Central Transport | Terminals closing?

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Heard from customer Wednesday we lost their account as of Feb 1st, seems they were not to happy Vitran drew a line from North Dakota to Texas showing they (we) are not delivering our own freight there anymore, aka handing off to another contract company, but both want a piece of the pie. NW Canada was still a straight shot from MSP, so makes me wonder if they are going to start closing terminals and tightening the grips finally.
 
They should. If after many attempts, and great effort, the centers with consistently low revenue, high operating ratio, high on the job injuries, should be closed.
 
I'll offer a different view. In 2007/2008 many smaller terminals were closed over fears of the economic down turn. At the time most of these terminals were quite profitable but we didn't wait to see how they were impacted instead Vitran initiated a preemtive strike. I don't know if this was Gaetz's or Kosovec's plan. The plan backfired, we lost a tremendous number of good employees. We also lost a ton of freight. We no longer could offer the level of service expected by our customers. If you're running a 400 mile P&D route you can't turn around, go back and make pick-ups, it's a one-way trip. We have way too many trailers going out with freight, running too many miles with $4 a gallon diesel and coming back empty. Not every shipper is in a major metro area, 3M is a good example, they have many factories in small rural areas, we used to haul trailer loads of their product, now we only get the scraps from the warehouses we can service. Why would Estes open up a terminal in almost every town that we closed one in? If you could overlay a map of Vitran's terminals with Fed Ex and Con-Way you would see the huge difference in coverage. Vitran has made some poor purchases as well. Sierra West and Milan are tied for worst decision of the decade. In years past when Vitran wanted to expend we hired our own people and chose our own facilities, rather than buying someone's problem. When Vitran and PJAX combined we spent a boatload of money on a new computer system. Why? The LTL400 system was bullet proof and paid for. The tablets are cool but was it something we could afford? My answer is no. That money would have been better spent on repairing equipment so we can get off double secret probation with the Feds. When I started we had old equipment but it was well maintained and you never had to worry about crossing a scale. There is a lot more competition than was 10 or 15 years ago. I don't get to see a lot of bills anymore but the ones I do see are scary. In the early days our goal used to be $95 per pallet, the last bill I saw was $65 per pallet for freight that was moving over 600 miles, I'm sure there is cheaper freight than that in our system. If you're moving freight that cheap your operation better run extremely well. Old Dominion seems to have it figured out. My rant for the day.
 
Heard from customer Wednesday we lost their account as of Feb 1st, seems they were not to happy Vitran drew a line from North Dakota to Texas showing they (we) are not delivering our own freight there anymore, aka handing off to another contract company, but both want a piece of the pie. NW Canada was still a straight shot from MSP, so makes me wonder if they are going to start closing terminals and tightening the grips finally.
If its not coming to Dallas are Houston proper they are pretty much screwed. I don't blame them....We interline everything else including San Antonio which only has 5 drivers to deliver their best accts. Dallas has a 55 door dock and 30 P&D drivers....Houston a little bigger but not much. They want to play with the big boys but don't want the operating cost of operating other terminals...O well, you can't have it all. Consider this FedEx has 5 terminals in the DFW area alone, And 3 of them are 200+door terminals...DFW is a major market, We average 800-1000 bills. Believe it are not. A totally untapped market...3 sales reps are to busy putting out fires to even think about making sales calls. Although they try to fit them in.
 
I would also add that a lot of us a puzzled as to why we have a customer, then that customer goes over to uni-shipper or ch rob me blind to handle their freight, then we still haul it after giving up %. One i know for sure we lost 7.2% on our rate thanks to this, and the rate was low due to almost a truckload a day from one dock doing us and canada, but, now they are still more than happy to go out of our way to please these jerks getting 1 to 5 skids going 500 miles, and i mean jerks, every driver cringes at going their, shipping manager needs an enema in the attitude dept, show up at 150 and he will make you wait till 2 when it was suppose to be ready even though it is 20 feet from dock with paperwork taped to it waiting.
 
.3 sales reps are to busy putting out fires to even think about making sales calls. Although they try to fit them in.

that is what i heard through the grapevine about GRR, sales team turned into firemen and officials more than door knockers, then got chewed for no new accounts
 
Vitrans has no trouble getting accts....They have trouble keeping them....When you promise the world and drop the ball on the first play...Maybe you can get a second chance...But when you drop it the second time.....Your history most the time.
 
i know 3 accounts we lost here were due to OS&D, all 3 said higher rates from od and fxf were better due to less loss,,,,,, so they went back to them
 
And thats why this company will continue to struggle. Until they get OS&D in order.......They are so stupid.....Why go after new accts until we fix at least some of that problem...Its our #1 problem....Hire someone new to address only that issue....Pay them 100K a year....It would be worth it.
 
Does Vitran know what "On time and intact" means?
On time, Maybe.......Intact no.........They keep double and triple stacking on things like AC Delco products...Crushing them until you cant even recognize what they are.
 
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On time, Maybe.......Intact no.........They keep double and triple stacking on things like AC Delco products...Crushing them until you cant even recognize what they are.
g.m. freight is not suppose to be stacked. we had hardly any complaints from g.m. until we went to crossdocking and now the complaints are excessive. that contract will probably go back to central transport.
 
load planning is not any better than 2 years ago. our outbound quality has increased due to reduction in men on the dock (harder to blame someone else) damage has gotten out of hand from markham and toledo (we know this due to no matter where it comes from, if it comes through either of these, 50/50 damage chance)
 
we can only do our part, it's the office and dock that are doing the majority of the mistakes.
Thats Chris Keylon's job to straighten out as we all know. As a whole the drivers are the least of their problems. I hate to keep beating that same dead horse, But the "Dock" and their lack of knowledge of how to load trailers is the biggest problem....See most people think that loan went to pay off certain debts. I say it went to pay off claims, or at least a large portion of it. We are all entitled to our own opinions, and that's just mine. No one really know's where it went but corporate. But here's my point. Claims go straight to the bottom line. The success of this company will rise or fall depending on if they can find a way to solve the claims issue. They must address that as a #1 priority .....I understand you must maximize cube space....But get more racks....Get more deck trailers....It serves no purpose to haul someone's freight if we are going to destroy it. It's truly pathetic, with no anwser on the horizon.
 
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