switchlogic:
Yep it was all luck and I’ve got my head in the sand. I know full well the problems of no experience, read my post properly and you’ll see it took me three years of trying to just get behind the wheel of a truck. And a further 2 to get European, and a further 3 long distance European. So luck? No, lots of hard work. The ‘lucky’ ones are often the ones who have tried the hardest.
I think you missed the bit about going onto international coaches at 21 after being on the buses which isn’t exactly a common career progression for anyone lumbered with a bus driving job at that age.
In addition to which there’s also the examples of starting out at 19 without even having an HGV licence and straight after the doing the test in a few other cases.Which I’m sure will make all those mugs who’s face doesn’t fit and get told that they’ll need to do years starting at the bottom on local multi drop or other uk zb work etc see the issue for what it really is.If all that’s not luck then nothing is.
switchlogic:
Yep it was all luck and I’ve got my head in the sand. I know full well the problems of no experience, read my post properly and you’ll see it took me three years of trying to just get behind the wheel of a truck. And a further 2 to get European, and a further 3 long distance European. So luck? No, lots of hard work. The ‘lucky’ ones are often the ones who have tried the hardest.
I think you missed the bit about going onto international coaches at 21 after being on the buses which isn’t exactly a common career progression for anyone lumbered with a bus driving job at that age.
In addition to which there’s also the examples of starting out at 19 without even having an HGV licence and straight after the doing the test in a few other cases.Which I’m sure will make all those mugs who’s face doesn’t fit and get told that they’ll need to do years starting at the bottom on local multi drop or other uk zb work etc see the issue for what it really is.If all that’s not luck then nothing is.
No, he just looked at which companies were offering the sort of work he wanted, probably already had a track record with employing UK drivers and went for it. You have to be in it to win it.
Reading the ads in trucking magazines in the early 90s and then whinging about it 20 years later is why you’re not doing the job and he is and why people such as myself and everyone else here in Canada from the UK know what they’re talking about when it comes to A trains and all you have to go on are youtube videos.
Blah blah blah. Same as this driver shortage when I decided owner driving wasnt for me a few months back I left the house at 11 am and had a job sorted to start the next day by 3pm and had three or four calls over the next few weeks where something had come up.
Yeah I know in your eyes it’s only crap local work and I’ve hit a fair bit of experince now at tipping work and living in a big city probally helps job wise but in life if you don’t expect anything on a plate you will work that bit harder to get it.
Anyway two trailers no thanks ones bad enough.
An interesting read guys,but going back to my first post I have some very worrying news for drivers in Canada.Heading into Winnipeg yesterday evening I passed my worst nightmare heading West,deep breath,stay calm,don’t panic Mr Manwearing,yes it was one of our wrap around stetson brothers driving (at the wheel of) a pike !!!
Is this the end of the world as we know it ?
Do trailers ever get shipped by rail out west, between lets say Winnipeg and Calgary or Vancouver? A company I used to work at here in NB had a lot of their non-urgent or empty trailers from Toronto and Montreal shipped to Moncton and Halifax on trains.
switchlogic:
Yep it was all luck and I’ve got my head in the sand. I know full well the problems of no experience, read my post properly and you’ll see it took me three years of trying to just get behind the wheel of a truck. And a further 2 to get European, and a further 3 long distance European. So luck? No, lots of hard work. The ‘lucky’ ones are often the ones who have tried the hardest.
I think you missed the bit about going onto international coaches at 21 after being on the buses which isn’t exactly a common career progression for anyone lumbered with a bus driving job at that age.
Actually your very wrong. Coach operators have to be congratulated in having faith in young drivers and going from buses to coaches and driving in Europe is actually quite common for young drivers. And how do you think I got it in the first place? Yep hard work again and a nerve wracking move from deepest rural Wales to Peckham when I was 21!
You also missed the point that coach driving experience be it UK or Europe means jack s*** to most truck operators. That’s why it took me three years to get a job driving a truck.
Starting at the bottom, as you say Carryfast, well the type of company that employs 19yr olds is not one of the better firms and driving coaches is hardly a logical progression to international lorry driving, but both things do demonstrate one thing…character
Maybe that’s what was missing from your CV
I can name 20 companies that were around in the 80s and that are within an hours drive from Surrey that would employ a non experienced driver to go over the water, you had all the airfreight firms out of LHR, a hundred small firms running out of the Rainham area, a few out of Reading, loads of them in and around the Solent Ports…the list goes on
newmercman:
Starting at the bottom, as you say Carryfast, well the type of company that employs 19yr olds is not one of the better firms and driving coaches is hardly a logical progression to international lorry driving, but both things do demonstrate one thing…character
Maybe that’s what was missing from your CV
I can name 20 companies that were around in the 80s and that are within an hours drive from Surrey that would employ a non experienced driver to go over the water, you had all the airfreight firms out of LHR, a hundred small firms running out of the Rainham area, a few out of Reading, loads of them in and around the Solent Ports…the list goes on
That’s the thing I’d say most of the people who come out with the I couldn’t get the breaks line are the ones who probally expected to be thrown the keys to a shiney new v8 scania with cream work while the ink on the licence is still wet.
I can’t say I’ve done work as interesting or traveled anywhere as far as most of you guys but I started with a proper cowboy tipper firm who bought lorrys from the breakers or exporters ran on kerosene and private tax and I once had to abonden a lorry in a ministry checkpoint one morning as it was that bad.
But it led on to my next job due to this firm having all the lorrys impounded and someone they worked for called me and said I’ve got a lorry if your interested and it was a well paid job with decent motors and they went on to put me through my class one and I spent four of probally the happiest years of my life there. Funnily enough I got a Facebook message from the boss there last week saying there was a job if I was interested.
switchlogic:
The Londoners in Brabourne Grove! Yep that’s them. Nightmare to get in and out of but I had a great time there. All gone now though
I remember going there in a skip lorry thinking it must be a right pain in a coach.
It certainly was with the big dangly mirrors. It cost so much with damage to residents cars because they wouldn’t listen and kept parking opposite the boss dumped three scrap cars strategically with sheets over them! I remember once it took me an hour and a half to get my coach out the yard as I had to shuffle everything around because it was buried! Fun times
I think anyone could get a driving job here in the states in the early 80’s after deregulation,as they say, everyone and their brother was starting up a haulage firm.
Most big companies have a recruiting department and usually leave their ads for drivers in the mags all the time preferring to have new drivers call them so they can say ‘yes we are hireing’ or ‘no, go away’
As has been said befor, you have to be persistent, sometimes to the point of being a PITA
The doubles/triples in Canada sounds a bit chaoctic. On the NY thruway and the MA pike they have to go into one of the doubles stageing areas at some of the exits to be broken up, looks like they can go wherever they want to up there
flat to the mat:
An interesting read guys,but going back to my first post I have some very worrying news for drivers in Canada.Heading into Winnipeg yesterday evening I passed my worst nightmare heading West,deep breath,stay calm,don’t panic Mr Manwearing,yes it was one of our wrap around stetson brothers driving (at the wheel of) a pike !!!
Is this the end of the world as we know it ?
newmercman:
Starting at the bottom, as you say Carryfast, well the type of company that employs 19yr olds is not one of the better firms and driving coaches is hardly a logical progression to international lorry driving, but both things do demonstrate one thing…character
Maybe that’s what was missing from your CV
I can name 20 companies that were around in the 80s and that are within an hours drive from Surrey that would employ a non experienced driver to go over the water, you had all the airfreight firms out of LHR, a hundred small firms running out of the Rainham area, a few out of Reading, loads of them in and around the Solent Ports…the list goes on
Blimey make your mind up.You get a break with a firm that took on a 19 year old driver with a car licence to drive artics out to Italy and then you moan about it.
If you’re right about all those firms around here that were crying out for under 25 class 2 council drivers,with previous experience of driving 38 tonner fire trucks around Chobham at mad speeds,then it’s even more surprising how one of the main firms that could have employed me on the type of job that I was looking for (Inter City Trucks) just showed me the door probably amongst loads of other similar hopeful applicants.
But as I remember it the air freight firms round Heathrow were just that not long distance international operations.Although having said that Plane Trucking,which was based just around the corner from my uk trunking job,was sort of connected to the aviation industry and now I suppose you’re going to tell me that a quick knock on the door of the TM’s office there would have resulted in an instant job offer driving their wagon and drag aero engine transporter all over Europe.
remy:
I think anyone could get a driving job here in the states in the early 80’s after deregulation,as they say, everyone and their brother was starting up a haulage firm.
But the problem was though,for British drivers at the time and probably still today,the US immigration authorities weren’t/aren’t in the habit of chucking work permits/green cards around which would allow British drivers to live and work in the states driving US based trucks.
robinhood_1984:
Do trailers ever get shipped by rail out west, between lets say Winnipeg and Calgary or Vancouver? A company I used to work at here in NB had a lot of their non-urgent or empty trailers from Toronto and Montreal shipped to Moncton and Halifax on trains.
I think you missed the previous posts which I’ve made concerning CP’s intermodal operations,which actually started as a piggyback trailer operation before containers had even taken off.Which is why the road transport industry needs the option of being able to use multi trailer combinations to compete.Although no suprise that CP would probably whinge and moan just like the rail freight lobby here would if they changed the regs there to allow A trians to run at their full weight potential.(Maybe with a bit of help from the Ozzies to show them how to put a triples outfit together which can haul the full weight and still stay in a straight line doing it).
kr79:
Blah blah blah. Same as this driver shortage when I decided owner driving wasnt for me a few months back I left the house at 11 am and had a job sorted to start the next day by 3pm and had three or four calls over the next few weeks where something had come up.
Yeah I know in your eyes it’s only crap local work and I’ve hit a fair bit of experince now at tipping work and living in a big city probally helps job wise but in life if you don’t expect anything on a plate you will work that bit harder to get it.
Anyway two trailers no thanks ones bad enough.
I think that says it all.Scared of driving a ‘proper’ wagon’ .All depends on your idea of hard work.But it wouldn’t be much use if you went to a guvnor who (rightly) wants to use the option of running doubles outfits and tell him that you’re a hard worker but you only want to drive a single trailer outfit.
switchlogic:
Yep it was all luck and I’ve got my head in the sand. I know full well the problems of no experience, read my post properly and you’ll see it took me three years of trying to just get behind the wheel of a truck. And a further 2 to get European, and a further 3 long distance European. So luck? No, lots of hard work. The ‘lucky’ ones are often the ones who have tried the hardest.
I think you missed the bit about going onto international coaches at 21 after being on the buses which isn’t exactly a common career progression for anyone lumbered with a bus driving job at that age.
Actually your very wrong. Coach operators have to be congratulated in having faith in young drivers and going from buses to coaches and driving in Europe is actually quite common for young drivers. And how do you think I got it in the first place? Yep hard work again and a nerve wracking move from deepest rural Wales to Peckham when I was 21!
You also missed the point that coach driving experience be it UK or Europe means jack s*** to most truck operators. That’s why it took me three years to get a job driving a truck.
Europe jobs were easy to find. I left the army at the age of 21 with my class 1 in 91 picked up the local paper saw International car recovery driver required made a phone call couple days later went for a chat and offered the job there. Only driving I had done over there was one convoy trip when the Regt moved back to the UK iiin convoy so that dont count as follow my leader. In short yet again cf you are blown out of the water and sunk like a ■■■■ U boat so give it up.
As for the turnpikes some of the guys from the UK i seen asking about the jobs are forgeting that the trailers are 53’ not 45’ coupled up with a 8 meter unit!!! sod that
.All depends on your idea of hard work.But it wouldn’t be much use if you went to a guvnor who (rightly) wants to use the option of running doubles outfits and tell him that you’re a hard worker but you only want to drive a single trailer outfit.