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ABF | Lack of Maintenance

Triplex said:
A long time ago in a land far away, we had an equipment safety issue the company wouldn't address despite repeated write ups, etc. OK, hated to do this, but they asked for it. Next time I saw a roadside inspection I pulled off despite being waved off, and politely explained to the officials what our problem was. They held me there until a mechanic was sent out to make the fix and warned the company that every unit they saw would be pulled over if the fixes weren't made to all the affected units. Problem solved.
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I'm still not convinced you are not one of our South end prima donnas.
Sounds very familiar.
We had an Atlanta driver who always ran late and got more breakdwn time than anyone.
If you slip sealed with him, you got clock time.
The shop checked out an almost-new tractor.
He called in with a problem, they sent the safety man and TM to fire him.
When they arrived, the DOT was there and had the tractor out of service.
Our Charlotte Safety man told me they were going to leave Mr. Rushing alone and hoped he would get better!
 
seabreeze said:
I'm still not convinced you are not one of our South end prima donnas.
Sounds very familiar.
We had an Atlanta driver who always ran late and got more breakdwn time than anyone.
If you slip sealed with him, you got clock time.
The shop checked out an almost-new tractor.
He called in with a problem, they sent the safety man and TM to fire him.
When they arrived, the DOT was there and had the tractor out of service.
Our Charlotte Safety man told me they were going to leave Mr. Rushing alone and hoped he would get better!
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Nah, I didn't play games. I was a very patient guy, fixed minor things myself to keep freight moving and customers happy. But if they ignored legitimate complaints eventually my patience ran out.

Like the time we got letters for speeding (running over 55 mph back in the day). Next day we just lined up our dispatched tractors at the shop and consequently delayed our trips. Boss said what the heck is going on? We said if we're getting letters for speeding we won't drive tractors without working speedometers (and there were many). He ripped up the letters and told us to get going, which we did with smiles on our faces. More than one way to skin a cat as they say. :smile new:
 
Steward of the Rock said:
Here at the Rock, we were told in a meeting Wednesday that ABF would be spending $1.1 million dollars to resurface over half of our 39-acre yard. I hope this happens soon as I am pretty sure that the earths core is visible in five or six of the craters we currently have on the yard.
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The terminal is on what was known years ago as the Springhill Farm. There are indeed springs there. We moved into the terminal in 80. Asphalt was laid over mud which was there because springs were covered. The only way to stop water from rising is to dig out the mud & provide a way for water to run out. That is commonly known as a French Drain. I don't know where that name came from but anytime a road is built you have to make provision to drain the water or it will not last. If you look at the north side of the yard you will see several concrete 'Patches'. Those are drains that were constructed after the asphalt was laid.
Over the years the company has had equipment damaged because of the craters you speak of. If the company had not spent millions on buying lots joining the property at the Memphis terminal, when it threatened to move the terminal there years back to spite us at LR, there would have been funds to maintain the NLR terminal. The company bought lots in Memphis that had old warehouses with asbestos. Millions were spent on lots & demolition of the old buildings. Disposing of asbestos is very costly. Repairs on the NLR terminal would have cost much less back then.
 
DCM_Doc said:
The terminal is on what was known years ago as the Springhill Farm. There are indeed springs there. We moved into the terminal in 80. Asphalt was laid over mud which was there because springs were covered. The only way to stop water from rising is to dig out the mud & provide a way for water to run out. That is commonly known as a French Drain. I don't know where that name came from but anytime a road is built you have to make provision to drain the water or it will not last. If you look at the north side of the yard you will see several concrete 'Patches'. Those are drains that were constructed after the asphalt was laid.
Over the years the company has had equipment damaged because of the craters you speak of. If the company had not spent millions on buying lots joining the property at the Memphis terminal, when it threatened to move the terminal there years back to spite us at LR, there would have been funds to maintain the NLR terminal. The company bought lots in Memphis that had old warehouses with asbestos. Millions were spent on lots & demolition of the old buildings. Disposing of asbestos is very costly. Repairs on the NLR terminal would have cost much less back then.
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My brother asked for advice on how to get his new waterbed bouncier. I told him to use spring water.
 
DCM_Doc said:
The terminal is on what was known years ago as the Springhill Farm. There are indeed springs there. We moved into the terminal in 80. Asphalt was laid over mud which was there because springs were covered. The only way to stop water from rising is to dig out the mud & provide a way for water to run out. That is commonly known as a French Drain. I don't know where that name came from but anytime a road is built you have to make provision to drain the water or it will not last. If you look at the north side of the yard you will see several concrete 'Patches'. Those are drains that were constructed after the asphalt was laid.
Over the years the company has had equipment damaged because of the craters you speak of. If the company had not spent millions on buying lots joining the property at the Memphis terminal, when it threatened to move the terminal there years back to spite us at LR, there would have been funds to maintain the NLR terminal. The company bought lots in Memphis that had old warehouses with asbestos. Millions were spent on lots & demolition of the old buildings. Disposing of asbestos is very costly. Repairs on the NLR terminal would have cost much less back then.
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Yeah, Slagle sure gave NLR a black eye and pretty much ruined what was once considered the best break bulk in the system with his “get even with those no-voters” plan to move us to Memphis. In the end, the joke was on him when he got the boot and NLR is still a break bulk today. We did loose a lot of top notch freight, road, and shop hands before they changed their mind and gave up on the Memphis idea.
 
Steward of the Rock said:
Yeah, Slagle sure gave NLR a black eye and pretty much ruined what was once considered the best break bulk in the system with his “get even with those no-voters” plan to move us to Memphis. In the end, the joke was on him when he got the boot and NLR is still a break bulk today. We did loose a lot of top notch freight, road, and shop hands before they changed their mind and gave up on the Memphis idea.
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If anything positive came of that disaster, it was the company learned that dependable, experienced employees are not easily replaced.
 
Steward of the Rock said:
You are correct that a shop supervisor is the only ones that can now take a tractor, converter gear or a trailer out of shop status (at 004). The problem we now have in NLR is with the hand-helds showing a piece of equipment in “shop status” in red at the top of the screen. But, when you take it to the shop, fill out a VCR on it and turn it in, the shop supervisor may well pull it up on his/her computer and clear it because his computer has no notes on it. The other problem we are having is with the empty trailers on the yard. When we get an empty trailer from the yard to back to the dock to start loading, it does not come up on the hand-held as being in “shop status” until you try to enter it after you have already backed it in to the door. And, there is not a defect card on the trailer to let you know. Same thing with hooking an empty rear trailer going out. You won’t know that it is in shop status until after you have hooked it and enter the trailer number. This is a major time killer and holds up the road driver going out on a scheduled run as we now have to unhook and drop the rear trailer and re-hook another empty trailer. Needless to say, there needs to be a better system than we currently have.
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Are the trailers not put in shop status & parked on the North side of the trailer shop? Most if not all the incidents I mentioned were caused when the hostler was told by a supervisor to get the trailer from the North fence. If the trailer is in a designated shop location it should not be moved from that location till repairs are made.
As for the trailer I mentioned with the rusted spring hangers being put out of service by the DOT in Tennessee that the assistant terminal manager had cleared, I heard the Tennessee DOT had been tipped off about the defect. Most of the time enforcement officals appreciate the heads up about an unsafe commercial vehicle.
 
DCM_Doc said:
Are the trailers not put in shop status & parked on the North side of the trailer shop? Most if not all the incidents I mentioned were caused when the hostler was told by a supervisor to get the trailer from the North fence. If the trailer is in a designated shop location it should not be moved from that location till repairs are made.
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These are trailers from the empty yard (500 location). Most of the time, it is an empty rear or an empty set that comes thru the full bay and dropped out by a hostler. There will not be a repair tag or red tag on it. I too was thinking that the dropper may have been pulling the tag. Then one day, I was dropping and parked a set of empty’s on the South slab to save the hooker from having to hook a set of empty’s to go to Memphis as we used to send four to six sets of empty’s to Memphis on a daily basis if we had them. When the hooker went to power the set later that evening, the lead trailer was in “shop status” with no tag on it. That is when I realized that these empty trailers were coming in and not put into “shop status” until after they had been dropped out. I guess no one ever bothered to tag it. I also found out that the shop would sometimes tag an empty set on the South slab after the dropper had already dropped it out. Also, the dock supervisors will send empty trailers from the dock to the empty yard (500). Later, when we go to hook it or go to get an empty to put back at a door to load, it will come up “shop status” when we enter the trailer number after it has already been hooked or backed into the dock. And VCR’s in a tractor coming out of the fuel bay are pretty much a thing of the past as I usually have to fill out the VCR myself if the “check engine light” is on or any other warning lights. I will park it facing the shop after I have dropped it out, then fill out the VCR and hand it to the shop supervisor. Pat B. told me earlier this year that the shop was trying to get away from tagging equipment for repair and instead putting the “Shop Status” warning in red at the top of the hand held screen.
I think they have since abandoned that idea as a lot of the tractors we were taking to the shop had no repair notes in the supervisors computer. So they would turn them for us to use. Like I said, we need a better system than we currently have.
 
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DCM_Doc said:
The terminal is on what was known years ago as the Springhill Farm. There are indeed springs there. We moved into the terminal in 80. Asphalt was laid over mud which was there because springs were covered. The only way to stop water from rising is to dig out the mud & provide a way for water to run out. That is commonly known as a French Drain. I don't know where that name came from but anytime a road is built you have to make provision to drain the water or it will not last. If you look at the north side of the yard you will see several concrete 'Patches'. Those are drains that were constructed after the asphalt was laid.
Over the years the company has had equipment damaged because of the craters you speak of. If the company had not spent millions on buying lots joining the property at the Memphis terminal, when it threatened to move the terminal there years back to spite us at LR, there would have been funds to maintain the NLR terminal. The company bought lots in Memphis that had old warehouses with asbestos. Millions were spent on lots & demolition of the old buildings. Disposing of asbestos is very costly. Repairs on the NLR terminal would have cost much less back then.
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A good example of your drains was I77 between Charl and Columbia.
They used very few, the road was so bad they started patching patches before the road was opened.
Millions wasted!
 
Steward of the Rock said:
These are trailers from the empty yard (500 location). Most of the time, it is an empty rear or an empty set that comes thru the full bay and dropped out by a hostler. There will not be a repair tag or red tag on it. I too was thinking that the dropper may have been pulling the tag. Then one day, I was dropping and parked a set of empty’s on the South slab to save the hooker from having to hook a set of empty’s to go to Memphis as we used to send four to six sets of empty’s to Memphis on a daily basis if we had them. When the hooker went to power the set later that evening, the lead trailer was in “shop status” with no tag on it. That is when I realized that these empty trailers were coming in and not put into “shop status” until after they had been dropped out. I guess no one ever bothered to tag it. I also found out that the shop would sometimes tag an empty set on the South slab after the dropper had already dropped it out. Also, the dock supervisors will send empty trailers from the dock to the empty yard (500). Later, when we go to hook it or go to get an empty to put back at a door to load, it will come up “shop status” when we enter the trailer number after it has already been hooked or backed into the dock. And VCR’s in a tractor coming out of the fuel bay are pretty much a thing of the past as I usually have to fill out the VCR myself if the “check engine light” is on or any other warning lights. I will park it facing the shop after I have dropped it out, then fill out the VCR and hand it to the shop supervisor. Pat B. told me earlier this year that the shop was trying to get away from tagging equipment for repair and instead putting the “Shop Status” warning in red at the top of the hand held screen.
I think they have since abandoned that idea as a lot of the tractors we were taking to the shop had no repair notes in the supervisors computer. So they would turn them for us to use. Like I said, we need a better system than we currently have.
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Lots of Parts in that post.
 
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