Flats, Refers, or Vans ect..which is best for O/O?

The money seems to be there for flat bed. I don't know about tank.Van is easy but you deal with allot of bs from shippers and the rates are lower right now.

 

I pull flatbed,money's good and it seems like i can get loaded and unloaded faster than when i was pulling van. but the real money is in bull wagons.

 

Ron

You've a very valid question here on what kind of trailer that'd be "best" for an O/O. The problem however, is the one guy will post flatbed, next guy will post refer, and then somebody else will reccomend a drybox. Then your head will spin.

I've never pulled a flatbed, but have pulled the other three you ask about. My 2 cents here is that a refer would be the choice for having the option for the largest choice of freight. Most anything that will fit in a van will also fit in a refer, in addition to temperature sensitive goods, obviously. Drawback to a refer is the additional cost of the refer unit, as well as more maintenence and headaches. A nice new 48 ft refer will easily cost double vs a 53 ft box. Foodgrade tanks also cost an ungodly amount of money too, but the loads typicaly pay far better than that full load of toilet paper stacked to the roof, that you will have to fingerprint when you get to mega-mart wharehouse.

The cost of a flatbed or van trailer is pretty cheap compared with refers and tanks. That will likey play into what trailer you opt for in the end. Even though a refer might end up as your first choice, not being able to afford the $40,000 - $50,000 cost for a near new trailer, might steer you toward a drybox that'll only run say $15,000 for a near new.

Drawbacks to van and refer freight is the mega-mart wharehouses. Back into door 137, and break it all down to only 2 high per pallet. Drawback to flatbed, as we have learned in an above post, is tarping and untarping every day, or nearly every day, in addition to waiting for a load. Tanks are by far the easiest, as all you do is back in and the shippers/recievers load and unload you. However, unless you have the right conections for foodgrade liquids, a tank purchase would be number 4 on my list, of those mentioned. High cost and few loads out there vs refer/van/flat.

The ultimate trailer would be a curtain side somewhat insulated refer with wood nailers on the floor, but they have'nt built that yet

 

I'd love to hear more on bull wagons and the money in them, as well as the drawbacks. Hopefully someone will come along and expound on them in detail. Hey, maybe Bullhaulerswife can enlighten us on this. I'm on it...

 

I'm sorry. I'm new. What does otr stand for?

 

Over the road

 

Yea another thing i don't drive yet.But dad does. With a flatbed you can see what the load is doing. Put a couple of lights on the back of the truck and at night you know where and what its going. Anything closed can shift and you won't know it until it gets bad.