ABF | Arcbest Refrigerated Transportation Options

More and more it's looking like Consolidated Freightways / Conway Menlo...........Hold your breath every Labor Day........
IF you have been reading my posts, I have always said that Meno Logistics set the bar with Consolidated Freightways....don't think one minute that isn't "disguised in Judy's mine---with glasses!"
I had another driver ask me today how to spell ABF....at one time it would have offended me..but now...fill in the blanks...
 
IF you have been reading my posts, I have always said that Meno Logistics set the bar with Consolidated Freightways....don't think one minute that isn't "disguised in Judy's mine---with glasses!"
I had another driver ask me today how to spell ABF....at one time it would have offended me..but now...fill in the blanks...
Ay bee eff. It's easy to spell!!
 
Any of us who delivered those places have some 'fond' memories of the experience(s). I used to deliver one on a regular basis, close to a pup of pallets. The 'receiver' would sit on a pallet of merchandise reading a newspaper and point to where I was to put the freight. I was allowed to use their pallet jacks but not their forklifts. So...we started loading the pallets sideways even though we didn't need to the room, that way I could sit on the pallet of merchandise and tell him where to put the freight. :hilarious:
If anyone has delivered to a food warehouse before, they have with out a doubt experienced life as a second class citizen. I was barred from Wal-Mart DC in Seymour Indiana years ago before working for ABF. I came back there about 2 months later with the same load of sort & segregate Kal-Kan dog food. I refused to help them again to do their dock work & they realized I had been barred. In a polite matter I told them I would be happy to leave with their freight & someone on another day could deliver it. They had me wait up stairs in the drivers room the max 4 hour window to unload & handed me my bills & said never to return. Strangest thing is they really wanted their freight. 7 years later I delivered my first drop & hook ABF load. Never took a second glance @ me. They still wanted their freight. Probably a different clerk @ the window. von.
 
Last edited:
They had me wait up stairs in the drivers room the max 4 hour window to unload
They all seem to think that we are all in a hurry and/or working for free while they drag their feet. Particularly since things have gone the way that have with ABF I'm in no hurry and feel as though it's just less work that I'll have to do if I get tied up at a shipper's or receiver's dock. It's incredible how fast they go after they say, "It's going to be a while", and I say, "That's fine, where's your coffee pot?"
 
I usually told them : "That's fine.....I'm paid by the minute. You take your time...." . Then it seemed like they moved Heaven and Earth to get you off their dock. Didn't matter to me........I truly was paid "by the minute"..........So are you.........
 
I usually told them : "That's fine.....I'm paid by the minute. You take your time...." . Then it seemed like they moved Heaven and Earth to get you off their dock. Didn't matter to me........I truly was paid "by the minute"..........So are you.........
What happens if you are on the receivers dock 500 miles from the house, and require ER services of a hospital? Workmans comp takes over, but what a nightmare. Depositions, phone calls from insurance companies registered letters & so on. Now days I am guessing most food receivers don't want a driver on the dock because of the possible cost to them of your injury. I think, right or wrong,a lumping service company is the better answer. Don't take much to be run over by a forklift driver. von.
 
What happens if you are on the receivers dock 500 miles from the house, and require ER services of a hospital? Workmans comp takes over, but what a nightmare. Depositions, phone calls from insurance companies registered letters & so on. Now days I am guessing most food receivers don't want a driver on the dock because of the possible cost to them of your injury. I think, right or wrong,a lumping service company is the better answer. Don't take much to be run over by a forklift driver. von.
very well stated...what a liability it is to have all kind of outside vendors (drivers, etc) on your dock...I bet they wouldn't let a bunch of folks on our DC docks for any reason...and I don't blame them...
 
But lumpers are outside vendors themselves. It's just a convoluted way of extorting more money out of transportation services without paying benefits to a non-Union contractor,..........or in the case of non-Union receiving crews, a way of avoiding benefits for the people working (subcontracting) on your dock and doing the same work as your own employees.

As a former O/O, I detest lumpers,.........that's money that should go to MY business/family. The food warehouse should have THEIR OWN people to unload , as does many, many other industries.

But the food industry has figured out how to tack on legalized extortion,....mainly at their leisure,.....and at the expense of BOTH the truck drivers and the lumpers themselves..........How many lumper services pay benefits and wages EQUAL to the receivers on the dock? NONE, as we all know......

Oh , well.............Another intelligence test............Get a job working full time with benefits and reasonably good wages,.............or get a job as a lumper doing the same work at the same place for no benefits and a cut-rate wage...........
 
But lumpers are outside vendors themselves. It's just a convoluted way of extorting more money out of transportation services without paying benefits to a non-Union contractor,..........or in the case of non-Union receiving crews, a way of avoiding benefits for the people working (subcontracting) on your dock and doing the same work as your own employees.

As a former O/O, I detest lumpers,.........that's money that should go to MY business/family. The food warehouse should have THEIR OWN people to unload , as does many, many other industries.

But the food industry has figured out how to tack on legalized extortion,....mainly at their leisure,.....and at the expense of BOTH the truck drivers and the lumpers themselves..........How many lumper services pay benefits and wages EQUAL to the receivers on the dock? NONE, as we all know......

Oh , well.............Another intelligence test............Get a job working full time with benefits and reasonably good wages,.............or get a job as a lumper doing the same work at the same place for no benefits and a cut-rate wage...........
I know I had mentioned this before, C. But blame the trucking companies. They are the ones who made a deal with the devil,not the grocery whse. They will milk this out forever if the LTL's don't confront the shippers with higher shipping rates.
 
But lumpers are outside vendors themselves. It's just a convoluted way of extorting more money out of transportation services without paying benefits to a non-Union contractor,..........or in the case of non-Union receiving crews, a way of avoiding benefits for the people working (subcontracting) on your dock and doing the same work as your own employees.

As a former O/O, I detest lumpers,.........that's money that should go to MY business/family. The food warehouse should have THEIR OWN people to unload , as does many, many other industries.

But the food industry has figured out how to tack on legalized extortion,....mainly at their leisure,.....and at the expense of BOTH the truck drivers and the lumpers themselves..........How many lumper services pay benefits and wages EQUAL to the receivers on the dock? NONE, as we all know......

Oh , well.............Another intelligence test............Get a job working full time with benefits and reasonably good wages,.............or get a job as a lumper doing the same work at the same place for no benefits and a cut-rate wage...........
As a O & O would you have a hard time finding freight if the contract or on the bills said Receiver responsible for all unloading costs? Regardless of the type of freight on your equipment. von.
 
More and more it's looking like Consolidated Freightways / Conway Menlo...........Hold your breath every Labor Day........
rember, conway i mean conjob tried truckload operations twice and failed miserably. they bought CFI out of missouri changed the name to conjob truckload. then XPO bought conjob and sold CFI(conjob truckload)to transforce which is now doing well. Point is , if they couldnt operate it you really dont think Judy and company can do it better do you? I dont know what the rest of the system looks like with panther, but in atlanta they're here everyday. they show up, sleep on the yard for 3-4hours waiting to rescue a shipment from us. they get loade by 10-1030 am going to miami, has to be there by5pm, 620miles away. yes they fail everytime. Hows that for a well run logistics operation, and btw we see them sitting for days at truckstops waiting for that premium freght dispatch:lmao: Hope yur enjoying retirement brother, glad yur not in this mess anymore!
 
Back in my younger days,......I had more than my share of "Lake Station Vacations" waiting for loads. Anyone trying to haul out of Gary/Chicagoland knows what I'm saying.....
 
Back in my younger days,......I had more than my share of "Lake Station Vacations" waiting for loads. Anyone trying to haul out of Gary/Chicagoland knows what I'm saying.....
Used to be a truck stop near US Steel that came close to giving Rubes in Jersey City, New Jersey a run for it's money. von.
 
That was Lake Station. I think it was officially a T/A ,.....Wonderful place to spend a couple of days watching your operating cash dwindle........
 
That was Lake Station. I think it was officially a T/A ,.....Wonderful place to spend a couple of days watching your operating cash dwindle........
Yea, that was it. Never pulled US Steel but a lot of other warehouses & companies back 30 years ago. Now, kind of looks like Dresden Germany right after a Allied bombing or not far from it. von.
 
Burr street was the 76 and Lake Station was a Philips 66 IIRC

Aha! Another gentleman with a working knowledge of the finer points of Gary Indiana nightlife, social societies and fraternal organizations hanging around the front gates of USS Gary.

Dresden?......try Dresden with a layer of coal ash and a distinct sulphur smell , combined with the odors of rotting cars, garbage, and human morals....30 years after the bombing......

Kind of like the low rent suburbs of Hell......
 
Top