Any feed back on nations express?

[Maxim]

Hello,
Next week I planing to sing up with Nations Express(NC) as Sprinter o/o,
and before I will do that,I was trying to get some feed back from some one who is currently driving for them right now or worked for them in the past.I'm based in Atl,GA and trying to find out wich company would be the best choice for me,I heard that Express-1 keep drivers busy, but most of there business up north and it's hard to get a load from or to GA.There for I was trying to pick company witch have some business in South Region and were able to keep there drivers busy,Please let me know witch decition should I consider.

Thank you for your feedback.
Max.

 

[woobergoober]

Hey Max,

I worked for Nations Express for about one quarter, as a straight truck, solo. I am an owner/ operator, and could never make it work. If I got a good load offer, the deadhead to the pick up would put me past the 11 hours drive time, and I was not allowed to do it. But, what I can tell you, is the van drivers say they can make heeps with Nations, for whatever that is worth. They even had a van driver come in, and he showed us his settlements up to the first half of the year, and if I could as good as he was doing with my straight truck, I would never quit driving.

In a nutshell, he described his ability to make such good income, attributable to the fact that the van drivers did not have to keep logs, and were not impeded by the HOS rules. Makes sense I supppose.

The only real problem, which led to me just giving up with NE, was the fact that they have a broker system, where there are offices all over the place, that are actually owned by a person, or people who own said offices, so, you can say to yourself, "these guys are really gonna hustle, cause if I make money, they make money." Which in theory is great, but what I found, was that alot of these guys are 9 to 5, Mon thru Fri. That just did not cut it for me, because if I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere on a Friday at 6:00 p.m., I was basically there until Monday morning, when everybody got back to work, and rustled up some work.

Now, they do have their central office in Charlotte, which is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, but if I remember correctly, if it is after hours, those guys are not actively pursuing freight for anybody, merely answering phones, and handling problems.

So, for what its worth, if I were you, I would definately take Nations over Express I, for the simple fact that Nations Express did a huge amount of business down South, especially NC, SC, GA.

Good luck, and I think you made a good decision.

WG

 

[wahoofan]

I think woobergoober hit the nail squarely on the head with his post. NE has many offices but lets just say some are more active than others .:-( :'( x(

 

[paid2vacation]

A year and a half ago my husband and I signup with Nations. We lost our butt. The orientation was a week long and we learned nothing, but how the lady teaching it and her boyfriend ate dinner with the lady in Cleveland all the time. After orientation, they had no freight and if they did you had to deadhead hundreds of miles for it. They use the good ol boy system. If you ain't in you ain't gettin any loads.

Well I hope that it helps you make a decision on joining Nations. I don't mean to be negative, but I wish someone had gave us the heads up.

BEST OF LUCK on who ever you choose.

 

[Jefferson3000]

Hi Maxim.

Here is my take on the situation:

I have never worked for NE, but I did approach someone here in their Tampa office about doing some work for them last year. I was surprised that this guy who basically ran operations, knew so little about the freight business, whether air freight or ground expedite.

You will see that their offical name is Nations Express, Expediting and Logistics. It seems that they are more focused on doing logistics work than the expediting part. On their website you will see it stated that they make use of regional carriers who are the best at what they do. Simply put: OUTSOURCING. I had done a few NE jobs through a local cartage company at one time. A couple of them were well paying runs, for jobs that were around the 75-100 mile range. There were lots of calls I found out that were nickel and dime runs. I believe the Tampa office has now closed, after going through several owners. My point: Do they really have enough freight to lease on trucks of their own? Are they a company who is willing to go after that freight?

If you actually meet an NE driver, you can ask if they're happy with the company.

 

[Broompilot]

I know very little about this company. Last summer I delviered with a Nations Cube Van. He highly encouraged me to get on with them since I live in Charlotte.

If I were not so happy with C&M his advice would have been tempting. Guy was with them for a couple of years and very productive and happy. Said he would get out and usualy right back to the SE if not Charlotte. Now that does sound tempting to me, but I am in it for the miles not to get back home every week, at least not yet...

This is all I know hope it helps.

 

[slinger44]

We recently moved from NE to another company. When the frieght was abundant we got our share. This is probably true of all companies. The major gripe for us was deadhead back to good freight areas after driving to podunk. Also to have as many offices as NE has it seemed like the loads came mostly from a few.