Drop Trailers both ends multiple cities

Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by Midwest Trucker, Mar 16, 2019.

  1. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    How do the mega companies make things work with drop trailers on both ends? If there is no back haul to the shipper then how does this make sense?

    How do they get drop trailers into the receiver without wasting a ton of time and money? Same with the shipper?

    Do they do power only with other megas to get back to a terminal? Are loads like the below pic only work for companies that have terminals near pickup and drop off? So, they wouldn’t bid on all lanes just what is close to the terminals to minimize cost of getting started?

    I don’t get it. For small fleets and single operators I’d think live and live or drop trailer just on the shippers end is possible?

    Here is a pic of a very small example of a company I’m quoting. They do have some live/live but vast majority is drop on both ends.

    EF6A35A5-1FCB-42AD-9885-4FA87915F31A.jpeg
     
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  3. Steel Tiger

    Steel Tiger Road Train Member

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    Honestly not understanding your question. How do megas make it work with drops on both ends? That's easy for them. It's the smaller companies they would struggle as they have fewer trailers.
    Companies they drop on either end have trailer pools at their location. You drop a loaded one at a reciever, pick up an empty and go on about your day.
    Same at a pickup. Drop your empty, pick up your loaded one and move on.
    Please tell me that this is not the concept you're not understanding.
     
  4. ZVar

    ZVar Road Train Member

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    First get the concept of backhaul out of your head. There is no such thing
    Now what happens is this. Say you pickup a full teailer in Golden, Co. You haul it to the thirsty people in say Boston. You drop the full trailer in the distribution center, then pick up an empty. You then go to a warehouse outside Boston, and either swap trailers or do a live load going to say Reno. In Reno the process repeats.
     
  5. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    What I’m saying is if you need 15 drop trailers at 1 location that ships a ton of loads. 15 in another location that ships a ton of loads. Then you need 2 drop trailers in 30 other locations that receive loads. How does it make sense to place all of those trailers? I’m not even talking about cost of the trailer. I’m talking about all of the one way moves all over the country to get them into place?

    For some reason I’m having trouble describing this. Basically those trailers have to come from somewhere and get into place to start the flow of business. Wouldn’t it cost huge amounts of money to get those units into place? What about then if you lose the business and now must take them all out?
     
  6. Steel Tiger

    Steel Tiger Road Train Member

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    That's why they're megas. They have the trailer pool to have dozens of trailers at multiple locations.
    They have contractual freight they guarantees X number of loads per day or week.
    If they lose a contract, they just send in trucks bobtail to get the last of the trailers.... either loaded or empty.
     
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  7. x1Heavy

    x1Heavy Road Train Member

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    Your question is difficult.

    McKesson will have empty trailers when they finish unloading the Cardboard bales. I go find a loaded trailer to hook.

    Worse case scenario we run to the company yard and pull a empty from a small number we kept in one corner for that purpose. McKesson will ALWAYS have trailers to load.
     
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  8. Steel Tiger

    Steel Tiger Road Train Member

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    Also during the holidays, companies will use the trucking company's trailers for storage, especially Walmart for Black Friday. They usually start to hoard trailers in September.

    They'll pay these trucking companies big money to use their trailers in the form of storage fees.
     
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  9. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    I guess if you have trailer pools and yards all over the place it wouldn’t be as costly as a small fleet with one location.

    If you look at the pic that’s about 5% of the lanes. The last column is yearly volume. Say you put 20 trailers in Plainfield, 20 trailers in Dallas. Then you gotta out 2 or 3 in WI, PA, CA, etc etc. No freakin way can a small company 1: have that many trailers, or 2: Do one way trips to get a trailer in place then bobtail all the way back home.

    That’s why I wondered if maybe companies collude together to haul each other’s trailers that may need moved. For example I haul a loaded trailer I own to CA and then get a power only back to the Midwest.

    This is such a scale it’s hard for me to fathom. I get a couple drop trailers locally but wow drop trailers all over the country is a whole another deal and the money it must take to just get started.

    I’ll stick to my live/live or maybe a couple drop trailers just locally. This is a whole another ball game us small guys can’t even begin to compete.
     
  10. Steel Tiger

    Steel Tiger Road Train Member

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    You must be new to trucking or have never been to a national company. Any time you see trailers with a truck attached at any customer, they're dropped trailers. It a method used by the majority of shippers and a lot of recievers.
     
  11. ZVar

    ZVar Road Train Member

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    One thing to remember also is trucking companies that size do nothing for free. If there is a pool of say 30 trailers at a warehouse you can be sure Swift and their ilk are charging the warehouse for that convenience. And most warehouses will gladly pay so they don't have to worry about scheduling as much.
     
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