Reefer vs Dry Van

I'd venture to guess that it's relative to your company and location but I've been wrong before.

 

Reefer.
The reason for this is that less of the stuff they haul (produce, meats, frozen foods, etc) can be put on the railroads.
However, there are more live loads involved and more stops at grocery warehouses, produces houses, meat-packing plants, supermarket DC's, Sysco/US Foodservice etc. where the wait times can be horrible.
Not to mention trailer washouts, pallet exchanges, etc.

Really, it's a wash...it's more miles but usually less .cpm and longer average wait times.
More BS dealing with lumpers.

It's the same ole', same ole'...
All of the OTR common van/reefer outfits are very poor places to work.

 

Some reefer gigs are great, some suck.

Just as an example, not advertising here, but im sure other companies have similar accounts, Werner's ConAgra dedicated in PA pays you $800 a week guaranteed minimum. I helped them on that account for 6 days and got $700 or so. Ran about 800 miles including a 400 mile deadhead to get to the account in the first place. Truck kept breaking down. A lot.

I wanted to help out for longer but i think they got rid of me cause my truck was being a POS. I'd totally move to the area for that job. I'm trying to get on it now. The money isnt the greatest but it's great for the work they do (not much!)

On this account, I ran out of ConAgra's dry and refrigrated warehouses in York and Milton, PA. Most runs were between York and Milton, which is 100 miles. Takes 2 hours unless you get stuck in rush hour then its 4. Both towns have dry and refrigerated ConAgra warehouses. There's no waiting games on the internal loads, all drop/hook. The BS is when they make you go to other peoples warehouses. Then I had to wait for hours and hours, pay for lumpers, etc. Grocery warehouses suck big time. They treat you like dirt at those places. The good thing is theyre the only custoemrs you can treat like crap and not get in trouble for.

$800 a week guaranteed doesnt seem like much money to a lot of people, but it sure beat the $100 a week checks ive seen OTR. (not very often but it happens). I don't know what their pay rates are but it's like prime's training deal. if you earn more than that you get what you earn, less than that you get $800.

One time i was told to dispose of 3 cases of bologna. That's a really vague word. I'm not even going to get into what i did with it all. But I did take one case home (thank god for plug in coolers!) and my whole family got a lot of bologna.

 

There isn't much difference in mileage when freight is moving. Remember one thing people have to eat,so reefers tend to move more when freight is down. I rarely have to wait more than 2 hours to get unloaded. The worse part is when you have multiple pick ups. If one is delayed in loading you it'll screw the rest of the P/U's up. Another bad part is that sometimes you have deliver to place that weren't designed for a 53' trailer and a truck w/hood. Paddington some companies pay more for reefer work if they have both dry vans and reefers.

 

Seriously? 2 hours? I dont even get in and out of a dry grocery warehouse that fast usually.

I remember one time, with the dry van, I picked up a load of liquid silicone. I was in the dock for about an hour, and then i felt the forklift go in TWICE, and then i went in and checked on it after 20 minutes and....theyre done. How the hell?

I go to places that werent designed for a 53' trailer and a truck w/hood all the time. And I'm not talking about dollar general either...I had a lift gate that was cheating.

 

The company starts charging detention after 2 hours and last time I looked it was something like $500 an hour. Thats why I'm usually out in 2 hours. Many drivers don't realize a lot of it depends on two factors. First is how many trucks are in front of a driver. The second is the driver's attuide. I've been loaded in as fast as an hour and unloaded in 45 minutes. Granted there have been times I sat over 2 hours and couple of times I've done a 10 hour break at a shipper. This doesn't happen very often to me. All of the loads I do are warehouse or production plant to warehouse.

 

$500 an hr detention charge? Either someone told you wrong or something. Most companies charge $60 to $125 an hr for detention, mine just raised it $75, it was $60. Actually, it's till $60 for some accounts, for others it's $75 -$80. UNless it's a driver assist unload, then there is no free-time, detention starts at minute one. Which on local loads sucks, but on OTR runs, I love detention pay, I get part of it, and I've had a few times where detention pay was as much as the base rate of the load.

 

Reefer ran a heck of a lot better last year when there wasn't any van freight. Something to think about. Plus most loads you can push into a dry van work in a reefer as well.

Got a full trailer unloaded at the Meijers grocery warehouse in Detroit in 45 minutes last fall... shipper paid the lumpers too. OTOH, I remember a Nash-Finch load in Lumberton NC... 7 pallets, 5 hours, $200.

 

We run team for a dedicated all reefer fleet. Here's what we know.....freight dropped every where else but went up for our fleet. The reason is: when people have less money they buy less...except for groceries. They eat out less thus they buy more groceries.


The constant noise of the reefer is irritating at times, the stores are irritating at times, the customers that we backhaul from to the distribution center are irritating at times......the milage is good and the money is good and that is NOT irritating.