Beelman Truck Company reviews

Worst mistake of my husband's trucking career. Work hard long hours for little pay 32% if that.Sign on bonus stated on website is a joke,they split it up quarterly.Paid hotel stays was also a joke.Its only been a month almost and so far he has been payed 548 first week,277 second week,and 217 third week.He works 7 days a week,odd hours, fleet manager doesn't seem to know what he is doing.Pay role is unreachable.Plus of this job,good family insurance, dental,vision.I really can't think of anything else.Horrible decision

I live 5 minutes from their company headquarters and went over to "talk turkey" with them as I was considering where I was going to work after coming off a 4 month break. My impression of them after spending 5 minutes there was that they were the most arrogant, snotty outfit I'd ever dealt with and I honestly couldn't get away from them fast enough. Pay from what they told me was average, equipment looked decent, but my impression of the people there was not good at all

I've just started with them out of the Springfield yard, so my view is limited. Most of their work is dry bulk loads and so it is very volatile. This is also completely different than other types of trucking. I am actually surprised at how quick Beelman will put a driver in a motel if necessary. They don't find the motel for you, you have an app on your phone from Comdata that lists motels. Some areas just don't have good motels, of course you could be with a company that thinks a sleeper is one of those that is so small a twin mattress won't fit in it.

As far as the pay, you get $16.00 an hour when you are in the trainer's truck. When you get your own truck you start at 28% and that increases as time goes on. Most companies are like Beelman on the the hiring bonus. No one in their right mind is going to give you an entire hiring bonus up front. Let's face it, if Schneider would give me the $5000.00 hiring bonus as soon as I was in my own truck, why wouldn't I just go from company to company collecting bonuses? When it comes to pay and schedule, there is nothing predictable about this industry, you have to look at it over the year. Last year they told us the average driver made $60,000. I will let you know how it works out, but it looks like I am going to work 40-50 hours a week, home every night, weekends off and still make in the mid 30's to 40 k. If this ends up happening, it's not bad for local work in the Midwest. My dispatcher has told me that I'm going to basically be on a dedicated run and we'll let all the young guns drive 70 hours a week and make the big money. It is also possible to get a 5% weekly bonus. If you do everything you are supposed to do for the week then you get an extra 5%. 

Coal is going away and that accounts for much of the work for these companies depend on in late fall through early spring. Then when you consider the Midwest had a very mild winter, coal was even less in demand than usual. They were very upfront that right now work is sparse, but it is picking up. With construction season coming on, they will be hauling a lot of rock and that pays very well, coal is so-so, grain and ash pay next to nothing. This has always been the case.

Beelman has always had a bit of an attitude and that is even evident in their ads. On the other hand they only have a 28% turnover rate, so that says something about them. I'm in the frameless dump division and I have done this work before with another company. It is hard, dirty, unpredictable work. Days can go very smoothly, or go downhill real fast. If you tip a trailer, life gets really complicated and your day is very long. In winter it's loads of fun to raise your trailer just to find that 25 tons of coal is frozen to the trailer and won't come out. My point is that you need to understand some of the original post is company specific and other parts are just how this type of work is. You don't open trailer doors and bump a dock, you get to a job site, look for level ground and put a trailer 40' in the air. Then you lower the trailer, climb up a ladder with a broom and shovel. You sweep out the trailer, and then climb back out and get on the road. In any day you could haul, corn, rock, iron pellets, coal, fly ash, ground ash, dirt, sand, or any of another bulk commodity. This job isn't for everyone. I don't know if Beelman is a good or bad company, I'll let you know how it's going in a month, or two.

I use to work for them out of the ste. Genevieve MO yard. Great company with a lot of really good old hands to learn from. I pulled tanker and end dump for them. Always busy and never had a complaint. Money was decent and equipment was well maintained.

I've just started with them out of the Springfield yard, so my view is limited. Most of their work is dry bulk loads and so it is very volatile. This is also completely different than other types of trucking. I am actually surprised at how quick Beelman will put a driver in a motel if necessary. They don't find the motel for you, you have an app on your phone from Comdata that lists motels. Some areas just don't have good motels, of course you could be with a company that thinks a sleeper is one of those that is so small a twin mattress won't fit in it.

As far as the pay, you get $16.00 an hour when you are in the trainer's truck. When you get your own truck you start at 28% and that increases as time goes on. Most companies are like Beelman on the the hiring bonus. No one in their right mind is going to give you an entire hiring bonus up front. Let's face it, if Schneider would give me the $5000.00 hiring bonus as soon as I was in my own truck, why wouldn't I just go from company to company collecting bonuses? When it comes to pay and schedule, there is nothing predictable about this industry, you have to look at it over the year. Last year they told us the average driver made $60,000. I will let you know how it works out, but it looks like I am going to work 40-50 hours a week, home every night, weekends off and still make in the mid 30's to 40 k. If this ends up happening, it's not bad for local work in the Midwest. My dispatcher has told me that I'm going to basically be on a dedicated run and we'll let all the young guns drive 70 hours a week and make the big money. It is also possible to get a 5% weekly bonus. If you do everything you are supposed to do for the week then you get an extra 5%. 

Coal is going away and that accounts for much of the work for these companies depend on in late fall through early spring. Then when you consider the Midwest had a very mild winter, coal was even less in demand than usual. They were very upfront that right now work is sparse, but it is picking up. With construction season coming on, they will be hauling a lot of rock and that pays very well, coal is so-so, grain and ash pay next to nothing. This has always been the case.

Beelman has always had a bit of an attitude and that is even evident in their ads. On the other hand they only have a 28% turnover rate, so that says something about them. I'm in the frameless dump division and I have done this work before with another company. It is hard, dirty, unpredictable work. Days can go very smoothly, or go downhill real fast. If you tip a trailer, life gets really complicated and your day is very long. In winter it's loads of fun to raise your trailer just to find that 25 tons of coal is frozen to the trailer and won't come out. My point is that you need to understand some of the original post is company specific and other parts are just how this type of work is. You don't open trailer doors and bump a dock, you get to a job site, look for level ground and put a trailer 40' in the air. Then you lower the trailer, climb up a ladder with a broom and shovel. You sweep out the trailer, and then climb back out and get on the road. In any day you could haul, corn, rock, iron pellets, coal, fly ash, ground ash, dirt, sand, or any of another bulk commodity. This job isn't for everyone. I don't know if Beelman is a good or bad company, I'll let you know how it's going in a month, or two.

Well as some of you may remember, I was hired with Beelman truck company pulling a pneumatic tanker the beginning of July. After my road test and full app I was contacted the next day that my orientation started on the 29th of July. I figured I would throw this out there for anyone thinking about needing a dry bulk company around the midwest. You can check www.beelman.com if anyone needs to know their hiring area. It is 60 miles from any given terminal. Different terminals have different specializations so if you need to know just ask. 

The day before orientation, they set me up with my drug screen and WorkSTEPs. Passed all that no problem and then it was off to orientation itself.

They put me in a Super 8 about 15 minutes from their East St Louis terminal, better known as Racehorse. Decent hotel, had all the accommodations such as microwave and refrigerator. You will hear multiple times over the course of orientation about all the different accounts they have with hotels, especially if you plan on being a day cab guy. 

Day one of orientation is mostly the paperwork. Most of the guys in my class were a hoot to deal with and we all made the best of it. The safety guy giving our orientation knew a lot as he was a driver up until about a year ago. He was adispatcher for this same company for a little while as well. We watched a few videos of what not to do in certain situations pertaining to the particular equipment we pull. I am sure there is a lot I am forgetting about the first day. But this is the official first day of employment. Exactly one year from today I will get my one weeks vacation. Something to look forward to. LOL

Day 2 starts off about the same. They will be introducing us to our PeopleNet units, as well as our fleet maintenance manager coming in for a few hours going over what they expect from us as drivers in maintaining and when to get our PM done. Over the first two days, I cannot count how many times I was told by multiple people NOT TO ROLL if you do not feel safe. Whether it is the weather, or a safety issue with your truck. I have multiple peoples names noted to call if dispatch gives me any grief on me not wanting to roll. All the trucks are 2014 and newer Petes and Macks. New trucks coming in daily as the rotate out the 14s and rotate in 16s. Anyone familiar knows that this is a mostly day cab and local company, but we do have our guys that run OTR. Me being in a tank, I will have the possibility of the longer runs, but for the most part I will be home daily. Day 2 brought good news as well, while we were at lunch at a restaurant called "The Shrine" on day 1, all the big wigs were in the conference room beside us in a meeting. On a side note, the owner was kind of enough to come out and introduce himself to all of us, putting a face to the name is good. Turns out the outcome of the meeting is very much in the drivers favor. Starting with my orientation class, we get $1000 sign on bonus paid over the course a year, starting with $250 after we are released from our trainers. There were also vacation improvements as well as some 401k and referral bonus changes. Training pay went from $12 an hour to $16 an hour, as well as a $100 boost in orientation pay. Day 2 included a trip to the shop and more talk about if our truck is deemed unsafe, to not roll and if we have any issues with getting it in the shop, to let our maintenance director know about it. Tomorrow includes a trip to Sainte Genevieve, MO for us tank guys, and the dump guys are in Racehorse for another day. About 4 in the afternoon, I am off to St Gen to stay in a hotel there.

Day 3 starts off going over our PeopleNet units with a head honcho from the St Gen terminal. He was able to explain it much better than the IT guys at the Racehorse terminal, but he also dealt with it daily as a driver himself. St Gen is mostly tank, so anyone around there can pretty well expect to get hired a tank guy unless you maybe pull some serious strings. After some more PeopleNet, it was outside to get a close up of the tanks we will be pulling. They are buying all new tanks at the moment, rotating out old Vantage tanks, and rotating in new Mac Tanks (very nice with auto lids and centralized valve locations instead of spread all over the tank). Then it was off to a place called Mississippi Lime (Chinatown if you hauled out of St Gen I'm sure this is exactly where you were), which happens to be one of their biggest tank customers. After a short safety video we got our access cards and we went on a tour. Its a big place with 40 or 50 different load out chutes. Definitely gonna be at trip to learn everywhere I will load. After our tour is was off to lunch and then they told me to go on home. I have my trainers info and will be starting with him Monday.

First load with trainer: Leave out at 4am to Joppa, IL, for a load of fly ash to Indy. So far, this is a top notch company with a focus on safety. Hopefully the inside is the same as the shiny shell they show, but I have talked to several drivers, and have not found anyone who drives for them that doesnt like them.

I run 7/7 out of conley. I usually get 2600-3000 miles a week. And my last day I usually get a couple short hauls which adds on extra pay.

I launch out on Tuesdays and get home on Mondays...not sure if they could change the days, I've never asked. I did 7/4 7/3 for a little bit and launched out on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

Finally found a company that will take me with just my local experience and no schooling. Beelman. Big company around here. Will be pulling a pneumatic dry bulk tank. 50-60k a year. Get paid from 28-31% of gross to the truck. Have been told they run you hard but you get paid for it. They are on E Logs too. All newer Peterbilts and Macks. My dad had his own truck about 12 years ago and was leased on to them for about 8 years. He made a lot of money there, now its my turn.

Check out Beelman out of Indy. I think you may be out a couple days at a time, but their family insurance is 50 a week I believe. Driver only is free. And I bring home around 8-900 a week. I'm out of southern Illinois and make it home nearly every night. They have dumps up in Indy. And haul mostly contaminated dirt. But they will take you with your schooling. Heck they took me without schooling.

Honestly they have taken guys with very limited experience. That's why I threw them out there as compared to some you are more than qualified. I was taken with close to 3 months "verifiable" experience. I know of one guy who was taken with just over a month with Pepsi. And I'm making pretty good money. I spent two weeks in training, one week riding and one week following. My first check was 1200 before taxes. That is orientation and my first week of hourly training pay, which while riding with your trainer is 16 an hour.