Central New York / I 90 & I 81 load levels

Generally cheap freight in our area, I think I'll be getting home every other week to every 3 weeks depending on how much money I want to make.

I would not expect to be home weekly.

 

Far as running that area...I'll put it this way: up until a few weeks ago I was living in Indiana. I'm up there about as much as I am in the midwest. Freight from outside the northeast going into it can pay WELL...going the other way, not so much. As for freight volume in Syracuse...heh there's really not much higher - dollar freight in that particular--but don't mistake that as thinking there's NO freight. As a matter of fact, about 35 miles up northwest of you, in Oswego, is one of TMC's most routine customers, Novelis Corporation. It's aluminum commodities (which aluminum definitely ain't the best - paying freight, but still). Further on up at the northern terminus of I-81 and something like 60 or 70 more miles on up NY-37, all the way up to the north easternmost part of the state, is an ALCOA plant (more aluminum). Also inside 350 or so miles from Syracuse eastward along I-90 is a Lowe's distribution center in Westfield MA, and down on top of Hartford CT in the suburb of Bloomfield is a Home Depot distro. (Distro center loads straight SUCK, may as well let you know that now--but it's still freight and none of those regional distro loads go very far outside either of those locales.) I pull out of all those places routinely. (I stay going up northeast for some reason.) None of this stuff is necessarily "good money"--but it is high-frequency, and those will be the loads that may have you through the house on the weekends...which is why I don't see why you shouldn't be able to get regular weekend home time. That said, as the guy above me alluded to, there's a trade - off between home time and revenue (read: paycheck). Given time you'll be able to figure out what balance between the two is good for you in your specific area.

Also...right now upstate New York is blowing up with energy companies popping up all over the place, so if you do get the itch to run, that'll be the way to do it--I pull a lot of stuff out of upstate New York down to Texas, which can pay great. (Mostly it's either air conditioning parts, some type of plastic pipe or another, or electrical cable/spools, but there's other stuff too.) Dipping down into Pennsylvania along I-81 you'll find more stuff (including--you guessed it--aluminum, but also insulation down by West Hazleton and the vicinity of Harrisburg). And you might actually be surprised to know PA is full of freight--but, again, for regional running, just not the greatest paying.

All that having been said, I'mma hip you to a secret right now: far as regional goes, if you really wanna be home every weekend (or as close to it as possible), you gon' have to get on your hustle game HARD...you can actually make more in frequency than in distance (the longer mileage runs that may pay a bit better depending on the destination)...this is something I learned while running dedicated out of one of our drywall places. it'll become easier with time, but you really gotta use your hours wisely...which will make for a lot of long days. But it's not impossible.

Hope some of this helps...let me know if you have any other questions.