Right now I pull my own dry van trailer with my own authority.
I recently received an email asking me about doing flatbed work. It got me thinking so here I am. I have done flatbed work before but it's not something I'm the most experienced at, especially tarping.
I have recently taken some time off from working because I had things to do for my family and things at the house, et cetera. In the time that I have been off I have slept every single night and my body feels incredibly good.
So I will be back to work soon but I almost am dreading it because the loads go out all different times of the day 24 hours A-day. Even if I wasn't looking for the best paying loads which I always am, I would think it would be very difficult for me to find loads that I work only during daytime hours. Now bear in mind I really don't go any farther than 3 hours away- generally I am about an hour or 2 away from home base but I can't see how to time these loads that I only work during the day and sleep at night.
So when I received the solicitation for flatbed freight it got me thinking back that I thought I heard some guys say that they generally work daytime hours. Like the receivers are generally Monday through Friday 8 to 5 or whatever daytime hours they operate.
So my 1st question is, is that accurate?
My 2nd question is what does a decent flatbed go for? And what size flat bed do you buy? 48'? Bear in mind that when I bought my dryvan I paid almost nothing for it but it was solid and needed some repairs and I worked it over.
And at this point in the economic swing of things how does flatbed work pay compared to the dryvan?
Maybe it would be good for me to be able to switch from one to the other?
Flatbed questions
Discussion in 'Flatbed Trucking Forum' started by Dino soar, Dec 1, 2021.
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God prefers Diesels, cke and blairandgretchen Thank this.
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Almost always bankers hours for load/unload.
Get a 53’.
Probably overpriced like everything else today.
Vans are killing it right now - but there’s always swings.D.Tibbitt, Speed_Drums, God prefers Diesels and 4 others Thank this. -
I’ve heard the same thing about vans right now. Killing it. Flatbed rates are slipping.
Dadetrucking305, D.Tibbitt, shooter19802003 and 4 others Thank this. -
Then I realized how annoyed I got at 5 hours at the shipper , and figured I’d tough it out.Dadetrucking305, cke, stwik and 6 others Thank this. -
Hauling machinery (OD/OW) you're guaranteed daylight hours only. Not sure what's available in your area, but it's a thought.
cke, D.Tibbitt, Speed_Drums and 2 others Thank this. -
Also, my truck is a regular sleeper tractor with 12/40 axles.
I am in the suburbs of Philadelphia PA.cke and God prefers Diesels Thank this. -
cke, stwik, God prefers Diesels and 2 others Thank this.
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I got a regular sleeper truck and have been permitted to 95k. You just have to scale before ordering.
You've got a lot of ports to haul out of, being from Philly. Case and Deere are delivered to Baltimore (dundalk) via Wallenius and quite a bit gets delivered around PA.
If you're able to get wide without being tall on a low step, IMO that's the best bet. You can run 12 wide through most construction, but over 14'2 high you could be wasting a lot of time on special routes. (Look at the I-15 detour for OD... )
There are a lot of white volvo O/O doing OD/OW...if that's the route you choose, I'm certain you'll be fine.cke, shooter19802003, God prefers Diesels and 2 others Thank this. -
Flatbed rates always drop in the winter.
New flatbeds are stupid expensive now....like everything else I guess.
Mine is a 48x102. If I end up buying a lighter truck, I will get a 53x102.
I think a Mac 48x102 o/o spec is around $60k....ish right now. Prolly going up by the day.Dadetrucking305, cke, GYPSY65 and 1 other person Thank this. -
cke, blairandgretchen and Oxbow Thank this.
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