Applied, just for daftness, (I mean, I’ve only had my CE for 10 months) for a Wincanton Tanker Job advertised on the Job Centre website.
Not sure if the Tanker job is Petrol or DIesel tankers tho, poss tanks running out of Thristlington Quarry?
Made it clear on the application form that they sent me that I’d only had licence for short time.
Couldn’t believe it when some guy phoned me and told me I had an interview pencilled in for the week beginning 10th September!
Bugger me I thought! (Well not literally obviously)
So, given the fact that my current job (trials and tribulations in previous threads…) is paying me about £350 in my hand a week for 60 - 65 hours per week (16 of which spent on forklift) would I be better off staying or leaving.
Freightroute is my current and first job in haulage and the lads I work with, all far more experienced than me say it is one of the best they have had.
So would I be jumping from frying pan so to speak?
Any thoughts or comments would be most gratefully received.
Wincanton bought RDL recently, so you could well be looking at powder tankers. If so you’d bettter like mud as you’ll spend a lot of time in and around it. Main work for that side of things is cement for Buxton Lime (loaded from railheads) and various quarry firms carrying limestone, dolomite and silica sand. You’re better off admitting a lack of experience as powder tankers bite !! The drivers up here are/were pretty good so should train you well.
I’ve done a Google search on Thrislington Quarry, Makem was right - its a Dolomite (powdered mud ) quarry.
If I were you I’d go for it, provided the money,hours etc. were OK for your personal circumstances.
Something important for you to bear in mind is the ‘unique-ness’ of powder tankers. It’s a specialist job, which needs proper training - I’d guess 5 days at least - but once you had some experience under your belt following that official training you’d have a job for life. I would say probably less than 5% of all LGV drivers in the UK have past or present powder tanker experience… it would be your ‘specialist subject’, if you like!
Here is a link to a previous thread on here which gave a ‘TN masterclass’ on how powder tankers work. Those TruckNet members that contributed to the thread really know their stuff - they’re doing it everyday!
If it’s powder tankers , i’d go for it mate. I love it , no RDC’S , no bolshie forkie’s and no stress!
As said above , get proper training tho’ , they do go bang if your not sure what your doing, and you have to stand right next to them to operate the controls
Any questions you have, don’t hesitate to pm me and I’ll try my best to help.
Oh , and you don’t have to get covered in crap, not if your clever that is…
wincanton are a good company to work for you get all the benfits unlike otheir s i see a long term future with them as far as am concerned im back doing local multi drops best thing ive had for years and im on a well paid contract plus the phone never rings i just go out do my job get back when i get back and im clearing the same as i was on days as i was on nights with fr for 12 hours a week less dont know if your still on class 2 but you will have to do an assesment so if you can hone the skills up go for it the assesment starts as soon as you walk toward the lorry ie oil level water level damage to unit any defects / coupling into trailer checking trailer for damage /defects do the drive uncouple trailer /trailer brake first /legs down /leads/no plate / pull pin drop suspension pull out there is a 20 question tacho test as well wish you well
You’re right about your ADR, but there’s plenty to learn. RDL have both tipping and belly(non-tiping) tanks. You’ll need to learn both, and because of the different commodities you’ll carry there are essential differences in blowing. Don’t be afraid to ask about different products or tipping points, this is better than getting blocked up later. The money should be pretty good, but you will work for it - nights out & early starts - 2am is not exceptional in this kind of work.
More than most jobs you will need a while to settle in as it is a bit specialist - I did this for over 4 years and never stopped learning. At first it seems that everyone tips faster than you, speed comes with time, but if you push it too much they can bite back. Granulated lime at 30psi hurts, but pipes and couplings do come adrift occasionally - I once covered some visitors to a glass plant in soda ash,(not actually my fault thankfully) but they did fix their pipework pretty quickly after that
(Well not literally obviously)
) quarry.
we all had to learn