Best Place For A Flatbed?

You said you were independent. You are independent if you have your own authority, which you said you don't. That's where the confusion came from.

 

Check with CRST Malone out of Rockport, IN. That is a regional office for them. They should be able to keep you busy running from PA to Il or perhaps IA. CRST Malone is based out of Birmingham, AL, but the Rockport sort of does their own thing. You could also stay in their triangle and do well. Chicago, Pittsburgh, Birmingham or Atlanta. You could run out of Birmingham, but it might benefit you to run out of the Rockport office. They will also spend a little time showing you how to secure and tarp. Since you have been away from flats for a while it might be a good refresher.

 

Landstar, Mercer

 

Besl is a very good company. They are one of the oldest flat bed carriers in the nation. I believe they are based out of Cincinnati. They are not as large as some of the others, but I have a friend who has been with them for over 20 years. He ran his own authority before leasing to them. He really likes them. Funny, you rarely hear about Besl. You could go with most any of the major flat bed carriers and do well where you live and probably be home every week.

 

A couple of others that you could probably do well in your area are Mason Dixon or Universal Am Can. I have another friend who lives in Pennsylvania and is leased to Universal. He does very well. He often runs to Canada for really good rates. They are agent based like Landstar. It took him a while to learn their system, but he has done well for several years.

 

If you have hauled coils in the past, it won't take much time to pick it up again. CRST Malone used to give owner operators a booklet showing how to chain different types of coils. It was a good backup if you happened to forget something. You should watch some of those drivers who haul short runs. Some will leave a plant with only a couple of chains on a 45,000 coil. Pretty scary.

 

I hope you aren't planning on hauling that much weight with 5 axles. If so, that is a lot of stress on a trailer.

 

It's either R.J.George or Alpha Dawg transport, both are cut throat bottom feeders. Don't believe the hype nothing like that moving on a regular basis anymore it's all dependent on the auto industry which is very slow right now.

That's a common occurrence around here, you only need 5 axles to gross 120k in Ohio. Kinda scary to see some of the junk doing it though, especially the rental Transcracks, I mean Trashcans or I mean Transcrafts.