Hopper, Dump O/O's & Drivers

I pull hopper over the road, and lately ive noticed rates starting to increase a little, got a lot more shippers and brokers calling me to see if my truck is available and asking me what i would have to have for a rate. I had a broker call last week and his first question was are you still trucking cause i need some loads hauled. Thought that was a strange question and asked him about it and he said alot of the guys he was doing business with in the past had gone out of business. Just wondering what everyone else is seeing out there?

 

I haul a lot of fertilizer out of st. louis,mo. and illinois to iowa and nebraska and kansas. Then usually pick up ddgs going south, also do alot of corn gluten pellets in the winter to oklahoma out of keokuk ia.

 

I know what your talking about on the grain side, i use to haul some to get me around to a good paying longer run but the rates havent come up any to compensate for the fuel prices so now i just deadhead, dont know how you guys are making it, its got to be tough. Called on loads for ADM the other day going from hutchinson Ks. to St. Louis they were paying $.45 a bu. and there getting guys to do it.

 

About 470 miles from Hutch to St. Louis, if you're talking corn, let's say 950 bu per load, x $.45= about $ .91/mile....... you gotta be kidding me!!! And to think there's an argument going on in another thread about $2.00/mile being cheap freight!!!!

 

Hey guys I've been yanking my step deck around trying to keep my head about water, I have a 38 foot Dakota hopper sittiing on it right now that I picked up in Yankton,SD, gonna load some J&M grain carts monday and head out to W IA with them, been keeping SUPER busy, might go haul for the custom harvester I worked for 08 09 10, as for $2/mi being cheap frieght? If you can haul for $.91 for even a $1.00 be my guest, I hauled a 750 No-Till JD drill to Stanlry,ND (between Minot and Williston,ND) paid $3.69/mi, Need any farm equipment hauled give me a holler

 

No it's soybeans so you can lower those numbers even more!

 

I havent hauled anything for the last three weeks for under $2.49 a mile.

 

Welcome to the thread,BIGMIKE1. I haul pretty much local myself,so other than bean-meal loads and fert.off the river,my rates have not come up to match the fuel,but like i said,i'm mostly local so i haul grain out and b-meal/soy-hulls/fert. back, but i may have to venture out a tad farther if things don't change. Glad to hear the brokers are at least calling needing available OTR trucks though

 

Yeah i dont know how long it will last though, before the fertilizer started moving things wernt so good. This is probably the toughest ive ever seen it in the hopper industry. I would say its even tougher than 2008. I just decided to set my floor rates at a certain amount and if i cant get it i'll just let the truck set. I can break even or lose money much easier setting at home than on the road. Thanks for the Welcome