I might be doing a bit of this in the near future. Just wondering if anyone on here has done it and has any tips, what to expect etc? Is the depot a bit of a “free for all mad house” at night or are you directed where to go and when to move etc? Is it a lot of just sat around waiting about all night or are you in a queue moving a trailer length every so often?
A guy I work with does it. It isn’t a free for all, plenty of parking. He usually manages to get 5/6hrs sleep a night with a 2hr drive each way.
Here’s a birds eye view of the hub and as you can see, loads of parking.
I’ve done a bit of it, not bad work but a bit repetitive. Coventry can be a bit confusing because it’s supposed to be seperated between national and international, but they frequently change in and out gates and you can end up going where it looks like you shouldn’t.
Weekend nights can be a bit of a scrum at the end of the sort, with units hovering in front of trailers waiting for a green, that sort of thing. Sometimes they will send you to do local collections for a depot a hundred miles away…
They have a big thing about hitting inanimate objects (their term) and yard safety, almost to the point that I wondered if hitting a living thing would be preferable 
It’s not the worst job, if you keep your head down and do exactly what they ask (no more, no less) they generally leave you alone.
Apologies, I’ve just seen Pallet Force, that I read as Parcel Force 
I worked for a Palletforce company in Redditch for years and did the night run to the hub many times.
Each company will send several trailers to the hup every night (not Sunday) and the times depend on how far away you start from. Redditch to Derby is only about an hour-and-a-half so the last trailer would usually leave the depot at around 7 or 7:30.
When you get to the gate they take the paperwork and tell you which door to use (newbies get a notice for the windscreen) and then you join a queue for the hub. While you wait you open the curtains and tie them back so that once inside you stay in the cab. This is a hard and fast rule. They take your keys and stick a sign in front and you sit and watch the FLT ballet for 45 minutes or so.
When tipped you go out and park up, sleep or whatever and then go back in to load up for your depot. I suggest that you ask before you leave the depot in the evening, what time you should go back in the morning.
Depots from the far places like Cornwall and Scotland will leave earlier and only get a short break between tipping and loading.
So - there is a “queue moving a trailer length every so often” while you line up to tip, but you will get anything from one to five/six hours on the bunk between tip and load.
We partner with them but run our own depots, so lucikily i’ve only done it once on the A38 between derby and birmingham. My experience:
Went to gate and although guy doesnt know much about runs he was helpful and gave me a new driver sign. Pointed in rough direction.
Got near there and a forkie told me which warehouse door to park near.
Park up, undo curtains and tie them back. Good luck with that unless they have proper trailers where the curtains go round the back. Make sure back intetnal set are longer than others to make this easier. Also tie all other internals out of the way else they’ll get trapped.
Sit there until instructed to go into shed. They might direct you to go infront of x truck or just join queue depending where your stuff is. They dont seem to go in order of arrival.
Do not get out the cab in the shed!
Go outside shed and good luck finding somewhere to park to strap up. At 11pm its absolute chaos. Nothing like enough space.
Personally i hope they never send me back there again and thats what many others have said. Heavy on H&S but low on site planning. People are friendly as they just trying to run it with stupid management.
Other depots might be different and of course you’ll likely be trunking to / from your own company depot (think all pf companies are independents that use pf as a central warehouse).
I’ve been to the following “pallet hubs”:
Lichfield (Palletways) - Tip Queue took 3 hours to traverse, and 4 hours to drive upto meaning you’ve done 11 hours per shift before factoring in any other delays, breaks, etc. Rating: Crap.
Brum Airport/Burton on Trent (PalletForce) - Tip queue is a bit more efficient, but the 4hr 20m drive time each way means there is no margin for error. Long shift again. Not quite as crappy as (1)
Watford Gap (Fortec) - Tip Queue reasonable (2 hrs) but no one speaks English, except some of the other drivers. OK to do a shift at here and there, but I wouldn’t want this as a FT job.
I would conclude that the work is better IF you don’t spend over 3 hours getting to the hub every night, from wherever you might be starting out from.
Would I recommend any of the above as a job?
“A midlands town resident running into Watford Gap” - i.e. journey time to hub two hours or less… 
You can even watch the high speed trains go by whilst doing your curtains if you’re that way inclined… 
The Fortec Watford Gap depot is behind the Watford Gap service area, but the connecting road needs to be reached via a drive off at the A45, turn right at Weedon, and the hub is down a short lane off the A5. A dangerous turn actually, and a few have died pulling in and out of the place. 
So it’s a case of turn up, go and queue where your told to, go in shed but then don’t leave cab, come back out of shed empty, park up and wait until your called back in to load? Load, strap up and go…?
It is at Fortect and Palletforce. Palletways (Fradley Park, Lichfield) seemed a bit more haphazard when I went into there, with a long gap between tipping and reloading for those who got there early enough to traverse the queue in less than an hour (possible for local midland drivers) whilst late-comers on the 4hr20 distance out like myself coming from Kent - ended up sitting in the queue for 3 hours, getting tipped, asked to park up, only to be called back inside after ten minutes, having barely had enough time to have a ■■■■. I ended up taking a 45 before I could leave the depot (fully loaded), and then having to take another 45, because I got caught in the morning traffic on the way back, especially around the M25… Total length of shift was never under 14 hours.
F— doing that for a five day week! One of the many jobs I’d tried on agency - and realized what a bum deal it would be as a “full timer’s job”… !
Fradley Park? Hopefully its improved since I went there. Grand prix forkies. I was scared to get out of the cab and considered putting on an extra hi viz vest!
Optimum:
Fradley Park? Hopefully its improved since I went there. Grand prix forkies. I was scared to get out of the cab and considered putting on an extra hi viz vest!
[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]Not in the slightest still ZB place even in the day time
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I take it Fradley Park has gotten even worse since 2011 - the last time I went in there for Shakespeare, Larkfield… 
Dunno why they called it “Lichfield” really, bearing in mind it was some way up the A38 well beyond Lichfield…
PalletForce at Burton was a few miles further up that same road, but things seemed a bit more organized there, with the tip queue only being really bad if you got delayed en-route, which with a 4hr20m trip up there - would be delayed by the 45 one would need to book off, should there be a delay of over 10 mins, most likely from an accident on the M25…
DickyNick:
So it’s a case of turn up, go and queue where your told to, go in shed but then don’t leave cab, come back out of shed empty, park up and wait until your called back in to load? Load, strap up and go…?
Yep thats about it, if you are gonna have a sleep when empty i’d drive into a space as it can get a tad noisy with the tugs etc blatting about.
Plus keep ya windows closed when in the warehouse as the fumes can be blinding…
Our night man has 4/5 hrs kip each night and leaves to head home around 3am.
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For give me for asking what’s with the new driver thing,I went to one and they gave me one,I said to the fellow on the gate I have been driving for years,he said you got to have it ?
For give me for asking what’s with the new driver thing,I went to one and they gave me one,I said to the fellow on the gate I have been driving for years,he said you got to have it ? Then got shouted at for driving the wrong way to the parking area
You when you turn up at some places to tip and they just assume you’ve been before and know where to go?
I’m guessing at the PF depot there’s loads of drivers who do it a few times a week if not every night who know where to go without being told. It will help the forkies know the ones that may need some more direction compared to the ones that know the procedure inside out. I’m guessing it’s more along the lines of that rather than new driver as in one who has just passed his/her test.
DickyNick:
You when you turn up at some places to tip and they just assume you’ve been before and know where to go?I’m guessing at the PF depot there’s loads of drivers who do it a few times a week if not every night who know where to go without being told. It will help the forkies know the ones that may need some more direction compared to the ones that know the procedure inside out. I’m guessing it’s more along the lines of that rather than new driver as in one who has just passed his/her test.
At Burton (PalletForce) they ask you at the gate “Have you ever been here before”, and if you say “No”, they hand you a laminated card with an idiot’s guide on it.
It is useful enough to have, that I always say “No” when I got there on other trips up there following!
It is better to pretend to be ignorant, than definitely be an idiot and remove all doubt. 
The first batlle is to even find the Hub.I only did a Pallet hub the once as a daytime top up. Not one person at the depot knew where it was exactly and no one could give me an address. To this day I don’t know where it was or which company. All I can remember is turning left at a roundabout north of Spitfire island and heading towards Spaghetti Junction, which is where they said it was near. After driving to Spitfire Island and back again at least twice and asking various passers by and ringing back to the yard - who still weren’t any help- I did eventually find it on the left somewhere. If it had been at night with no one to ask I would probably still be looking.
cav551:
The first batlle is to even find the Hub.I only did a Pallet hub the once as a daytime top up. Not one person at the depot knew where it was exactly and no one could give me an address. To this day I don’t know where it was or which company. All I can remember is turning left at a roundabout north of Spitfire island and heading towards Spaghetti Junction, which is where they said it was near. After driving to Spitfire Island and back again at least twice and asking various passers by and ringing back to the yard - who still weren’t any help- I did eventually find it on the left somewhere. If it had been at night with no one to ask I would probably still be looking.
I remember struggling to find my way from the top of Spaghetti Junction to the massive DPD place underneath the pillars!