours in one place or the other - then either way Kansas city at noon on Friday. So the return would entail a 5 or 6 hour wait first in Anderson for that night bus and en route somewhere another 6 hours for a connection. Bad deal. I worked the web for probably an hour - trying for a better formula. Thought I might get a bus to Chicago and use Amtrak but timing just didn't work since I was boxed in by the receiving outfit's requirement that I drop when they were open. No blind drop permitted and that too is typical of bev outfits. They like to lock their trucks up in their yards and don't usually allow me to drop and run as many other receivers will do. There was no other way - I even considered hitching to Indy but that's so unreliable and I'd still have to allow several hours to do that - so I never actually tried it.
Prepped and signed out the truck around 2 pm Wednesday, drove my pickup to downtown KC, parked it on Quality Hill where I've not yet lost any windows to vandalism, took city bus back to NKC and moved the Bud truck to a K Mart lot near our house - walked two miles home and was ready for departure later that night. Even got a couple of hours of sleep - Gay drove me to the unit at midnight and I was off the K Mart lot about 12 30 am.
I hoped to stay with it past St. Louis then shut down. But around I-70 MP 169 I decided I was getting too tired to do St. Louis impaired - it's about 45 minutes across the metro area. It's not smart to drive the open road when fighting sleep and it's even worse in a city so I try not to enter any big city in that shape - just too many more things to react to and there's no disputing the fact that reactions are slower when I'm tired. So even though it'd mean getting in the STL morning rush I shut down about 40 miles west of Warrenton at an exit ramp to get a couple of hours of cab nap time.
Sleep isn't easy in a truck with two bucket seats and no open floor space. It's hard to find a way to bridge across the two seats. Oh, I usually find a way and it seldom works. That night it was to be my backpack on the floor with my briefcase on top of the backpack.Sounded pretty good till the weight of my butt smashed things down and everything went out of kilter. Basically it can't be done. I do want to try making up some disposable plywood bridges - about 21 inches long by 12 inches wide - then just throw each one away when I'm done with it. Hard to carry it around anything large and ridgid once I'm a pedestrian unless it fits in or can strap onto my backpack.
Somehow, I got about an hour and a half nap - back up at 6 am Thursday for the drive across STL. The nap and daylight did the job. This truck had zero fuel at pickup and I had added 12 plus 25 gallons so far - 37 gallons total. Was hard to tell the mileage I was getting - the odometer was worse than inop - it was turning but off by 27%. In 100 miles it would register 73 miles - at least it was a consistent 27% low but that makes the head math a double challenge. Also there wasn't a placard on the tank so I wasn't sure if I had a 40 or 45 or 50 gallon tank - looked like a 45 gallon tank but never did know for sure as I didn't do an initial fill from empty.
I usually track how many miles I get per 1/4 tank - in this case it seemed to be 110 miles crossing Missouri - implying about 10 mpg which was good - I was pleasantly surprised but not too trusting of that calculation since there was much I didn't know. I was tracking miles by mile post instead of odometer - 252 miles to cross Missouri, 160 across Illiinois and 80 to Indy then about 30 beyond to Anderson was the estimate.
Open road Illinois by 8 am. One thing I like about STL - RED 104.1 - an FM station playing "Rat Pack" music, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and newer retro artists like Michael Buble. I always get about 2 hours and 120 miles out of RED when transiting STL.
I got the bypass lane at the IL I-70 scale house. If you have to scale then the bypass lane is the way to go. No problem as I was in specs logbook wise and would be the whole trip. If I didn't shut down again I'd be well within the 11 hours driving and 14 total on duty time allotted by the Jan 2004 DOT regs.
Congress just agreed to stay out of the Hours of Service issue - there was a proposal and potential House amendment that would have liberalized the Hours of Service - permitted more on duty time - mainly an initiative by a Wal-Mart friendly Rep from Arkansas. But he didn't push the amendment and Congress stayed out of directly writing trucking regs. Wal-Mart was unhappy, the Teamsters and traffic safety folks were happy. Guess I was happy too in the interest of common sense but I would actually like to see one additional hour of on duty time - total of 15 versus 14 hours. That would fit my particular needs and allow an additional hour of on-d uty non driving time for more flexibility in napping. But it would be abused - heck we abuse the hours now. Sort of like setting a speed limit at 70 to keep people under 80.
Got to Indy about 11 am my time, noon Eastern Time, then Anderson at 1 pm. I opted to take US 36 up to Anderson - no good reason just curious as I was from St. Joe which is also on US 36. One bit of good news about Indy - this may have been my first trip across the city without the construction barrels around the airport and/or the I-465 area on the east side. Lots of new concrete and the barrels are gone. That was pleasant. Seems both were lengthy projects - especially on the west side - I'd deem that a 30 year war as there's been one widening project after another around the IND airport. All done.
continued
I've driven trucks in beer company livery before and one thing is guaranteed; some guy will ask for samples. This trip I got that twice en route at fuel stops, even at 2 am. "Hey, got any samples?" Answer's always "Sorry, empty." I may start saying "No, but the next driver will have a 30 pack for you, guaranteed"
I'd guess the regular drivers hear it all day every day and must get pretty tired of such a clever line. One guy also asked for tee shirts. Do beer route men just go around giving stuff away? I don't think so and in fact I'm sure it'd be illegal to give out beer. Just hopeful questioners all across this land.
One minior Mapquest let down at the end game - Mapquest put the destination star 1/4 mile south of Cross Road when the place was actually 1/4 mile north of Cross Road. Half a mile error that took about 3 miles to rectify. I was nearing min fuel - but wasn't sweating bullets yet so didn't feel compelled to add any cosmetic last two gallons. I'd picked this truck up on empty so they'd get it close to empty or I'd be making a donation to the Budweiser distributor and didn't want to do much of that.
Dropped the truck around 2 pm ET - guys swarmed all over it and a mechanic got under it. They'd bought it from a broker over the internet and this was their first look apparently. When they start picking over the mechanical items like driveshaft and brakes I put on my "I'm only the driver" face and tell them I only do a basic safety and body checkout - the rest is between them and the seller.
Actually it'd be great if they'd reject the truck and let me take it back to KC - I'd get a revenue run and a way home. But that didn't happen - they signed for the truck - I did my triple check to see that I had all my stuff out of the cab and my plates and placardd and I was back in familiar territory - pedestrian without a clue. Beer outfits sometimes come up with a ride - not always and there's no guessing which it'll be. In this case I asked which direction the Economy Lodge was and they knew it was quite a ways across town so one of the bosses volunteered a ride - which I took.
The Anderson bus stop is a Patel Motel - the Economy Inn as noted. They do sell tickets and since my pass had expired a couple of weeks ago I had to buy my way home - $75.30 using my senior citizen discount. I had about 5 hours till bus time. Walked across the road to the Mounds Mall - ate fast food Chinese - I always go for the Chinese and later hate myself for it but it's good at the moment. So still 4 1/2 hours to kill. The mall, very reminiscent of the old Pupplyland skits on SNL, had a movie and they even had mid afternoon show times so I opted for Keanu Reeves in Constantine.
I was dead tired so didn't know for sure if I was paying $5.50 for a movie or for 2 hours in a dark place - not a quiet place - to sleep. Turned out sleeping would have been the wiser course. I about half got the movie - no only about 25% I think. Something about demons, deals with Satan, smoking and a sacred knife. I could not write a coherent 25 word precis of the plot. Didn't get it although I still like Keanu Reeves. It was a comic book story line turned to a movie for those who follow detective John Constantine. I made a bad choice - should have seen Meet the Fokkers for the 2nd time or Hitch probably.
Did my post trip paperwork back in the food court - I had to manufacture the state mileage numbers since the odometer was so far off. Tried doing the math to resurrect the odometer numbers but that didn't seem to come close to the contract miles so went with Interstate mile post miles - still over contract by quite a bit and not sure why but didn't dwell on it as it doesn't really matter. We're paid by contract. Find a shortcut and we win - go over and we lose.
My next hour and a half was spent with two guys in a sort of side lobby to the motel which serves as bus stop waiing room. This location has only been the bus stop for about 2 months. The Greyhound passengers will trash (are trashing) the lobby and they'll soon put a bench outside and a sign on the door -"No Bus Passengers Inside". Guaranteed as we bus passengers can be pigs. One disgusting example of rider pigdom occurred during this wait and it surprised even unshockable me.
One of my buds had just been released from county lockup and the other guy seemed well versed in the ways of county lockup himself. I couldn't hold up my end of the conversation very well so largely sat it out. Even turned down the vodka one of the guys offered. He had decided to get drunk on vodka and beer before boarding so he wouldn't get caught drinking on the coach.
One hour run to Indy then a choice. I had looked at the sked and faced a six hour layover in either St. Louis or Indianapolis. I opted to do the long stint in Indy - I arrived around 10 pm and would be there till a 4 am coach to STL. Long time but much easier waiting at the Indianapolis station than in St. Louis. St. Louis is cramped and busy, very uncomfortable seating and at night nothing's open nearyb iin the way of a place to eat. Indy's terminal is bigger, wooden benches instead of Greyhound's chicken wire seating, and several places to eat or drink nearby - a White Castle that's open 24/7 and the Slippery Noodle Inn - one of the premier blues clubs in the country. So I opted for Indy for my six hour wait - it's a combined Amtrak/Greyhound station - always a Deputy Sheiff on duty as guard and it's an ok place. I did the White Castle - thought about the Noodle - only $5.00 cover for two bands but didn't want to drink, didn't want the crowd scene - this was St. Patrick's Day night - and went back to Union Station - made my nest, stretched out and slept on and off from about midnight till 3 30 am.
They used to have signs posted all over the station - "City Ordinance - No Laying Down in Terminal". Sort of a crazy sign but I noticed the signs were gone this trip and even asked the Deputy about it. He said they were no longer enforcing the rule so with that bit of official OK I enjoyed the hospitality of Greyhound Lines, got horizontal on their bench and dozed for a few hours. Had quite a bit of company in the horizontal dozing thing - seems quite a few pax have long connections there. One consequence of Indianapolis being a major Interstate hub I guess - take a look at a map - lots of intersecting Interstates in IND - more than most places. Interstates 70, 74, 65, 69 all cross or stub into IND.
Out of there on a full coach at 4 am - one hour layover in St.Louis which made me doubly glad I'd spent the long wait in Indy instead of STL. They had to add a coach out of STL for KC - in fact two coaches were full so about 100 pax making the trip. Dozed my way west across Missouri - KC at noon, city bus across town to my truck and home by 1 30 pm - still pretty tired but glad to be home.
Dispatch will spiff the trip a bit to help out some with the extra time that came about from the lousy connection schedule. That was probably the worst set of connecting times I've had in my four years of this work - but I got through it none too much the worse for wear. Tthe trip home from drop back to my door was about 24 hours - 12 hours more than the eastbound revenue run. Most aren't like that but with Greyhound cutting routes and stops there may be more of these lengthy returns in the future.
Trip stats: Contract 533 miles - my miles I estimate at 572. Fuel purchased 55.803 gallons for $120.58 - average cost 2.16 per gallon. Fuel economy estimated at 9.7 mpg - odometer off by 27% so no firm figures. Expenses: City buses $2.00. Lagniappe for courtesy ride - $2.00. Bus ticket $75.30. Postage and copies - $0.67. ATM fee $1.50 and meals estimated $17.00. Movie $5.50. Trip will pay approximately 533 times .69 cents per mile plus a $35 spiff or $402.00. Net after fuel and expenses - $182.00. Ok for the twelve hour run to Anderson but not nearly enough for the total time involved - 36 hours KC to KC.
This trip was partly an FTD run - Favor to Dispatch. They needed a KC driver and I was the only one in town for a short run plus my two previous trips had been good ones - both prior units were fueled at pickup so I made out like a bandito on two runs and give a little of it back on the third run. Overall when I average the three trips I'm ok. And Dispatch got a truck moved that otherwise was a longshot. We sometimes lose jobs when no driver can make the pickup on the shipper's schedule.
Off the road for a week. We have a new granddaughter - Tori Lauren - down in Cumming Georgia and we'll drive down there to meet and greet Tori Lauren. She joins grandson Riley who's 4 1/2 - and mostly unimpressed with baby sister although he does admit she's cute.
Info on several other trips of the year are online in the Driveaway and Transporter Lounge - a Yahoo group for driveway folks. You have to join to post but its set up so anyone can view the message archives. That's at: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/D
Also two other online driveaway journals - where the drivers have been more faithful to their journals lately are:
Jim B out of St. Paul: http://www.geocities.com/jimonthewayhom
Nice detail on his trips and the money end of the work.
Rogers S. from Phoenix: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gaucho
Airline employee who moves RVs around the western US on days off.
There area two recent and unfavorable developments affecting this work. First Greyhound is continuing to cut back on routes and stops - they did it last August in the Northwest region and more recently across the Southwest quarter of the country. April 3rd, 2005 will see quite a few routes cut and stops eliminated in MO, AR, TX, NM and other states.
One in particular that will affect me is the end of a daily run from Memphis to Springfield MO to Kansas City. I use that when I can on returns from the southeast and always enjoy it - the coach is usually lightly loaded - good for me and the reason for the end of the route - it's off the Interstates and goes across the Missouri Ozarks. But no more and a lot of small towns will be totally cut off from public transportation.
Greyhound doesn't have to ask permission to drop routes - they only have to inform the state and riders of the change - they're unregulated and Greyhound's taking a meat cleaver to local routes and small town stops. That hurts already and the trend will continue when they take their cleaver to the southeast and northeast. However I'm more affected by these midwest cuts since I live and work here. In some cases other lines do come in behind Greyhound but it's hard to ferret out their schedule info and they often don't connect as well with Greyhound as the former Greyhound skeds.
The other trend is likewise troublesome - air fares. They're going up. Fast. Two years ago I could book one-way LAX-MCI for $139 - even last minute. More recently LAX to MCI went to $189. If my westbound trip was in an Isuzu NQR there was enough money in the run to make it still worthwhile to fly home but now the fare when I last checked was $268 and that just gets too far into the profits to make the trip worthwhile.
I just looked at www.cheaptickets.com for LAX-MCI a week out - Saturday 3-26-05 and the lowest fare they're displaying is $325.00. Amtrak's still a good deal at $126 but in summer they fill up and it's hard to get their lowest fares. Plus it's two nights enroute back to KC out of LA or Fullerton. The only good workaround is finding a return revenue trip - and that entails sigining on with an additional and probably larger outfit which I've so far resisted doing. I like DUSA and frankly don't want to drag another set of papers and plates around with me all the time. One notebook of permits and papers is heavy enough I'm not anxious to add a second set of everything.
Some drivers will still opt to do the west coast trps and some don't mind working at close to break even just for the travel. I do this work for the money - the travel is a side benefit but I'm not doing this to lose money or to break even. If I can't on average make $125 to $150 a day for "days out" and after fuel and return transportation costs it's not worth doing. Some trips I do considerably better than that some not so good but that's the low end of what a driver should make. Even so it's in the neighborhood of $12 an hour for driving time and that's not much.
So between Greyhound cuts and the rising air fares -- directly related to crude oil increases - there's pressure on this work. I didn't mention fuel cost itself. For me the surcharge we get mostly compensates for increases in fuel cost and I can actually play the system to some extent by picking jobs. In an Isuzu NQR which gets 11 mpg and by fueling in states where fuel is below the national average like MO, OK, IN I actually make money the more diesel prices increase. Sounds crazy but our fuel surcharge is based on units that get 7 mpg. In an Isuzu I gain on the bands in the chart so higher diesel prices means I make more per mile after fuel cost and the surcharge is figured in. And the higher it goes the more I gain so bring on $2.50 or $3.00 diesel - which is where we're headed. I'm sort of whistleing past the graveyard. Other factors work against me as fuel goes up even if the surcharge structure softens the blow.
If I'm in a rig that has fuel at pickup I make out great. The surcharge tjem is pure profit. In an unfueled truck that gets less than 7mpg I eat it - and big time if going to high diesel states or running with a small tank where I can't "tanker" my own cheap fuel. About the worst combination is a trip west in a Freightliner FL70 or FL80 (7 or 8 mpg) with a 45 gallon tank. The NQR is a big nuisance with its tiny 30 gallon tank but the 11 mpg makes up for the small tank somewhat.
More than ever you have to research everything about a trip to see if it's one you take or pass on. Even towing and driving your own truck or car home has gotten more expensive with higher fuel costs - that's no longer a minor cost unless you're getting 45 mpg in your dinghy or Toad as the RV'er call their towed vehicles.
Lots of math in this work - you can still make money but you have to pick trips, manage fuel, live cheap and research your deadheading legs before committing to any one job.
Happy trails
Dick Williams rjw@kcsky.net
Kansas City MO usa
Associated with Driveaway USA
www.drivewayusa.com
