2 wheel 50ft Chain drivers are paid different then 28ft broad line drivers. The chain guys make less money then broad line guys it's always talked about at our yard that the chain guys make less then us, one of our guys was at a mall doing a delivery and a 50ft chain truck showed up and the driver said to him, man you guys back on sales service do better then we do, now pay may vary per part of the country Kanapolis is brand new where Cleveland is old school and has been around for a long time. I'm 28ft broad line division home every night I make more money then chain drivers do. Now one thing to consider and this happened once so it will happen again. One of the DC's ran out of 50ft trailers, but they had a whole yard full of 28' trailers and converter dollies. So what did they do you might ask?
That's right they loaded a 50ft load into two 28's and had the driver pull doubles on his route.
Now what I think he did was probably dropped the set at a yard made his stops in that town re hooked and went on to the next area. That only happened once and where that happened they probably have some brand new 50' trailers on the way. I know the warehouse I am out of did not have very many 50', but just today I saw a brand new 50' so they must have gotten some in.
Where your at will be tricky, because the warehouse is new they probably are going to have some trial by fire as far as equipment goes probably load quality will be up and down too. In other words they probably don't have enough tractors, 28' trailers, converter dolly's and 50' trailers. When Imperial opened they did not have enough tractors and it was a problem. However I think last I heard they bought about 14 more tractors for that warehouse and that should have helped solve the tractor problem. They probably also had some new trailers on the way too. Three weeks ago on my way home from Greenville, SC I saw two owner operators pulling brand new GFS sets of doubles on I-77 in Virginia. Those were brand new trailers on there way from Great Dane in Chincago to probably your yard in Kanappolis.
If I was you I would try and do 28ft broadline. The pay is better and you would be home every night no Saturdays or Sundays and like Lazlo said it's dip pay cases, miles stops so on and so fourth. I just started a new route about 3 weeks ago and it was a bump up from my old route pay wise last week I was $147 dollars more on my pay check.
If Sysco is that unbearable though then I would say yes go do Chains at GFS there so far aren't any of the gobbeldy gooks you guys have. Our hand held is fairly easy to use, and while it monitors stuff like hard breaks and all that were not like you guys at GFS the key to success is stay out of trouble and deliver your cases and you'll be okay and they will leave you alone.
