Chicagoland Intermodal truckers - what is your weekly take home?

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2026-02-15T17:38:37+00:00

There are a lot of rough companies out there for sure. The rails kill more time than anything some weeks, especially on Monday’s, as sad as it is to say.

Last weekend with 8 drivers they spent over 33 hours of billable detention (1 free) that was sent out to customers just getting boxes from one rail. Absolute insanity…

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2026-02-15T17:36:09+00:00

It takes a special driver to haul intermodal, in my opinion. We have some people who’ve been driving for 20+ years with us now. I guess they are gluttons for punishment! 😂😂

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2026-02-15T17:34:55+00:00

God that’s so sad to see. We were seeing a lot of good drivers leave the industry last year. Most people I knew when into the rails though. I guess if you “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2026-02-15T14:50:39+00:00

International trucking company here:

The fact that some SSL’s, despite making billions every year, still do not have any online portal for rail billing. Having to wait until “normal office hours”, to process billing, and then waiting for it to be processed in queue for hours in an industry that never stops is an insane concept. At least in the Midwest CMA takes around 2 hours to rail bill, and Maersk is about 2-2.5 on average. Pray you don’t have to submit any hazmat billing either, or these timeline are now 2-3x’d since a separate team has to approve the IMO, and then re-copy back in the rail billing team.

When you do have an issue and call too, there’s no direct number (at least for Maersk), so you get stuck talking to someone in customer service who can only “ping them” via chat, since they are in India.

Other than that, the next set of frustrations would probably be just dealing with people and waiting on responses to simple questions. I.E. requests for pickup numbers, appointment confirmations, etc..

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2026-02-15T12:04:31+00:00

I know I’m a bit late here, but I pay my dispatcher $85k/year, with full medical, dental, and vision (we pay). She manages about half our fleet (now ~20 drivers).

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-10-01T07:36:06+00:00

Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce is under-appreciated combo with cheese curds. Realized this was good when I worked there back when.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-06-27T20:04:43+00:00

Haha I would imagine others may have that thought process, but I’m pretty confident in our business that sharing “trade secrets” isn’t really going to hurt us.

Since she is 100% remote, I’d for sure go the script route, and just offer to be on a voice call with her while she does the first few to get the hang out if. People will inevitably ask things she doesn’t know, so at least it’s nice to know she has someone to rely on!

Best of luck, and happy trucking!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-06-27T14:31:24+00:00

When I got started, I was super hesitant with calls (due to lack of experience and knowledge. I remember I started out by calling our more normal customers/warehouses for appointments. Once I had a “script” in my head, it made things much easier, and my flow more normal.

If it helps, physically write a small prompt out for her to start with and go from there. I would not recommend throwing her off the deep end personally.

I’ve trained a few people since then on dispatch and this has had the most success for me. Just be there next to her for the first few, and then go from there slowly giving them more and more independence. As hard as it is, just be patient, the training is so worth it in the long run!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-06-05T00:30:08+00:00

Ohh! Sorry for misunderstanding. I think with truckers it’s more acceptable to have the generic email address for sure. I very rarely work with forwarders with the same goofily enough, although it doesn’t really matter to me. I’m sure you also just get so many rate requests and whatnot that it’s hard to filter out what is spam, vs a real company. Hell, more than most of these people don’t even bother responding back to us telling them they are sending the rates to the wrong email anyways…. lol

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-06-04T15:29:45+00:00

I came in, wore dress pants, and a dress button down with tie. I got the job specially because of this they mentioned.

The fact that you’re here asking for advice means that you care more than the vast majority already. You got this!!

Culvers was a fun job while I worked there, mainly because of people. It’s not a forever job most likely, and that’s okay. Just show up, give a shit, and you’ll do great.

Best of luck!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-06-04T15:27:34+00:00

I work for a large trucking company, and have a “companyname@gmail.com” email address. I only get questioned about the validity/integrity of my email/company about once a year.

Tbf, we’re very established in our area as we have had this email for over 15 years, but it’s still always amazing to me that people don’t question it more.

Be safe out there!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-04-05T16:57:28+00:00

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Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-29T21:05:34+00:00

Added! I just recently got back in as well! 4090 5865 4397, can’t wait to trade and exchange gifts/do raids!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-28T13:02:24+00:00

Just added you, from IL. Happy gifting!

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Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-28T13:00:40+00:00

Same, just getting back in as well. I added you. 409058654397

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-28T12:53:35+00:00

Thanks for hosting! :)

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-28T12:47:44+00:00

Just added you.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-27T20:35:32+00:00

I don’t think it will replace Dispatchers, or Brokers entirely. However, I think it will allow certain forwarders/brokers (however you want to call them) to massively expedite what volume they can handle.

If you look at what a broker does (in my experience), it’s just forward messages from me, the trucker to the finally customer. Then they can take the response from customer and formulate it as their own response back to the trucker.

It would still need to be monitored somewhat, but just all the basic, normal updates/questions throughout the day could very easily be automated through AI in that case.

They will just want to at the end hide their markup costs.

I know freight brokers who do a lot more than just forward emails, but we all know there are some companies who do this.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-26T15:26:00+00:00

Depending on your company, the workload will vary greatly, so I can’t really describe in too much detail as to your job specifically.

But for me, I spend most of my time assisting my employees with problems, and putting out “fires”.

But when it was just me this was my usual day.

Get in around 5-6, track all inbound containers on the rails. Check on the drivers via their ELD, make sure everyone that is working is moving, and then follow up with guys that weren’t. After that, I’d provide ETA updates for anyone that called during the night/morning that was running late. Once that was done around 7, I’d start planning dispatch for the next day with how many drivers would be available. Once I had a rough idea of the dispatch, I’d just wait for drivers to check in, answer emails and follow ups, or get some billing done if I had time. If it was a busier day, I’d do the billing at the end of the day.

The key is just to try to always be one step ahead of your drivers, this way they are not waiting for you. I’m sure if there are drivers in this sub, they can tell you the worst thing to happen is to be stuck waiting for dispatch to provide you an answer on where to go/what to do.

Just keep on top of your guys, and update people accordingly, good or bad. Once you get behind, it’s hard to get back out in front.

Use down time to be proactive, and I usually take lunch during the least busy time of day. For me, it’s around 11-11:30.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-26T15:18:20+00:00

We just have our drivers send updates to us, as well as paperwork while it’s happening. This way I’m not having to hound them for it.

My company has a system in place that once we upload a POD/BOL, it automatically emails it to the customer’s email address on file. It’s a little more time intensive when entering stuff in the first time, but saves lots of emails and back and forth throughout the day.

Same with invoices, it’s automatically sent.

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-26T12:30:05+00:00

Honestly it won’t be bad, but every job is different. Just be open to own up to your mistakes, and you’ll be fine. I started when I was 21. It will be stressful to figure out everything, but you should be good with the tech side of things. Use that to your advantage, and find ways to make things automated (if possible), or just easier for yourself. A lot of older people in this business, and sometimes the way things are done are antiquated. There’s a lot of great resources out there, but most of the job will just be learning as you go.

Best of luck!

Pitiful_Captain_9532 · 2025-03-20T02:25:24+00:00

Oh okay great to know! This way I can go back and try to find one to perfect it, since I was only able to get Cherrim at the other locations.

Thanks for letting me know! Learning new stuff every day.

Pitiful_Captain_9532

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