00:08 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking, and we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Let’s get to the show.

00:30 Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. I’m your host John Madewell and tonight we have a very special guest, a gentleman by the name of Frank Tomko. He’s no stranger to the roads. He’s been out doing this for a long time. He’s been with Norton Transport for a good bit too. And we’re very lucky to have Frank. Frank, how are you this evening?

00:49 I’m doing great. How are you?

00:51 I’m doing fantastic. Doing fantastic. And thank you for joining us here. Are you headed into the city? Is that right?

00:57 Yes, I am actually—

00:58 Headed into New York City. You know, Frank, that’s where I first met you was it was a very difficult load and you certainly came through for us with flying colors. I’ll let you take the lead on this and tell us about this load and then I’ll kind of fill in the gaps from our standpoint.

01:16 Okay. Well, I got a call, I forget how many months ago it was, but it was some time back, not all that long. And deputy called me. One of the dispatch said we’d have a load going from around Richmond, Virginia to Queens, New York, which is obviously one of the suburbs of New York City. Not really a suburb, but anyway. And he said, “It’s quite a large piece of equipment.” So I asked him, I said, “Can you send me a picture of what it is?” And he absolutely did that. And when I took a look at it, it had turned out to be a 100 ton railroad crane, which is the crane that they use to lift the rail cars on and off the track. They actually had one built by this company in Virginia out in Richmond called Rail Masters, which is what they do. And it was on a truck chassis. It was on a Peterbilt cabover similar to a trash truck, but it had a dual steering on it. And it had three sets of drive axles. And this 100 time crane with a boom that was hanging over the top to lift these rail cars off the track.

02:16 So, it looked to me that the truck was going to need some kind of help in terms of dispatching and permits and things like that to get it on the highway. It was street legal, but it needed some help to from some of the different states to have the proper permitting to get it that 300 miles from there up to New York City.

02:34 Yeah, that was I had only been here it was in February. I remember it well because it was hard to get a train driver for this type of delivery. And I went to Jesse and asked him about it because it was coming from, like you said, out of Richmond, Virginia. Had to go into Queens, one of the burrows there in New York City. And it had to be delivered between, if I remember correctly, 10:00 and 5:30 in the morning. And our dispatcher, Jesse Chavez, sitting right beside me now, he knew I gave him this information. And I was new and Jesse really kind of helped me along. He said, “I got just the guy for you, Frank Tomko.” And what we’re going to do right now, since you guys work together on this delivery, I’m going to hand the earphones over to Jesse and let you guys talk for a minute about that and your relationship together because we all know, particularly guys listening and ladies listening tonight that are on the open road, it’s a very important relationship between the driver and the dispatcher.

03:34 So, I’m going to hand these headsets over to Jesse right now and let him talk with you, Frank.

03:38 Okay, sounds good.

03:39 Hey, Frank. How you doing? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

03:41 I’m doing great. Great. So, do you want to start off about how you called me about this or just want to go through pretty much where I vetted or—

03:49 What we ended up doing?

03:51 Yeah. Well, we can definitely do that. So, I mean, basically, you know, John came over here, hey, I need this moved. Who do y’all have in the area or whatever that could do something like this? And he mentioned earlier, I know just the guy, which I did. We had been working together a while. I knew kind of your selective loads, you know, what you like to do, what you don’t like to do, and I told John Madewell exactly who I had for this job.

04:16 We put it all together and it worked out really well. Actually, it actually worked out better than we thought it would.

04:21 Yeah, definitely. And I know you had some issues in route with specific permits, things like that.

04:28 Right. Well, what ended up happening though is that we ended up having to get permits through four different states. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, actually five states, and New York—

04:39 And some were timestamped. Right.

04:41 Right. And we also had to get a pilot car to escort us over the bridge that was just on the 295 bypass around Richmond. So, those people that are familiar with that area understand what I’m talking about. There’s a cable bridge that goes over there and they had to escort me across that bridge, which they did when I picked up the truck. It was a few miles off the interstate.

05:04 I was going to ask you, Frank, this is John here again. I can hear you. Jesse’s got the headsets on, but I wanted to ask you about that escort that you had because Jesse was very integral in all this pulling it all together, but that was the only part of the escort other than New York City and it was coming out of Richmond just for that one bridge and I think it was like a mile that we needed an escort—

05:29 Right? It was only a mile and that’s all they were contracting the pilot part to escort me up and back and then they kind of peeled off and let me on my own. And after that, I had five permits to let me travel up the interstate on specific highways. The other one big challenge was I was also not allowed on the New Jersey Turnpike. So, there were a lot of roads, US Route One and some others that I had to run on around the time of the day where most of the traffic was. So, I was hauling driving this big rig of roads with traffic lights and, you know, afternoon traffic and the normal kind of thing. Not as bad as like Plano, but you know, central New Jersey and northern New Jersey.

06:10 Yeah, definitely. So, I know it took us about two days before you even picked up this load trying to set this thing up and then you ran into those road bumps that you were speaking about just now—

06:21 Which right which John was deal they had, you know, that I had everything in place. I knew pretty much what I need. And going back to the vehicle itself, it was not a difficult vehicle to drive from that standpoint. It was very easy to drive. Actually, it was very comfortable to drive because it was so heavy and it, you know, it didn’t go 65 miles an hour, but it drove the normal speed to keep me up on traffic heading up the road, etc. And that worked out pretty well. And it was like I said it was it wasn’t the most comfortable truck in the world because it only had a little single cab in the front, but it wasn’t the worst by any means. Yeah, I remember that definitely. And I think one of the things we spoke about was the great fuel mileage you got off of it.

07:04 Actually, I was very surprised by they had the company had fuel the truck, which isn’t always the case, I guess, because they had to take it to a couple of places to get some finishing things done to it. And they had the placard thing with, you know, wide load on it and all that stuff. And they had all that done when I got there. It was all ready to go. So, there wasn’t really anything I had to do but wait for the power car driver at the facility. And then we just took off the road and I just kept on rolling. And I stopped a couple times. It took me about seven hours, I guess, maybe eight hours to travel the distance. And there was a restriction because I had to cross the road to Washington Bridge in order to cross over and get down into Queens. If anybody’s familiar with the New York burrows, it’s really the only way to get to there. And I did have somebody who was meeting me at the bridge who was a rep from the someplace that had all the permits paperwork for that side of it as well. And he actually let me follow him down through New York to get to the customer’s point. It was a garage where the they house all these vehicles to repair the rail cars for the transit authority.

08:11 Yes, sir. Well, another thing about that is how much you were able to pocket on the fuel. A lot of these drivers think to, you know, try to think that they’re losing money, but you were able to pocket a lot on this.

08:24 I was it was a really good load and it did cost me a lot of money to put fuel in it, you know, minimal amount. So for the 12 hours, 14 hours that I was actually driving well or working, I should say, it was pretty lucrative for me for that. And I looked at it in that respect. You know, I never try to take a load that I don’t think I can make a dollar or two on because that’s pretty much why I’m doing this.

08:47 Yeah. So—

08:48 And you were good with your word. You know, you were there whenever you said you were going to pick up and you delivered when you said you were going to deliver. There’s nothing more that a dispatcher could ask from you.

08:56 Right.

08:56 Frank, I was going to ask you, John, speaking in here, like Jesse said, you came through for us and I the one thing I had in my mind when I was putting this load together and was all the crossing all the tees, dotting all the eyes. What was it like? I know it was between 10:00 p.m. And 5:30 in the morning, but what was it like driving through New York City in this overweight, huge piece of equipment and delivering it to Queens to the Long Island Railroad Authority? Well, that had to be some tight turns.

09:24 I Yeah, I really have a little advantage for this because I spent 10 years going in and out of New York City with a 45T motor coach. I was a motor coach driver and I probably made 500 trips. I made a thousand into New York City at every time of the year and from the five bars a year back. So the length of the truck was about the same as my 45T bus. So that didn’t bother me from that standpoint. And ironically, it was pretty interesting too in the sense that as you know a motor coach bus, you sit over the front wheel and on a cowboy truck like this, you pretty much do the same thing. So your turning radiuses and things like that were pretty much the same. The only big difference I had was this huge boom that was in front of the hanging over the cab of the truck that had like I don’t know six or eight steel cables coming down for us to hook it together. You know, it took up a little front end space.

10:16 So, I had to kind of look at my clothes on both sides on the vertical side of it because we did hit a couple of places where we were in, you know, elevated train areas and stuff like that, which was scary. I actually had to park on a on the entrance to the Washington Bridge, but I got there early because you’re only allowed to cross at certain times of day and the police squirt you across the bridge and get to get okay and they wait right at the side of the bridge to get you through. The other side of the coin is that I didn’t quite realize that I certainly had enough money with the acceptor, but the fee across the Washington Bridge for that vehicle was $200.

10:56 Okay. Yeah, definitely. Hey, Frank. So, this is Jesse again. What you just told me everything just now tells me just how much you know your stuff when it comes to driving, especially for driveaway. And that made things so much easier for me whenever I was dispatching you. You know, it’s been a while. I would let you know, hey, I have this truck picking up in McCi going towards Illinois. And you would know exactly the delivery and pickup locations. Like, you made things so easy for me. It was great. I didn’t really have to try and sell a load to you, even though a few times I did have to. You made things easy for me.

11:32 Well, again, going back to my past experience from driving a motor coach, but I was in a lot of cities in a lot of places. And I guess my memory serves me well, even at an advanced age that I am. I still remember places that that I’ve been to and actually remember things that I’ve seen that were locations that we actually had to pick up. So that, you know, the visual is something where you’re in a strange city, you know, and it didn’t make sense to you that, oh, I’m picking up at that location that I went by there like, you know, a half a dozen times, so I kind of know what I pick it off and, you know, where to go. So it does give me a little bit of an advantage in that respect. But, you just have to really, and even when I was learning how to drive, you really in tight areas with the buses and stuff, you really just have to map your area out before you take off and kind of figure out where you’re going. You just have to pull a paper map out and kind of look at it surrounding areas, understand what you might run into. Yes, sir. Just rely on GPS.

12:30 Frank, I was going to ask you, we spoke about this before we got live here on the podcast. You were talking about the relationship with you and Jesse. You guys kind of bounced off each other, kind of learned a little bit from each other, kind of stepped hand in hand with each other. Talk a little bit about that because Jesse’s about to shake out of here, but just wanted to kind of touch on that before Jesse leaves us here tonight. Yeah, I really appreciated working with Jeff because he was relatively new and I wasn’t all that far along in the company and had gone through a couple dispatchers, but he was extremely helpful in asking me and get me things and you know I had a very other very interesting situation where I actually took a truck from the Max plant in Allentown to Calgary, Alberta. If you can imagine that was 2,800 miles and I don’t know if you remember Jesse or not but you were with me on that one too where the where I had to freeze up on the fuel lines that weren’t at 30 below zero and had to get the truck we had to get the truck repaired and you were pretty instrumental in doing that helping with that too and get me some extra money to you get some special fuel to make sure the truck was it actually shut down.

13:30 I remember exactly what you’re talking about. Yes, sir. We ended up spending a whole day in North Dakota someplace getting the diesel filters cleared out and everything because it was so cold. And you know we made the delivery on time. Everything worked out okay. It’s just that I ran into a little problem on the back side of it is I ended up being quarantined in Canada for a few days, but that was because I couldn’t fly home. So—

13:53 Yes, sir. All right, man. Hey, Frank, it’s been great reconnecting with you and I know it’s been a while. You know, if you ever need to reach out, you have my number.

14:01 Yep. I appreciate that. All you guys have been working with the good guys to work with the girls, too. So—

14:06 Yes, sir. You have a good weekend and be safe. Okay.

14:08 Okay.

14:14 Hey, Frank, that was great hearing you and Jesse talk about the relationship between a driver and a dispatcher, particularly that story from Queens and also from Canada. Those were great stories. Talk a little bit about— Let’s kind of double back on Queens there. You were talking about it wasn’t that difficult for you because of your time driving a motor coach. I guess that helped you in something you probably didn’t see in the future. I mean, is that one of the most unusual deliveries you’ve ever made?

14:39 Yeah, probably one of the most unusual deliveries I’ve ever done with that big piece of equipment in a city arrangement like that and at night. And I guess the other advantage was thank goodness it wasn’t in the middle of the day that the traffic would have been, you know, five times worse than that. So that helped a little bit too. But again, you know, I will say it was a little bit shaky and I was extremely nervous and after being on the road all day, you know, the hardest thing about doing a delivery is if you have to take something into a city area and you’ve driven on the highway all day, and this was true even when I drove a bus, you know, you were you would have highway speeds for five, six, seven, eight hours and then all of a sudden you were in a series of turns for a couple hours that you would stop and go and tight turns and things like that. So you have to change your mental sharpness if you would to focus more on what you’re doing for those last period of time than not that you don’t have to do it all the time but it’s a little more stressful in that respect.

15:36 Absolutely. I would think so. The adjustment from speed to you know out on the open road to back in a city so tight as New York City. And I was looking when I was putting this thing together, this particular load, the aerial maps where you were delivering, and I’m like, “Oh my goodness, how are they going to park that thing?” Because if I remember, it was pretty tight, but you were there first.

15:58 Yeah. But we I did have a gentleman who was from the area that that kind of led me down as much as he could, but you know, we had to make some decisions on getting there. You know, at certain places where the bridge was a low height or not height clearance or whatever. Much especially in Queens because Queens being an older part of the city has a lot of elevated trains and we had to go through an area where the elevated trains had some height restrictions. So, you know, it was a little bit it was a little bit hairy there for a while.

16:27 I gotcha. Now, let’s talk a little bit about your experience of a motor coach driver. You did that for 12 years. Is that right? Yeah, I drove pretty much trucker work for a company locally in Pennsylvania for about 12 years and then actually I retired from that before I got involved with Norton and I got hired on by the company as a contractor that actually makes the buses that manufactures them as a delivery driver and that’s really how I got involved with Norton because I had been making a number of trips to Chicago and I had seen one that one of the guys talking about the fact they were delivering a lot of trucks from my area in Pennsylvania out Chicago. So, I thought it would be a good way for me to bring a little extra money in by doing that as well. And then the pandemic hit and our business or the bus coach business went down because no one was focusing any bucks.

17:17 So—

17:18 What from the motor coach side, what did you take away from that? I guess some components that you took away from that type of driving, that style, that industry, that component there into what you’re doing now. I took away from that the customer service part of it. That was key to us. I mean, when you met people on the bus or you were dealing with a group or whatever the case may be, you had to be the person that was representing the company, you know, in the eyes of that no one else out there but you. And that really hit home along with the safety aspect that you obviously had the lives of people in your hand which is important to me plus my own life. That you had to make decisions on the road about things that happened where you couldn’t always get a hold of a company and you know I’ve had a lot of episodes I could talk about that part of it.

18:04 So I guess in relationship to driveaway you have to be flexible and you have to not worry about something when something happens. I mean, if the truck unfortunately breaks down on the side of the road, you know, you go down, you sit down, you go through your things that you need to do, you call the right people, you get things moving in the right direction, and it’s pretty much what I did when I drove Motor Coach, too. And it saved us a lot of time and getting support and people there to help you get the job done. Even getting repair work done, you know, at a facility kind of expedited that process.

18:36 I had to ask you this question. 12 years in the motor coach side. I’m sure you saw some crazy, some funny, maybe some sad things that happened on the road when you had people with you all the time. Give us a little insight to what it’s like for 12 years as a motor coach guy experience was—

18:53 Well, I’ll tell you I’ll relate one little story I had. I had a group of people that I was taking to Orlando, Florida from the northeast and we had encountered a day of layover because the roads had fluttered on the interstate in South Carolina and we couldn’t continue the trip and there were about 30 people on the bus. I guess they were mostly senior citizens and they were going to a specific hotel to stay the evening we got there. And after being on the road for a long day, I basically parked the bus in the back of the facility and I kind of park away in some lights, you know, visibility in the hotel and I kind of walked back through just to make sure that you there’s nothing happening in the back of the bus and the seats and whatever. And as I went by this one seat, I nearly had a heart attack because sitting in the seat was a 3/4 size life-sized doll that had a lanyard wrapped around her arm that she was the companion of one of the people on the bus. I had no knowledge.

19:54 That’s kind of—

19:54 You can imagine what that felt like to me when I thought it was a live person. I really did. I was in panic mode. So Ruthie, her name was Ruthie and she became the mascot brother for the whole red.

20:08 That’s funny. That is funny. And you know, you touched you talked about something before relaying that story to us about the doll there in driveaway when you have a breakdown that happens and you and I both know that’s part of the business. It’s a cost of doing business. How do you handle that as a driver, whether the breakdown happens at the point of pickup, in transit, or right before delivery? I mean, nobody knows when a breakdown’s going to happen, something mechanical or something otherwise. How do you handle that as an experienced driver such as yourself?

20:44 Well, first of all, I try to make sure that I get, you know, if it’s something that affected the truck and I have another little story to share. It just happened about two weeks ago. I was delivering a new Peterbilt from the plant up to Pennsylvania and I was heading across Indiana to stop for the night and I pulled off the interstate and my steering wheel locked up. Literally locked up. Oh boy.

21:05 I couldn’t turn it left or right. I couldn’t do anything with it.

21:09 So, I mean most people because I did panic a little bit. I actually shut the truck off. I put the brake on. I jumped outside. I looked to see if some mechanical piece of steering had broken or had bent or something had fallen off and I couldn’t see anything abnormal about it. So, I went back into the truck and I thought, well, maybe just shutting it down and restarting it would clear a computer control thing or something because it was a power steering unit. And in fact, it did do that. The wheel was turned perfectly right. So, there was a motel right nearby there. I pulled into the parking lot and I made a phone call to a dispatcher. I think it was Casey or somebody that was on that. I told her what was happening and she said to make a phone call to the dispatch company at let them know what was happening. In the meantime, I also got proactive because most of the new trucks have an 800 number on the front windshield and I placed a phone call to them to try to get some resolution as to for what might be the problem. And the truck seemed to operate fine at that point while after I had reach shut it off.

22:12 That my concern was that I had another 500 miles to go to deliver it and you know what would happen again if it was heading down the road—

22:19 Right? That could be dangerous.

22:20 So, right. So, in getting hold of the dispatcher and everybody else, we got the people at Ford at Peter on the phone and they said, you know, maybe what we ought to do is have it to the dealership in Indianapolis in the morning.

22:35 And that was our game plan that night. But I came up the next morning very early. I went out, I tested it again before I left it. It still seemed to be fine. So, I unless we end up we ended up cancing the phone call and I drove the truck to the dealership about 29 miles down the road that next morning. They went in, took it in right away. They worked on it, looked at it, did what they had to do, and said that that they thought everything was fine. So, I continued on my way and finished the delivery a couple hours later. You know, the one thing I picked up on that story there, you were talking about being proactive by looking up and seeing I mean, it’s an a common sense kind of thing when you see the number there on the windshield, but for a guy who’s been on the road as long as you have, how much would you advise other drivers who may getting be getting into the game just now, fresh into the game? How much being proactive?

23:36 How important is that for you? Well—

23:38 I think it’s very important because obviously you’re trying to, you know, earn a living to deliver this vehicle down the road. You want to get it there as quickly and safely as possible. And any kind of a glitch that come from Duck, you know, could be something that would— It’s very important to stay as proactive. Get a hold of your dispatcher. I mean, I’m thankful the fact that now I ask people on the second shift because she responded very quickly to me at the people at the logistics to know what was happening. So they everybody had everything in the loop and I think that’s what made it most important is that they all knew what was happening. They all knew where the truck was. They all knew what was going on and what the plan was for the next step.

24:16 Gotcha.

24:17 And that’s really what’s important. You’re listening to the Six-Figure Trucker here brought to you by Norton Transport. We’ve got Frank Tomko. Frank Tomko on the line with us here. He’s actually on the road right now, but he does have his headsets on. He is being safe. And Frank, you’re headed into New York City. And I got to ask you this question. You know, a lot of drivers don’t like to go into the Northeast, but we know that you’ve for lack of a better word, have manned up and gone into the city more than once. Is there is that a false fear as far as for drivers out there? How do you look at it as far as hitting the Northeast, hitting major metropolitan areas? Is it something you just got to brace yourself for? I think you just have to, you know, be aware of everything. I mean, know what surroundings are there and kind of look at them ahead of time as much as possible. Know what bridges you got cross if you’re heading up in New England or going in a different direction or if you’re going around the city someplace, you know, kind of look and see.

25:20 I mean, having a good GPS is important as well, but sometimes that doesn’t always give you the best advice. So if you see any bridges that look kind of weird or underpasses or places where you’re going to deliver, you can always pull on Google Earth or whatever on your phone and basically look around and see what where you’re pulling into. You know, sometimes you’re in your very last block and a half of delivery is probably the hardest thing to get into because the guy’s under some underpass in a garage around the corner and you know that’s where you’re dropping the truck.

25:50 Gotcha. I wanted to get gear down a little bit here and talk a little bit about some mechanics of driving on the road, whether it be otr or driveaway. Let’s talk about pressure. I mean, we see it from our side. There’s pressure from the customer to get it delivered. You know, as we all know, every customer out there wants their truck yesterday and there’s pressure on you guys. There’s pressure on the dispatchers to get them out there. But as a driver, you guys are kind of in the balance. I mean, because we can’t get it to the customer without the driver. Dispatchers can’t get it to the customer without the driver. How do you handle that? I’m sure. Do you feel that the amount of pressure, time pressure?

26:31 Yeah, I do to a certain extent. I mean, you obviously get a little anxious because you know, you want to get there, you want to get the job done, and you know, you’ve had some delays or whatever it may be. And as I said, the most important thing is keep the communication of all the dispatchers. Say, “Look, I came across the interstate and I ran into three traffic accidents. The two road constructions held me up over two hours and now my DPS is saying two hours later than delivery.” You call the customer, you know, I generally will ask it’s okay if I call the customer and sometimes I think they’ll understand that he’s coming from you directly, you know, that it’s not the dispatcher service—

27:09 Right? I mean, I think you nailed it there. Communication is the name of the game because I mean there’s a lot of things, let’s just be candid about it or frank about it. You can’t control a lot of things.

27:21 Absolutely. I mean it happens. You know, weather, you know, breakdowns, things like that, like that episode that happened to me, you know, I had several days to get the truck up to Canada, but you know, and I had the concern of crossing the border, etc. Etc. But before I got there, I had a whole day delay because obviously, so I let the customer know they were okay with that. And you know that all worked out in the end.

27:43 Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, I’m not going to be telling secrets, so to speak, on Frank Tomko, who’s joining us here today on the Six-Figure Trucker, brought to you by Norton Transport. But Frank, if you don’t mind me saying, I know you’re 69 years old and you’ve been doing this for quite some time.

28:00 Well, I appreciate you letting me know that I’m 69 years young, but I like to call it that way.

28:04 Absolutely. You and tell us about the experience you’ve had on the road and is this something that you had always aspired to do or did you work your way into it through your career or how did that happen?

28:16 Actually not. I was in the computer field years ago and I’ve had a pretty varied background. I was salesperson for commercial vehicles for about seven years. How I got the fun of looking at all these different units that have bodies on the back because I used to sell them to my customers. So, you know, I learned a lot. I took the knowledge, that knowledge, and kind of put it to Denise about, you know, what a hydraulic pump is and things like that, especially if they’re hauling like a cement mixer or something along those lines that you jump into, at least you have an idea where the hydraulic hoses are, things like that when you have a breakdown. So, if you can take the time to, you know, acknowledge yourself about those basic things, not needing a repair, but at least to know where to look if you have a problem, especially if you have a repair guy on the other side of the phone saying, “Hey, is it left of the Weber that does this or that or the next thing, you know, and then the other thing is have your camera ready and say, “Look, I’ll send you a picture.” That’s literally a thousand words in my book.”

29:13 Absolutely. Bailed me out of a lot of problems when he when the mechanic or the repair person saw their situation wasn’t quite exactly how I explained to it and when he saw the pictures like I completely understand the problem but let’s get it worked on—

29:25 You were that was a good part of understanding what to do with that. So I think I got a little off track there but—

29:32 Oh no no no that’s good man we got nothing but time here you’re on the open road there heading in for New York City Frank Tomko here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. You were talking about the picture and knowledge. How much does that carry over to what you’re doing now? It would seem that I mean every day is a different day, a different adventure, maybe a different challenge, but that picture and knowledge, you know, plug in what the picture is as far as being pertinent to whatever the situation is and the knowledge that you have now.

30:03 Well, I think that’s yeah, the picture of knowledge is extremely important. You can retain things that you’ve seen and as you get doing this I believe you get a little better, you know, you get a little bit more comfort under your belt and you’ve seen things happen and then you can relate to them and maybe know what would happen for the next go around or at least you know what things might be the things to check that was an issue or a problem or so yeah keeping that back in your head that you know hey I remember this situation that happened here maybe this is the same similar thing and then that happened to me in my bus driving career too you a breakdown would happen. I say, you know, I remember that three years ago. I think it might be this and sometimes it was.

30:42 I mean, talk about that as a driver, you guys are out there and a lot of times you can be in a really remote location where there is no immediate help, but having that knowledge in the back of your head. How much is that, I don’t want to use the word comfortable, but maybe reassuring that, you know, I’ve been down this road before—

31:03 Right? It gives me a comfort level of a very good and comfort level. But at least like I said, understanding the basics of the equipment, you know, got an engine, it’s got a transmission, you know, a lot of modern things these days, all sorts of things go wrong. I had another situation and I should say with another company some time back where the red light came on the dashboard and said that the drive axles were too hot. Well, that’s a pretty serious thing. So, again, I did the same procedure. I pulled over, let it cool down, saw that it came back up again, and basically went through that same process I did, contacted somebody, went to a local dealer to find out that they had overfilled the capacity in the drive axle in the back, and they had to flush it out, put it out. It was causing a problem.

31:49 Well, without that kind of knowledge, a lot of it common sense, but some of it also past experience. I guess you could see where a less experienced driver could be in a bit of a pickle.

32:01 Yeah. And I think, you know, the other thing, too, is to try to reach out to somebody. I mean, get friendly with people that you see on the road out there that are doing this. There are some experienced guys out there, big guys myself, that are probably way more knowledgeable about, you know, mechanical things than I am. But, you know, get to let them explain to you, you know, the little basics of the stuff that you should be looking at, not just jump in the truck, put the plates on it, stick a pler on the side, you know, zoom it down the road, you know, that that’s extremely helpful. I mean, get, you know, try to get a network of people you could chitchat with and call maybe on or even on a Facebook. I’ve met a lot of people on Facebook right the towway driveaway pages that the information gets shared across there and I try to give them the you know the basics of what I understood was the problem they’re having pops up—

32:49 Give us an idea how much information communication I would think that you guys share a lot of information with each other I mean you’re out there on the road I mean you know times passing by sometimes slowly and it’s like there’s got to be some time that you guys spend with each other in person on the phone, on the headset, like you were talking about social media. How much give us an idea of what that communication is like? Is it a tight network?

33:15 I don’t have a really big network. I have a few people that I’ve befriended that one of the gentlemen that I good friends with, I work with delivering the buses. He actually came on the work and we talked to him earlier. He are good friends and I have a couple other people that I’ve in the industry that do of different type different types of work. Some guys like to deliver with cartage trucks, you know, and that’s a unique thing or cement mixers. And it’s always good to have that little knowledge. For instance, like when you’re delivering cement mixer, a lot of people don’t understand that it’s a barrel, you have to keep it rolling all the time, otherwise it’ll damage the vehicle. So, a lot of guys, you know, they don’t have that knowledge. I asked around the first time I did. I said, “Is that true? Do I have to keep the barrel rolling specialist, which I have to turn on or whatever the case may be?”

34:00 So I gleaned that from the social media network. I put a fuel out there.

34:06 You are absolutely correct because one of my accounts or a couple of my accounts are with cement mixers and you’ve got to keep that drum turning or it can turn into a very expensive repair. But—

34:17 Oh, absolutely.

34:19 Do you move many mixers, dump trucks, garbage trucks, or do you kind of stay with the cabs or the dayc cabs, the sleepers? Do you have a preference? No, I kind of like the full conventional units that that if it’s a mixer because they’re heavier and they’re probably active are very heavy and you know they bounce a little bit more than normal but you get that I mean some of the highways out here especially in Pennsylvania aren’t the greatest thing in the world and you know your kidneys suffer out here a couple hours. Frank Tomko here joining us tonight on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Frank, I got to ask you, you’ve been in this business for quite a long time. How has driveaway treated you personally, from a business standpoint, and financially?

35:10 Well, it’s treated me very well from a business standpoint and financially, again, I try to make it as financially profitable for me by mapping out, you know, what the load is, where I’m going, partly what I’m going to spend for fuel, what’s covered, what’s not, and try to, you know, optimize the amount of money that I pull out of that load that I can think of. I mean, staying at looking for discounts at hotels, building a high point so I can get some freebie rooms, you know, not eating too heavy, you know, to try to keep the expenses to a minimum so that whatever I’m going to get out of it is wheelchair charges involved and things like that, you know, looking to try to buy fuel that I need to get from point A to point B where it’s least expensive so that it leaves me some room to, you know, wiggle room to make some income. But it has been pretty good, folks.

35:58 So, I mostly I do a I put I net everything out on a little spreadsheet. Every time I finish a load, I put everything in there, my expenses, my everything that was covered by Norton or whoever and everything that I paid for on my own. And I looked at the bottom line and say, well, did I make enough money for that run or maybe was, you know, it turned out not to be so much per mile that I thought it would be. So—

36:20 You know, you touched on something there and we both know this is true. They’re good runs and some that are not so good. But sometimes you don’t know that until you’ve completed them—

36:32 Right? And you live and learn. You kind of look at that and say, you know, if I take that one again, I’m going to know that I’m only going to get 67 miles to the gallon. Feels a little more expensive. So when I map this out, look at the numbers. Maybe this isn’t the best ride for me to pick up today. So, and it’s really very good to have a load board like you guys have too. That’s very helpful because you can pretty much see where you’re going, where you’re coming from. You know, I will if I’m flying to some place, I’ll look for the best flights I can get, see if I incorporate that into my expenses. I just recently found some really cheap air service from Philadelphia to Texas to Dallas. So, guess what? Any peter boats that are coming back to Pennsylvania, I’m on it.

37:13 Right. Right. Right now, Frank Tomko joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker tonight, brought to you by Norton Transport. Frank, I got to ask you this question. I mean, you’ve been around the block, so to speak, as an independent contractor working in driveaway trucking. What would you say to people who may listen to this podcast about some of the advantages? Maybe not some of the advantages as far as going into it hitting it from the 1099 route. That brings a little bit of responsibility to you, I guess, when you have to do your own paperwork after the runs are done—

37:47 Right? There is a little bit of meet up decide how you’re going to handle your taxes and things of that nature. You know, I’m retired, so I have an accountant that does my regular taxes. Find a good lowcost account and sit down with them, find out, you know, how you should file your returns properly and you know, pay your security tax and all that stuff and know that that’s going to have to come out of your bottom line somewhere along the line, whether quarterly or at the end of the year or things like that. So, I just treat it as, you know, I look at all the expenses I have that aren’t covered by the company and that’s a deductible for me, you know, and I said that spreadsheet I have helps to know that right away. I know how much fuel I spend it for the whole year, you know, how much I spend it for souls that I didn’t get reimbured for and even the food cost and things like that and the travel to get to there. And I guess if you have a car, if you tow a car, you know, it’s all that much more you have to be concerned about because you have all the expenses and insurance to deal with on that side of it.

38:46 Do you share that information with newer drivers who are coming in to driveaway? As I meet them. Yes, I said a few things on Facebook social media pages where, you know, I said, “Look, if you’re going to get into this, you need to understand that this isn’t just all the glory that you feel.” You know, the same thing happened to me years ago when I started becoming a motor coach driver. You know, the glory of a school bus driver saying, “Oh, I’m going to get those great big 45 and I’m going to make a fortune.” Well, guess what? When you have to get up at 2:00 in the morning and drive two hours and then drive 10 hours a day and deal with screaming kids or adults that said it’s too hot or too cold and then at the end you don’t get a good gratuitity because they didn’t like the way you look. You can guess the rest.

39:30 Right. I gotcha. There’s a lot to be said for being in that cab by yourself. Is that a piece is that a peaceful place for you?

39:39 It is. I believe my wife said to me one day, I’m gonna bury you with a windshield in your casting.

39:48 That is too funny. That is too funny. Frank Tomko joining us tonight. And as we know, Frank is just past 29 years old just a couple of days ago. And I got to ask you, what’s the future look like for you being a mature 29year-old? Well, I’m going to do this for a few more years to gain a little bit of extra money for myself and my wife. And I really want to go back and do the things the places that I’ve seen over the years that I wasn’t able to share with her. And you know, in about three or four years, I guess when I turn maybe 72 or so, and I’m still elking, I’m going to hang up my driving gloves and just basically cat around in a big old RV or bus and stop from place and smell the rose. That sounds great. You were talking about hanging up the driving gloves and with the wife there. Do you guys have any children?

40:41 I have one daughter. She’s 40. She lives home with us cuz she has special needs. But my wife and I over the years because I have traveled away a lot. We’ve worked that out. And August 20th this year, I’ll be married for 45 years and she’s still saying I do. So—

40:56 Well, congratulations to that. That’s quite a feat right there. Congratulations, Frank, for that.

41:01 Thank you.

41:02 You’ve been all over the road. You’ve seen a lot of the country, maybe not so as much for your wife. Have you got some places already targeted down that you want to go see? Some bucket list places—

41:14 Right? I really want to get out to the Grand Canyon. I want to get out Mount Rushmore. I want to get up into some places in Canada that I’ve been to and the Calgary, Albert area, that sort of thing. Not a real big fan of the south. I’ve been to Florida. You know, I can live without the heat and stuff, but I do like the beaches. You know, I like paral and that’s pretty much what I’m looking at.

41:37 Gotcha. Here. Now, we know Frank Tomko here joining us on the Six-Figure Trucker. He’s just north of 29 years old. And I wanted to kind of drill down on your birthday. You are a Christmas baby from what I understand.

41:53 Yeah, you can see you got my records in front of you. Yes, I am. I’m a lucky guy. That the Lord Jesus and I both on the same day. So lucky me.

42:03 Well, as it turns out, just a coincidence, small world here. My mother is also a Christmas baby. And I got to ask you this to get within your family dynamics there. Do you guys do the where you can’t give a dual present for one time? It’s like you got to separate. One’s a Christmas present, one’s a birthday present. You can’t combine the two. Do you guys do it that way?

42:25 No. Yeah, I got to absolutely. And I got him that way when I was young. And then after about well eight years old, that sort of stuff. But you know, the biggest thing I regretted growing up at Christmas, I could never have a decent birthday party. No one would ever come on Christmas day—

42:41 Right? Everybody’s kind of occupied on Christmas Day—

42:45 Pretty much.

42:46 You know, you touched on something there. Are you a man of faith? It sounds like you are—

42:49 To some extent. Yeah. I mean, I you know, I don’t wear it on my feet, but you know, I have— Yeah, I have to.

42:56 Does that help you any out on the open road as far as your thoughts where they may be going? I’m sure there’s a lot of time to think about things, and there may be some deep thoughts.

43:07 Yeah, I do. It kind of help, you know, it kind of I just I sit back and think about some quiet things when I do have some time or I’m at a hotel staying for the evening, you know, just kind of wind down from that standpoint. But mostly I kind of look at things that I’m planning on or maybe coming up with ideas that I have to talk to my wife. Hey, you really want to check this out and think you can do this especially now since I’m going to be you know getting out of the business in a couple years. So—

43:34 Gotcha. Do you think you’ll miss it?

43:37 I hope so. I think I will. My health is a little better now. I’ve been eating a little better and although I am I’ll be honest. I am diabetic but I do take medication. I’ve kind of got it under control. So, my med card is good for right now, but you know, I’m hoping to keep it that way. So, I can still do this for a couple more years.

43:55 Is that tough being on the road being diabetic when there’s I mean, you’re stopping at truck stops, you’re stopping at fast food places if you are. Yeah.

44:02 Do you have to plan around that?

44:05 Especially if you can’t carry something with you, you know, like a nutritional break or some fresh fruits and vegetables, something like that. So, what I tend to doing now, if I’m going someplace where I’m flying there or getting there where I don’t have the ability to carry a cooler, I will buy a styrofoam cooler and then just trash it at the end of the trip and I will carry some things in there with me to, you know, keep me comfortable while I’m driving on the road.

44:27 Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. I got to ask you this question. Motor coach, driveaway trucking. What’s the best lane you’ve ever taken as far as just aesthetical pleasure, beauty, comfort of the road? Is there one that sticks out in your mind?

44:44 Absolutely. I have one where I picked up 30 passengers for a 15-day excursion. We left Pennsylvania and we ended out turning around coming back east in Jacksonville, Wyoming.

44:56 Oh, wow. Wow. And we did seven days, eight days out and seven days back and we saw everything and it was the trip of a lifetime for those people. We had such a good time and everybody the weather was perfect and we saw all the things we needed to see except we didn’t see a moose in all of our trip and that was the one thing that they were all excited about. But we saw a lot of things and it was pretty exciting. I bought myself a cowboy in Jackson Hall, Wyoming. You know, I went to the store and somebody recommended me who had lived out there to ask for a certain person. I went to that person. I said, “I need a western hat because I’m from the Northeast.” So, she hooked me up and actually several years later, I came back and had it washed and cleaned by them when I was out there on our mothership. So—

45:40 I do. I’m assuming you certainly still have that hat and do you wear it from time to time?

45:43 Oh, absolutely. I wear as much as I can. I don’t wear often enough to take with me because kind of a big brim sweeper hat and it doesn’t always fit well on an airplane or traveling so I sometimes forget it but I have some pictures with me in it so I do wear it.

45:58 That’s a real cowboy hat if it came from Wyoming. Yep.

46:01 I did want to ask you before we wrap up here this evening, you talked about one of the best routes you’ve ever run. And in that course, how rewarding was it for you as a driver to see the pleasure of that was gained by your passengers?

46:17 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that’s most of the pleasure for you to know that you’ve given somebody, you know, a vision of a lifetime or an experience of a lifetime. That’s you can’t put money on that. I mean, you absolutely can’t. But some of those people that were seniors, you know, this was the only trip they’ve ever taken of that nature in their life. And you know, maybe the last one they ever took. You never know.

46:38 Right. Right. So, you’ve got a few years left and you— But before we get to that, what’s your next run after you drop in New York City?

46:46 I think I’m going to go back down to bed in Texas and get a truck coming back to Pennsylvania. I think there was one or two on the board that I talked to somebody about, but that’s not going to be till next week because I have a few days I have to take care of a few things and I’m not going to be back on that. So, I have to find out what’s available at that point.

47:02 Is it a cab and chassis or is—

47:03 No, that’ll be a tractor. I like driving the tractors. I really enjoy that. So, I try to I’m trying to look for other and see what’s going out and I can pretty much tell by who the concrete is. You know, it’s sold to a transport company or something like that or I’ve not done any Amazon trucks yet. My friend Jim has done quite a few of the CNG Amazon, but they don’t seem to be as prevalent out in this part of the country as they are out west.

47:27 You led me perfectly to my next question. CNG, have you driven much CNG?

47:33 I did one. What were your thoughts and impressions of it as it—

47:37 No difference it ran upon it etc. It was a trash truck that was burned and you know I didn’t have any trouble finding it was I think it about 700 miles. I didn’t have any trouble finding TNT. You have to be careful with the gates. Watch you know watch your pounds and percentage and all that stuff. These new units are pretty well set up. And if you just follow along that it just make sure you find a place that’s available to get the load up your good if you do your homework and find the stations in advance if correct me if I’m mistaken, but it can come out to your advantage as far as the price per gallon versus diesel.

48:13 Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it does. It’s cheaper than fuel right now. So depending on how well they’ve done and mine doesn’t seem to do too bad on mileage. Most of the tractors I’m pulling out of the factories now because they don’t have a load on them or even some of the cat chassis I’ll get 11 12 even 13 miles a gallon if the displays are showing you know displaying it correctly because I use the display mileage availability product they seem to be fairly accurate. I use that for knowing when to you know when to look for fuel and load stuff like that. You were talking about the MPG. Are you talking about CNG or conventional?

48:49 Conventional about 12 to 13. I don’t remember what the MG was.

48:52 Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, I wanted to kind of wrap things up here. This is Frank Tomko who’s been gracious enough to spend some time with us here on the Six-Figure Trucker. Frank, you had kind of laid out what’s in front of you as far as the next few years, but let’s just bring it to the immediate. Any big plans this weekend? No. But I do find on my anniversary being on the 20th of August, I am planning to go away for a few days to my wife. I’m going to take a little time to do that and we’ll celebrate the sun.

49:23 Is it the 45th or 46th anniversary coming up?

49:26 45th. Yeah, 45th.

49:28 Fantastic. You guys got a really big one coming up in five years. That’s a monumental achievement there.

49:34 Yeah. I hope that to be out of doing what I’m doing now and sitting on the beach sipping a mic or fishing or doing something at this point. Well, that sounds fantastic. Frank Tomko on the Six-Figure Trucker. Frank, thank you very much for joining us this evening and be safe out there. Anything any advice that you would give to drivers who may be new into the industry? Anything you want to leave with them?

49:58 Yeah, just make sure that you take the time before you get in the vehicle and head out that you know as much about it that you need for your basics to get down the road as possible. You know, the switches that you absolutely need to use, the ones you don’t need to mess around with. You know, make sure you’re familiar with those as much as you can’t be so that you don’t throw something on or off or whatever. Or, you know, just make sure that you’re able comfortable operating it if it make sure that you’re good with the gears, you know, cuz some trucks are a little stiff and that’s about it. Be safe.

50:27 All right. Take your time. Go a little per mile for hours, you know, until you get comfortable with it and stay in the speed limit. Well, Frank Tomko, thank you very much for joining us. We certainly appreciate you coming to us and working with us here at Norton Transport. And if there’s anything you ever need on the road, you know the drill. Give us a call.

50:47 Okay. Well, thanks for your bug. I appreciate letting them know. And Norton’s a great company. You guys are keeping a lot of great things off very well. So, continue with all the good stuff.

50:56 All right. Frank, be safe out there. Thank you. Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.