Diary of a current Swift flatbed driver

As long as it's a new Cascadia I'm all for it.

The mesh doors in my 2010 Columbia are driving me crazy.

 

I loved my Columbia. I'd love to get 330910 back lol

 

It's official, I hate lumber loads! Just T-called the lumber load from hell @ the Phoenix terminal.

I'll let the photos tell the story!




Both photos were taken at the Willows, CA terminal where I spent the night after discovering that the rear of the load had shifted to the right. I got it straightened the next morning with a fork lift, re-tarped it (in a 30 mph breeze), and proceeded carefully to Phoenix.

 

You can have mine as soon as I get a Cascadia.

 

All you really needed, Steve, was to be in the right place at the right time...a gentle earthquake roll would have set the boards a-straight!

 

What the photos tell me... well. As the driver, you are responsible for ensuring the load is loaded in a manner in which it can be secured and stay in place. Now I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened exactly, and can only go off of what I see. If you have V-boards on your truck, you should've used those on that load - I see none in these photos. And I'm a bit bothered that I don't see any corner protectors on that load. When you're securing lumber, you need to use one of those two things (or a combination of both). I know it's not the most commonplace thing for trucks to carry V-boards, but I'm willing to bet you had corner protectors on your truck (and if you didn't have them, then your trainer failed to emphasize the importance of having those). And then I get the impression that you didn't notice the load had shifted until you got to the terminal, which makes me wonder how often you did a load securement check as you were going down the road, especially since there's a good possibility that you'd have felt it when the load shifted.
Not trying to bust your balls here, but I'm going to call it as I see it.

 

I think he got the load from another driver. That's how it looked when he got it. So all of the above sounds good, but doesn't pertain to Steve. Sorry you wasted so many key strokes.

 

I noticed that the load had shifted when I removed the rear tarp. I was 40 miles from the lumber mill and it was my second load check, first one was at 25 miles.

I've never seen V-boards used on a lumber load. I do see how V-boards could be used to "lock" the sections together, but I'm not sure it would have helped my load. Too many places that I could not have used them.

And I do not see how edge protectors would have made any difference (with regards to sideways shifting).

If you'd look at the photos you'd notice that the load is made up of different types of dressed lumber (of various lengths in the same bundle) instead of full bundles of dressed lumber in one length. What I learned is to be more proactive in how the mill loads the lumber on my trailer in order to ensure that I can properly secure it. I ended up with 6 foot of lumber that I could not throw a strap over. Next time I have the same length bundles loaded on the bottom, belly wrap that, then load the odd-ball length bundles on top.

I do not pretend to know it all when it comes to securing loads on a flatbed trailer.

 

I picked up the lumber near Corning, CA and T-called it in Phoenix.

 

I loaded at that place once, lots of random sections and was fun walking on top of trying not to fall in after the tarp was on. Mine didn't shift and I didn't use vboards or edge protectors, not that the thought even occured to me, nor has it ever for lumber.