I would very much appreciate some opinions on this question. If you were told that you were required to “do some shunting” what would you expect that to mean? Would you think that you would be moving a trailer or trailers a short distance from yard to yard? Would you expect to be loading a trailer, moving it and unloading it? Or something else?
Please be aware that I am trying to gather this information for a specific reason, and that responses may be printed out and presented in a Tribunal case. I don’t want to be any more specific as I don’t want anyone to be swayed. I would really appreciate genuine, unbiased opinions.
1 to be within the confines of the employers premises
2 to involve movement of a trailer within the employers premises to any posistion
3 to use a vehicle that is fit for shunting
4 to open/close rear doors
5 to go forwards and backwards to correct your posistion
thats my take on it anyway
In my locality of East Yorkshire where I grew up, a shunt would be classed as a weekend run or a couple of runs into Hull or Immingham, which could take between 3 and 6 hours, others may call them setups. But they didn’t normally involve any loading or unloading, maybe with a quick clean out and set the tanker up for overnight loading.
If I was asked to do a shunting job I would expect it to be moving a trailer or trailers a relatively short distance either within the same depot or between depots or yards.
I would expect that I may need to open/close curtains/doors and check the safety of the load and secure it if necessary before moving the trailer.
I would not expect to be doing any significant amount of loading/unloading unless I’d been told about it and agreed to it in advance.
We class a shunt as running and empty trailer to either Felixtowe or Harwich - 2 hours to FX or 2.45 to Harwich round trips and collecting a loaded trailer -
When i worked for DHL our shunter used to load our trailers during the day within the yard area so we could just come in and swop and then leave again without the hassle of waiting for forklift drivers to have dinner etc
as already posted it dpends on what you were told when you were employed - the job description should have been defined for you
cheers
Steve
It’s not really stated anywhere black and white.
Every company has his own interpretation what a shunter, shunting and a shunt is.
You will find out that some companies call it even the transport between their premises over longer distance.
On most places you will find that the shunter is actually the “yardman” and in control and supervising what goes on in the yard and plan the loading and the movement of trailer in the yard or between yards if a company has more premises around.
Shunting could be picking up the trailer, load it/unload it and park it back up.
Could be just moving onto the loading deck and move it away when ready.
Most job descriptions most times assume that your are a driver in the widest sense of words.
What does that mean? It means that you not only specific driving, but also un-load, load, wash the truck, sweep the trailer out, move trailers, do emergency repairs where possible etc.
For example we are based on the premises of our customer, our shunters load/unload, check, take samples, and check the different stock levels for our customer, and agree on when and what loading/unloading, move and supervise trailers on-site
There is another shunter here who works for a different company, and the only thing he does is putting trailers on the loading docks, and takes them away.
So twice the same name for a total different job.
I would suspect that in case of any dispute they are gone to look what is “normal” in that kind of business, and what the normal practice is for that company.
I was a “shunter” when I was a teenager it involved loading & tipping trailers in British Alcan Warrington, I had an old KM Bedford long out of test or when that would’nt start any unit from our yard, all the trailers where flats so all roped & sheeted then dropped for a real driver to come & run with them. The duties of me as a shunter also involved loading with a road legal tractor locally although my Boss did’nt worry about me not being of HGV age he would’nt let me go anywhere over an hour away bless him I used to get loads of grief if the trailers were’nt sheeted properly so soon learned to do it right
Yes to sum up I’d say a “shunter” worked around the doors tipping & loading for distance men.
met a fellow once at the german-poland border ,frankfurt oder i think,who was waiting on his shunter to arrive to do a trailer change. once changed over he was heading back to russia while the other driver headed back to england. of no use to the op probably.
For me it was moving empty trailers from drop off to the loading bays.
Moving full ones to the pick up lines.
Putting the paperwork together for each load in each trailer.
Telling the boys in office what trailers was available.
Loading was automatic.
Strapping down to the driver.
To keep us legal we have what you local SHUNTERS… Basically we bring our backloads up the road and if need be (Diesel required or usually a Tesco/Asda load) then we have a bunch of lads from the Stranraer area who will meet you at the harbour who will then take your unit and load across the water, tip the load, fuel up, run around lifting/dropping trailers around Northern Ireland, then head back for a night boat. In reality its a days work but with not many driving hours or KMs covered they get called SHUNTERS…
There seems to be as many ideas of what shunting is as there are haulage companies.
For me it will mean moving trailers either round a yard or from one depot to another or loading at a local company and bringing them back to the yard, either for onward delivery or to put the load into storage. If I was on shunting work I’d expect to have to make trailer ready for loading or unloading and to secure the load. I’d also expect it to be pretty regular work and hours.
Wheel Nut:
I suppose it is only a word. I have been asked to do a shunt to Calais from Hilton during the Christmas break when I started back at GBE
Yes, it doesn’t have any narrowly defined meaning. I could advertise a job as a shunter and you could come along for interview and I could say “OK Mr Nut, your job is to load the trailers and clean the toilets”. You could accept the job or you could decline it, but if you accepted it then part of your job would be to clean the toilets.
surely doing a shunt and a shunting job are two seperate things? for us a shunt is any load you pick up but don’t tip and take back to the yard instead, where as a job shunting job would involve loading trailers for others to take down the road.
For our shunters, and most shunters based on container ports, “shunting” involves the loading/unloading/moving of containers on and off trailers within the internal dock area.
Shunting; to move trailers between local depots OR to move forward then to reverse in order to put the trailer into correct position i.e. didn’t get the reverse right the first time so move it forward and back 'till you do.
I used to get loads of grief if the trailers were’nt sheeted properly so soon learned to do it right 
