Lepton1's transition from door swinger to flatbed

Been a while since my last post in this thread, it's been a busy few months. Although oil field work serving new frack sites is down, our terminal seems to be holding its own, and I know that I'm one of the top producers. One reason I generate more revenue is because I stay "on the board" on weekends and holidays, when other drivers prefer to take time off. The other reason is I have absolutely no problem with long hauls, so I get the juicy loads when other drivers want to be home tonight.

Following up on how I build a "sub box", here's a picture of completed securement of subs. Note I use a 2" strap for the belly wrap, laying it down before the subs come off the forks. On either side I add a 4" strap. The subs aren't going anywhere.

 

The last few months have been generally hot and dry. However, we did have an ice storm a couple of weeks ago in Oklahoma City, during which I ran two loads. Keeping it nice and easy on the big roads and really careful on the dirt roads I made some bank.

A couple of nights ago I had an "epic" on a muddy dirt road with grades over 20%. Descending a grade in 4th with full jakes and service brakes to make a sharp turn I then had to get a running start to climb about 200 yards of really steep mud. First try failed when a downshift from 5th to 2nd didn't catch. I backed down and tried again in 1st, and had to back down to take it in 2nd.

Today I ran a similar grade, this time during daylight, and found the trick in this underpowered '07 Freightliner with a 14L Detroit is to push the throttle to 2000 rpm. It took the hill in 4th and topped out in 1400 rpm. Interesting thing is this truck has "green zone" for rpm's from 1200 to 1700, so the shifting points are higher than the newer trucks I had been driving for Swift.

Here's a picture of a typical 20+% grade getting to a rig in Oklahoma. This road had a flash flood the day before, you can see the deep "river rut" on the driver's side.

 

Tomorrow morning a take a flight back to LA to spend Christmas with my wife and grown kids. First time I've taken a week off since starting trucking again three years ago.

My wife decided she won't move to OKC. Can't blame her, but it's disappointing not to have her here with me. I need to decide how long to stay with this job I love, with flights home every few months, or whether to get serious about looking at Southwest regional opportunities.

If I opt to get a job closer to home, then it makes the purchase of a truck more expensive to comply with CARB. My goal is to get into high revenue freight as an owner operator, and although rates have dropped this gig is pretty good.

 

It's been a while since I updated this thread/blog. I just delivered my "anniversary load" from going solo at ACME. I've learned a LOT. My earnings have not been pie in the sky, it's been a tough year. Let me recap my performance:

Totals for annual:

$271K billed to customers
$245K earned to the truck
$64K gross pay to the driver
$41.5K fuel
99K miles driven (all miles)
34% deadhead miles

My best month was June last year, with $26K generated TTT, and earning $6500 gross pay with only 15% deadhead miles.

In the last few months it's been a struggle to maintain at least $4K per week TTT. I've started to focus on getting more brokered loads, especially after delivering a long haul for ACME or if my number on the board is high. Before I might sit in OKC with a high number, waiting for my turn to be assigned a load, but at times I've waited days. Now I have a couple of good broker relationships to get decent (up to $2/mile) rates outbound and start scouring load boards to minimize deadhead.

Last week is a good example. Tuesday last week I was #4 "on the board" when I received a text message from dispatch that was blasted to all terminal drivers, offering a load paying $4K picking up in Minot, ND to bring back to OKC. The catch was it didn't pick up until the NEXT Monday.

I jumped on it, committing to it, and getting on the load boards to find an initial outbound load. Got a load of shingles (heavy), headed to Casper for $1600. From there I knew worst case I might snag one more load to sit the weekend. I made delivery late Wednesday.

Thursday I played the load boards again until noon. Several loads were promising, but fell through for one reason or another. Finally I scored a load picking up in Casper headed to Lamar, CO paying $1000. My dispatcher thought I was crazy going the wrong direction, but while waiting at the shipper I scored the final piece to the puzzle: a load picking up in Kansas delivering in Bismarck on Monday morning that paid $850.

That gave a relaxing 34 reset at the Stamart truck stop in Bismarck, newly refurbished with actual adult beverages. I delivered first thing on Monday and boogied two hours to Minot to put a VERY complicated load on my deck. Four hours and 36 straps later I was on my way.

Total round trip this last week had less than 10% deadhead miles and generated about $6200 TTT. Most of all I discovered just how fun and challenging it is to put the pieces of a puzzle together to maximize income. Makes me ponder making the jump to getting my own authority when I buy my truck, but it's hard to beat the oil tariffs when the patch is hopping, and business will eventually return.

 

This was the complicated load I picked up in Minot. All the subs are on pallets, but most of the pallets orient the subs perpendicular to the deck. Although the subs were banded to the pallets, they were loose and could easily slide sideways and fall off the sides.

I ended up using twenty 4" straps on all my available winches, eight 2" straps, and eight 1" mini straps. A few of the 2" and all the 1" straps were used to either cinch or belly wrap at least the top layer of subs on several pallets. That was every strap I had.

Even then, the front passenger side pallet was a tad loose. Every time I took a left turn with a little too many lateral G's, the top layer and a couple of the bottom layer subs would creep past the rub rail. I had to stop a half dozen times during the two day trip to push them back in.