O/O Container Hauling

I used to haul containers for over 10 years before the economy went south. I worked out the Charleston SC ports. I guess different ports have different systems. Chassis were plentiful. I enjoyed doing it. We were paid the same loaded or empty. 50% of your miles were empty miles so my truck got great fuel mileage!
I always here guys talk smack about hauling cans and the trucks looking raggy. The majority of truck I see around here are not junk and most are paid for. Especially the older trucks. So its all profit. If and when the ecomomy picks back up I would consider doing it again. Nothing beats being home every night and off every weekend and holidays. And still make a nice living.

 

I live near Chicago. You couldn't pay me enough to hook up to one of those death traps. And most of the trucks should be shut down. I truly wish the DOT would just set up outside some of the railyards and just shut these attrocities down. The trucks are just accidents waiting to happen. Bald tires to pieces of truck just hanging off.

 

I dunno. I ran Norfolk for a while. Most of the container trucks were OK at best. I picked up for a backhaul out of one of those NON port places. That did nothing but port freight. Most of the trucks looked asthetically pleasing but I looked at the rubber and the all had mismatched tires and usually just kind of tired looking. Not my thing but hey if it works for ya make that money.

 

I hauled cans out of St Louis/East St Louis. I found that the duty of the truck was closer to the duty of a dump truck than a road tractor. There are some very rough rail yards and trucks take a beating and stay dirty running in and out of them constantly. Many that run cans are only worried about good service duty, not looking pretty or putting on a truck show for the general public. Kinda like a trash truck, it ain't pretty but it does the job and that's what really counts.

 

You found your NICHE and doing above average on the $ side of things.

As for container trucks looking like junk , lots of reefer , van , flatbed trucks that have never been in a rail yard look like TRASH TRUCKS as well. Lot of good looking trucks in the railyards & ports as well.

 

And I do domestics and ISO tanks. Not a bad living and yes , home every night and off weekends. My stuff is older but clean and the ports are hard on equipment. I run the severe duty maint schedule.

I find I have to pick my freight and where I go whereas my counterparts focus strictly on the check at the end of the week. I try to move 10 for 10 ......they do 20 for 5 to make the check.

All and all, not to bad all things considered and .....the DOT is set up outside Houston ports and most of the local depts are certified too. PLUS the official DOT was INSIDE the port nailing trucks last week. I didn't see them however one of our guys was nailed. He said they looked like the US Customs guys....and he got a ticket....so somebody got him.

JMO

 

I was looking into hauling out of MIA & Port Everglades.

DOT IS looking into both the trucks AND the chassis. DOT-Man sits outside the container yards at Port Everglades most weekdays.

Around here, it's mostly local deliveries, so the mileage isn't great. FEC is building a rail yard inside the port, so a lot of the container traffic in Fort Lauderdale is going to "go away" soon, to the rails.

I'm in the Longshoreman Union (Local 1526 - Fort Lauderdale), so I pull em off the ship (toploader and yard truck operator) and put em on the chassis (yeah, I'm the guy dangling the box over your truck).

Most of the "operators" around here, are with one of the 1/2 dozen companies that have "gotten in good" with the 2 main yards here. There still seems to be a lot of waiting (not the fault of the longshoreman BTW - it's the office/paperwork).

This is something I need to re-visit as part of my "great plan" to get a truck and move "off the port" and onto the road.

Much as I slammed you in another thread, thanks for this info Lost...

Rick

 

I work out of the ports of L.A. and Long Beach moving containers as far up north as Oakland Ca and south as far as San Diego Ca. All you guys in the east coast the south like Texas and so on have it good, out here they basically forced us to buy new trucks 2007 or newer wich in this economy as an O/O or independent contractor really hurts the pocket, and yes it is a good thing to able to pick your loads and sometimes since there's no backhauls you can get up $2.25/mile but its rare unless u pull hazardous loads / tankers and even that pays about $1.90/mile. The avg rate is about $1.70/mile to $1.80/mile for a dry or reefer can + an incentive if a tri-axle chassis if required (company chassis) and yes LOSTTRUCKER you are right about the chassis situations sometimes it does take a long time to get a chassis and then u get the ######### mechanic that will send u to flip the load onto another chassis instead of changing the tire, or some 'smart' guy decides to put another B.I.T. or P.M. sticker on that doesn't belong to that chassis, so u think u got a good chassis but u don't so back to the flip-line u go, don't get me wrong most of the time u are in n out in 15 minutes to an hour wich is really good but then sometimes u can take 4hrs to get a can, but like u said u are home every day, u make alright money and u are off on the weekends if you choose to. Now on the D.O.T. subject over here its not a daily thing them being outside of the terminals but when they do usually they hit all the terminals hard for a weeek or two then they take a brake for a couple weeks lol.