Improvisation

Here is a unique way of tying down a load with what has to be one of the cheapest methods I have seen.  The flat hook strap is hooked onto a standard trailer winch which is designed for a flatbed winch track.  

This is keeping the pipe wrapped tightly for the small cost of about 25 bucks and it's reusable. 

Know How To Un-Do Before You Do

Just as you would need to know how to off-load the truck before you fill the trailer with freight, you need to have a plan to release the securement devices that hold everything on the trailer.

Once a chain or strap is mounted over or through the freight on the deck of the trailer, it will need to be adjusted along the route, and then removed on the other end. If you place a strap where it will get caught in or on the load so that it wont come loose when you loosen it at the unload area, you are in for a trouble.  Chains pose a similar threat as well, but also are far heavier than straps causing a situation that could result in injury.

A snap binder like the one pictured here needs to be used so that when you reach your destination, you can remove it safely.  There are several things wrong with the binder in this picture.  It is tightened upside down so that it will be hard to release and it is secured with a bungee cord, which is illegal (I use a chain with a snap ring).

If this snap binder were on the other side of the chain it could be removed easily and safely.  Whoever placed this binder on this load is in for a tough time removing it later on down the road. 

The same could be said of a strapped load which is compressed by the straps during transit.  Once you have arrived at your destination and it is time to release the straps, you could be in a dangerous situation.  Every care should be taken to make sure that you are nowhere near a point of impact should the load free itself during strap removal and fall off the trailer.

 Knowing how it will be unloaded will be a key in knowing how to secure it to the trailer.

Exit Strategy

When you book freight and show up to haul it, the customer expects you to tell them how to load your trailer.  Sometimes they tell you how they want the shipment situated, but they usually wont be unloading it, so it's in your best interests to have a plan in place before proceeding. 

Many times when you take the freight off, the receiving customer wont have the same type of dock area that the shipping customer has.  You might back into a dock and have pallets loaded from the rear with a pallet jack or a forklift.  Then when you unload that same shipment, the customer might want to remove the freight on the trailer from the side.  If you have a van trailer, you might load carpet rolls with a forklift that has a carpet roll attachment installed and then arrive at the destination where they don't have the same type of equipment.

It is important to ask how it will be taken off the trailer while you're loading because it might dictate how it is positioned on the trailer.  Many times the best thing to do is to call the receiving end and ask how it will be taken off.  If it's obvious how it will be off-loaded then there are no worries.  If you were putting pallets into a van trailer then usually van trailers are unloaded with a forklift or pallet jack. 

Sometimes it seems obvious that the freight would be loaded and unloaded in the same way, but it's not.  On a flatbed, you are more likely to run into this situation because flatbeds can be backed into docks,loaded from the sides, or from the top as with a crane.  It's best to know how the shipment will be off-loaded before it's put on the trailer.  If you don't know, you should ask and if you can't find out, you shouldn't load it. 

You don't want to arrive at a receiver and be stuck in their yard while they are trying to figure out how to unload the trailer.  In one instance, I had a large piece of odd shaped alloy steel loaded in a way that the shipper considered right side up and the receiver considered upside down.  This receiving customer needed a special tool to flip the freight over just to get it off the truck.  There was no way to know that it was loaded upside down because many times the freight isn't something that you've ever seen before. 

Keeping Track

Here is a mobile platform which is capable of lifting thousands of pounds up to 40 feet high.  It broke down so they needed it moved elsewhere to be fixed.  

This tracked vehicle is controlled by a handheld wired control and is completely self contained with an engine and hydraulics.

 This is a direct tie down method which only yields 1/2 Working Load limit as the chain goes from the trailer through the tie down point back to the same side of the trailer.  Four 5/16" chains were used yielding 9400 lbs. of total tie down force.  The chains' main purpose is prevent sideways,forward, or backward movement.  Alone, they weren't enough to legally secure the vehicle so straps were used in addition to the chains, but I had put the camera away at that point so they aren't pictured here.

 The snap binders were used although ratchet binders would have been better here.  The snap binder ended up resting against the trailer rub rail.  4 inches of overhanging securement devices is allowed legally.  The snap binder was secured with a small twist link chain that has a spring clip attached to it. 

 The chains are supposed to be wrapped around the stake pockets instead of hooked directly to the trailer, but since this was a prototype trailer, the manufacturer neglected to share this information with me and after doing this load I learned the correct way to attach the chains.  Thanks to MacGyver for sharing this knowledge with me.  

It never fails that no matter how much you think you know, you never stop learning and things never stop changing.  Combine this with the technology that is being invented every day, and you have a busy time ahead of you trying to keep up.  

I Was Gonna Buy One Of Those

Just about every driver I meet has the same observation about the truck I drive. The first question is: "How much does your truck weigh?" followed by "I bet you can't haul much weight", and then "Can I see inside your sleeper?". Then the kicker statement is "I was going to buy a truck like that". I love the drivers who look at the truck out of curiosity and then a little envy only to then say that they are going to build one in the next week. I am fairly certain that they are not going to build a truck at any time in the future, but are dreaming about it.

The truck and trailer can scale as much as 47,000 lbs. of freight on the deck of the flatbed trailer that we pull, but we have a full line of supplies to go with the trailer that includes straps, chains, binders, tarps, coil racks, snow chains, and wooden dunnage which adds to the overall weight and this drops our capacity down to 46,000 lbs. during the summer and 45,000 lbs. in the winter. Since most drivers pull van trailers they don't believe that a truck the size of ours can carry so much weight. A van trailer is heavier than a flatbed and most can only carry 42,000 lbs. of freight with a standard size truck.

I want to believe that the drivers are going to buy a new big sleeper truck in the next week or so, but even the sales person who sold me this truck said that he gets numerous inquiries from people who dream of a truck like ours only to never return his calls or come around again. The fact is that most people are afraid and for good reason. Unless you are cash heavy and can buy one of these in one payment, you need to be concerned about the economy, the freight availability, and the future. Perhaps your loads will require a lighter truck? Perhaps you will need to go to Canada as you cannot with the extended wheelbase that this truck has. Perhaps you will have to hook to a longer trailer and this will make your overall length too long to get in and out of a customer's facility?

It has taken me over 15 years to get to where I am in this business and Salena has been there for over half of those. As a team we are able to manage less work for more money. A solo can do well but only with specialized equipment and steady loads. Otherwise most freight will let you maintain a modest income. Teams do better on average but there is a point of diminishing returns when you work too hard. The point is that when a person considers to buy a truck, they must take many things into consideration and a large sleeper truck is seemingly more restrictive and requires a little more certainty.

The other comment I hear is from other teams who say "We should be driving a truck like that". I don't pay too much attention anymore. After driving this truck for over 4 years now, I am used to the standard questions. They are always the same and I don't mind selling the truck. The company who built the sleeper has exceeded our expectations from sales to service so I don't mind doing a little show and tell to curious colleagues while showing off the amenities, but I don't always have time. Many times we are on a tight time schedule so I have to cut the conversation short. Many of the drivers who have this same type of sleeper that I have met will just ignore the people who ask questions.

I figure that they have been driving a large sleeper truck for many more years than I have and they have given up on answering the same questions over and over again at every fuel stop and at every loading dock. I will just keep on answering the questions and I like to talk to people who are interested however with today’s technology just about everything is available online. Otherwise these large sleeper trucks are the subject of scrutiny by the DOT and the FMCSA and there have been efforts to make them obsolete. All of this makes the prospect of owning one of these large sleeper trucks a far off goal for most drivers.

I will say that it isn't as hard to drive as you might think. In fact the turning radius is actually better than a standard truck and the ride is better because of the longer frame length. The weight isn't really an issue as most loads are not that heavy on average. The truck is only a few feet longer than most trucks and that has not restricted us from going to NYC or San Francisco. We can get around anywhere that a standard truck can. So maybe instead of dreaming, if you are considering a larger truck, you can go ahead and take the plunge!

 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

THE UGLY

This is my load. Rather, it WAS my load. This is an over-sized load that was transported through the heartland during a drought. This may sound easy because of the word drought, but it was a challenge. It shouldn't have been a challenge, but what happened turned out to be something I couldn't prevent at the loading point. I did try, but without significant load restructuring, it was a load that had to be reworked and monitored like a hawk. That's why it falls into the category of "The Ugly".

You might not think much of this load because it looks like a big rectangular set of boxes right? Well, you would be exactly right about that. It IS a set of rectangular boxes. What else do you see? They are wrapped in white shrink wrap plastic.

This load has no structural integrity. So here is a lightweight load, which was over-sized, and needed to be tarped. Which is exactly what I did.

This being the worst drought since the dust bowl, I shouldn't have had anything to worry about on this trip across the driest part of the country, right? Maybe you can see where I'm going with this; since this is an over-sized load, the route had to be planned in advance and strictly adhered to. At about 5 AM in Columbia, MO I was awakened by lightning and thunderclaps. The sky opened up and just like that, the drought was over. At least where I was parked anyway. This load was tarped very well, in fact, I'm in the habit of over-tarping most loads so that there are no surprises en route.

You might notice in the center of this load are several 2-inch straps - let's fast-forward. During the rain storm, this wide load (with no structural integrity), began to pool water on top of the tarps during the time I was parked for the night, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. As the water pooled though, it began to pull the individual tarps away from each other, eventually exposing the white plastic underneath. Fortunately, the weather started to clear so I was able to get moving. My goal was to get out of the rain and shed as much water off the top of the load as possible. And it worked. We were able to make it back to to the drought condition weather, where I was able to position the tarps in the place they should have been, had the skies not opened up and dumped an ocean of water on them.

Because I was not able to reproduce the original conditions I loaded under, I did have my ladder, some chains, and many extra 2 inch straps, which I used to pull the front tarp backward, the middle tarp forward, and the back tarp forward. Once the pooled water was removed from the top of the load, it was easy. The load was never exposed to any rain, and it was delivered on time, safely, and to a happy customer. This is how I like it. There is no way to keep this from happening in the future except to have the customer better reinforce the load, but this is often hard to accomplish as it requires the customer to spend more money on the loads, which they don't want to do.

We run into all sorts of new situations out here on the open road, which require experience and successful tactics to overcome. Many of these situations are completely out of our control and sometimes people get hurt and even lose their lives. It is imperative that every measure be taken to prevent any accidents or bad situations. A wise man once told me, "It isn't what you've done, it's what you're going to do." In other words, it doesn't matter how safe your record is. All that matters is how safe your record is going to be and how you're going to prevent accidents from happening in the here and now.

I am proud of having almost 1 million miles at my current carrier without any accidents, chargeable claims, or moving violations. But all of that is thrown out the window with one careless mistake.

It isn't what I've done, it's what I'm going do. THAT is all that matters.

Flatbed Options

Flatbeds are called platform equipment because they are an open platform and they come in several different shapes and sizes. Of these different sizes are the stepdecks, the double drops, the lowboys, the straight flatbeds, and the stretchable versions of each.

I pull a straight flatbed and I believe it to be the most versatile of the group. First of all, I can pull containers, oversized loads, long loads, wide loads, heavy loads, and some tall loads (not as tall as the other trailers, but taller than a van trailer). Also, the trailer can be unloaded at a dock or side loaded with a forklift or crane. During transit, I can see my freight so I know if it has shifted forward or to one side.

Flatbeds are the lightest of just about all trailers. Depending on the configuration, they can be very light. I pull a 48 foot long by 102 inch wide aluminum Fontaine Revolution. The trailer I have was an original edition and is no longer available from Fontaine, however, they do have more modern and I think, more versatile versions out there now. My trailer weighs in at 7850 lbs. and this comes in handy with my truck, as I can haul around 45,000 lbs. I can haul less weight in the winter because I carry snow chains, and they can weigh up to 500 pounds.

Most van trailers can only haul 40,000 lbs, and they compare to stepdecks in their heavy weight. Lowboys, stretch trailers of all types, and double drops weigh several thousand pounds more than all of the other trailers.

There are different configurations for the standard flatbed:

1. All aluminum
2. Combo trailer with a steel main beam, aluminum cross members and wood nailers in the floor (this is the most common flatbed type)
3. Steel trailer with the steel beam, steel crossmembers, and wood nailers in the floor

Of these, there are numerous different options on the actual deck of the trailer, such as:
-container twist locks
-chain tie downs
-tracks for movable tie down hooks
-pipe spools
-rub rails
-stake pockets
-tarping systems
-coil packages
-rails for moving train wheels
-sliding winches
-fixed winches
-strap hooks
-bungee hooks

Each one of these will add or detract from your operation, and you will need the most versatile piece of equipment you can get to stay busy. In this business, the more you can do, the more you can make, the more business you get. If you restrict yourself too much or specialize too much, you will limit your operation and can end up with no work. It's like keeping all of your eggs in one basket (for those of you who carry eggs in baskets). If everyone all of the sudden doesn't need freight moved on your steel rail container trailer, then you might sit for a long time.

It is important that you do your research into what you are hauling and for whom, so that you make the best informed decision when the time comes to purchase equipment. Keep on reading and see what will work the best for you.