First Day Of Driving Training

Well today was the day I finally got behind the wheel of a North American Rig for road training. After a bit of shunting in the yard, washing out of a reefer trailer and a bit more shunting, Greg rolled in and announced we're off to pick up a load of mussells, so off we went, pulled out of the yard turned left on to the TCH 1 and the tunes began, the gearbox was playing a whole host of tunes none of which I knew!

Ah the joys of a crash box, it brought back memories of 18 years ago when I first used one, I was crap with that one as well!!!  Anyway as the drive proceeded I started to find gears without crunching the box and leaving a trail of stripped teeth from the gears all along the TCH.  I really started getting the hang of changing up, its changing down and the split from 5th to 4th thats really f***king me up I just cant seem to get my revs right, oh well its only day one, Rome was not built in a day I thought.

Now before I carry on with todays report, I have to show these photo's to prove to my Wife that its not all burgers and doughnuts over here and eating healthy is possible.

It only just fitted in the pan

Could not believe the price on the steaks out here, this piece $4.50 or £2.81, try getting a steak like this in Tesco for that price!

Anyway we got to our collection point and one shunt and I was on the bay.

So with our load on board off we set back for the yard, an hour later and more tunes from the gearbox we arrived where we dropped the tailer put in a DP door and hooked up to another trailer this time heading to pick up 25 pallets of Potatoes from a farm in Mount Stewart. When we got there I put the trailer on the bay and both Greg and I had a walk round the potatoe store and watched how they prep the spuds ready for packing. We had a bit of a delay whilst we waited for them to finish bagging the last 2 pallets and paperwork in hand we set off back to the yard.

On reflection a good day but still a lot of practice needed to master the gearbox, oh well lets see what happens tomorrow.