Your shortest OTR run:

7 miles. dropped a load at a warehouse, got reloaded, then two rights and a left(11 miles), got unloaded at there other warehouse. then dropped the empty and grabbed a loaded trailer and took it 600 miles.

 

105 miles -- for Southern Refrigerated -- Arkansas

I was pissed !!!! I had been sitting for almost 20 hours, only had 3 on my 70. Thought I was going to get a reset.

 

Atlanta to Chattanooga.

Gatorade from Quaker Oats to Bi-Lo. Complete waste of time. Took longer to unload than to drive.

 

I cant recall any super short OTR loads, however my longest local run was a load of lettuce that took me from Salinas California to Montreal Quebec. 3000 miles or so. I did another Salinas to Boston also.

 

Racking, in a warehouse, took from dock 12 brought to dock 38, dispatcher told me to make a deal with them, was a weird thing, took me about 2 hrs to complete, I told the guy to give me $150 he gave me $300. Called my disp he said have a good weekend and deaded me home 350 miles, already had 2700 for the week, I am assuming he knew the guy and it was a favor or something like that, but it worked out great for me for sure, It never showed on my pay sheet or was never spoke of again, Chalk one up for the little guy, oh yeah I get paid for dead miles.

 

Is that normal for delivering perishables? I looked up the word before I posted this to make sure this wasn't a topic elsewhere. If it's alright to change the subject, then, I'd like to ask about it. Otherwise if someone has a lot of information on this, please make a new thread and point me in the right direction.

Lettuce, tomatoes, avocados etc... how long are they to be on a truck? Wouldn't it make more sense to haul them all day long & have the load repowered (correct term?) that night, etc til they reach their destination? 3000 miles takes approximately four days?

Just out of curiousity. Anyone?

 

To the best of my knowledge, hijacking a thread is permisable here. Here goes...

Perishables, as with produce, can and will go both short and long. Produce loads originating in California "seem" to go further, since Cal is as far left in the country (figguratively and literaly) as possible. Even a load just to the midwest will run 2000 miles.

Your suggestion of repowering the load so that the trailer essentialy never stops is a good one. But those loads I hauled out of Ca, I had on the east coast in 3 days driving solo. But this was many years ago. Might not want to try that these days LOL

If you are asking if there is a huge rush to get the load there, I'd say perhaps not to the degree you might be thinking, as the refer run continuous will keep the food just the same as if it sat in a wharehouse.

Chilled foodgrade products in tankers are the time sensitive loads that need to get there fast. We used to have milk loads in northern Wisconsin that had to be in Miami in 30-36 hours. That is an 1800 mile run or so. Again, those were back in the old days.

 

Lots of those loads measured in feet not miles. I jump on that stuff every chance I get. I would love to get a couple of jockey trucks working somewhere full time.

I used to do repairs for this guy that had an old U Model Mack single axle, with a hydralic fifthwheel on it. He had one account that was a large warehouse next to a railhead. That truck worked two 8 hour shifts, 6 days a week at $38 an hour. I don't think that it ever went farther than 1/4 mile.

He ran nights and he had a driver that ran days for $12 an hour.

That is $3,648 a week and I don't think the truck ran more than 100 miles a week.