line haul drivers generally work the dock on both ends, the amount of time spent on the dock depends on how long the run is, shorter run, will get more dock time naturally, the larger terminals run ( i think anyways) a split flex board, the flex board is where you start when hired on, being split means the is a l/h flex , and a city flex, smaller terminals generally only run a single flex board, which means a person will bounce around somewhat, especially in the slower months, you are correct in the being alot of compalining , but if you look through the forums, you will see it isnt just con-way drivers, this place gives some a place to vent i suppose.
I have been with the company some over 10 years, I really have no intention of going anywhere else, as a rule, I really think everything is pretty simular not matter where you are at, there is always going to be complainers no matter where a person works, we are home everyday, and honestly once at top scale a city driver can expect to gross 50,000 plus, and a L/H driver will do 75,000 easy, so yes the money is good, beats any job I ever had before, driving or non driving.
next what ESL stands for is extended service lanes, those are lanes that are over what one person can log for drive time, so they run teams on them, they are also home everyday, but they split the driving, one drives to, and the other drives from
the reship invironment moves very fast, but dont let that scare you, everyone has a learnign curve, and after awhile what we do will just be second nature to you, it can seem overwhelming at first for sure, but dont let it rattle you.
sterling seems to be the tractor of choice, I have seen one International they were testing, but heard that didnt work out well, I dont forsee them switching to anything other than sterling, eventually they will all be logoed with the con-way blue, unless the tractor is near retirement, and in that case they arnt re decaling them, if you notice there are 2 different types of tractors in the yard, some with full air dams , some without, the ones without, are what they refer to as a light duty, used mostly for city work, although on occasion they do run short L/H runs also, and then the full air dam trucks are heavys, which run L/H and also city work, hope this helps somewhat, always willing to help when I can, let me know if I can be of further help