acceptme:
Containers is the easiest job going. Don’t worry about them been top heavy as if you drive like it is then you will be fine. If your working for some of the smaller firms you will see a pattern emerge and end up going to a lot of the same places. The sitting around can be long but as others have said. Go off on a walk or bring a bike. It is literally drive open the back doors then wait and go back to the docks. Piece of ■■■■ job and it’s what you make of it
Sold it to me. Great response, thanks.
Glad I could be of some assistance. It’s one of the most stress free jobs I’ve done… like I said it’s what you make of it and now with summer coming you can make the most of the sitting around time with nice walks or get the deck chair out.
Container work is ideal to take your bike , either make your own rack to place on the back of the cab , or take the front wheel off to stow it in the passenger seat , or bung it inside the empty box but don’t forget to take it out .
Or take some dumbbell’s to keep fit , I would give goods in my phone number on a long tip , to say ring me when an hour away from being empty .
I would recommend taking a large brush to sweep out the dust and debris , at container yards , they may refuse to take it if dirty .
toby1234abc:
Container work is ideal to take your bike , either make your own rack to place on the back of the cab , or take the front wheel off to stow it in the passenger seat , or bung it inside the empty box but don’t forget to take it out .
Or take some dumbbell’s to keep fit , I would give goods in my phone number on a long tip , to say ring me when an hour away from being empty .
I would recommend taking a large brush to sweep out the dust and debris , at container yards , they may refuse to take it if dirty .
Fancy the idea of taking my bike with me, that’s what I miss generally when away from home. Good advice in this post. thanks
Come to think of it Trampy , Boris now says it’s legal to sunbathe , so on a long box tip , find a quiet field or park and sunbathe .
A reliable container door lock is advisable , such as Bulldog brand .But I have known these to be sawn off if the criminals are desperate .
A bloke next to me in the MSA with a box on , got robbed , his door lock gone , he didn’t hear a thing , neither did I , so i suspect a battery operated angle grinder .
They even cut my trailer curtains with Cadbury chocolate but didn’t take anything .But they emptied his box of high value goods .
Container work can be quite interesting at times with the wide variety of different places you go to, i’ve done all sorts… RDCs, farms, abattoirs, residential addresses, shops, factories down single track lanes in the arse end of nowhere, scrap yards, tipping at random shutter doors down backstreets. Plenty of nice tips at small outfits where no high viz is required and your offered a brew. The hours tend to be quite sociable for the day men working out of local rail heads as well because the vast majority of container jobs are Mon-Fri before 3pm.
However, I must stress “interesting at times”. Your going to spend the bulk of your working week just hanging around, the 3/4hr tip first thing in the morning is a novelty but the waiting around starts to wear thin when your next job up the road is a 3/4 hour tip as well. I’ve turned up at sites where I have had containers in front of me in a queue with handball loads on and been there for over 6 hours. Then you have the worst thing of all… the rail heads, container yards & ports you visit inbetween where you can be queuing stop/start for hours just to get boxes lifted on & off. I have had numerous totally soul destroying days doing container work, it certainly isn’t my preference.
rob22888:
Container work can be quite interesting at times with the wide variety of different places you go to, i’ve done all sorts… RDCs, farms, abattoirs, residential addresses, shops, factories down single track lanes in the arse end of nowhere, scrap yards, tipping at random shutter doors down backstreets. Plenty of nice tips at small outfits where no high viz is required and your offered a brew. The hours tend to be quite sociable for the day men working out of local rail heads as well because the vast majority of container jobs are Mon-Fri before 3pm.
However, I must stress “interesting at times”. Your going to spend the bulk of your working week just hanging around, the 3/4hr tip first thing in the morning is a novelty but the waiting around starts to wear thin when your next job up the road is a 3/4 hour tip as well. I’ve turned up at sites where I have had containers in front of me in a queue with handball loads on and been there for over 6 hours. Then you have the worst thing of all… the rail heads, container yards & ports you visit inbetween where you can be queuing stop/start for hours just to get boxes lifted on & off. I have had numerous totally soul destroying days doing container work, it certainly isn’t my preference.
Agreed. The 70hrs+ per week “I’m paid by the hour” brigade will love the work but for the job-and-knock types (like me) who just want to go to work to do the job asap and then get home asap to enjoy life, it’s the stuff of nightmares.
I think if you’re doing containers out of Hull or Immingham they’ll be mostly short sea boxes from mainland Europe so lots of palletised goods in 45’ boxes to RDCs… Not so much waiting for hours on end like the boxes from the likes of China coming into Felixstowe. I prefer the ferry trailers to be honest. Harder work but less waiting around for lazy crane or toplift drivers with ■■■■ attitudes at P&O, SAMSKIP, Exxtor or Cobelfret.
Had some good jobs on boxes, wind turbine parts to fields in mid wales, Scotland and Cornwall. Running up scotch with a load and backloading whiskey from random distillery’s in the arse end of nowhere. Had the same sort of loads on the ferry trailers as well though.
I like port work as you genuinely never know what you’ll be hauling next… however, ■■■■ rates means tight margins for hauliers resulting in average pay. I look at the likes of ‘On Time Logistics’ running top of the range kit and wonder how they pay for it pulling boxes for the likes of A2B Online.
If you are working for an outfit that does short-sea work, you may encounter curtainsided containers (or as I call them, taut boxes). If you get a really knackered one (like most of ours), the curtains may keep jamming, the poles may be bent and the support posts may have seized, so you’ll probably need a hammer, old screwdriver and a decent quantity of WD40 to open and close one of these wretched contractions!
Garbo2018:
If you are working for an outfit that does short-sea work, you may encounter curtainsided containers (or as I call them, taut boxes). If you get a really knackered one (like most of ours), the curtains may keep jamming, the poles may be bent and the support posts may have seized, so you’ll probably need a hammer, old screwdriver and a decent quantity of WD40 to open and close one of these wretched contractions!
Still not retired those old KLCU 500 boxes yet then - they were all buggered when we got them along with the rest of KL back in…whenever it was, 2006? I got a dropside in the head from one at a timber job in Trafford Park one morning, three hours later came back from hospital to find the buggers hadn’t even put it back together for me! Politely refused to do any more after that…
Garbo2018:
If you are working for an outfit that does short-sea work, you may encounter curtainsided containers (or as I call them, taut boxes). If you get a really knackered one (like most of ours), the curtains may keep jamming, the poles may be bent and the support posts may have seized, so you’ll probably need a hammer, old screwdriver and a decent quantity of WD40 to open and close one of these wretched contractions!
Still not retired those old KLCU 500 boxes yet then - they were all buggered when we got them along with the rest of KL back in…whenever it was, 2006? I got a dropside in the head from one at a timber job in Trafford Park one morning, three hours later came back from hospital to find the buggers hadn’t even put it back together for me! Politely refused to do any more after that…
Yes. Them KLCU500s (along with the CSFU “Easy Load” taut boxes) are still around! Had a nightmare with one back in February whilst transhipping an ADR load of fertiliser from one of our tautliners around at Dawson’s yard (apparently, our warehouse lot “aren’t insured” to touch toxic and corrosive (classes 6 and 8 loads)! They (the boxes) should be dumped overboard in the middle of the North Sea, never to see the light of day again!
Recently, I’ve encountered a LEG 1 (45’) box still in use dating from 2001, even though I’ve heard that we are getting shot of some of the 15-year old boxes.
taut boxes) are still around! Had a nightmare with one back in February whilst transhipping an ADR load of fertiliser from one of our tautliners around at Dawson’s yard (apparently, our warehouse lot “aren’t insured” to touch toxic and corrosive (classes 6 and 8 loads)! 
