RAT/ Ready Auto Transportation

I agree with you Slant6, other than the union thing, I was local 445 in New York, so was my father in-law and a few friends, they did nothing for us except cave into the carrier. Some locals are better but ours sucked, I am much happier now as an independent owner. The best thing about being independent is full control, but you are absolutely correct SERVICE is all we have to sell, and I sell service very well. It is a shame the rates are in a downward spiral, I don't see that changing anytime soon, deregulation has killed the entire trucking industry. There are too many sub-prime haulers moving cars, the ones that kill me are the guys at the auction with dry van trailers, then they want us to load their car into the trailer as a favor, they do not understand they are dragging down the entire car haul industry by hauling cars for dry freight rates as back hauls.

 

Ok I have to put my two cents in on this one. Many years ago when I first started moving vehicles I drove for the auction in Elkridge MD. We use to go to dealers to pick up units and also went to repo yards to pick up units. Some ran some didn't. The quick to the point thing is the truck that I did that in was a 4 car rollback that was equipped to drag them on keys, no keys, not running etc. There is guys on here I'm sure as well that remember the double deck landolls that had winches on them for inops etc. The biggest point that I am making is having the right equipment for the job.

 

Stop it, your making me feel old now! I ran a Landoll 334 and 336 as my first two car carriers in the 90's. They were perfect for salvage and inops, not good for much else. Here is a load of inops that would make most guys cringe! I did this one a long time ago. If you ran out of Elkton, you make recognize the truck, it is an old Central Penn unit.

 

BTW, anytime you haul cars for,to and from the eastern-bloc types, its gonna be a bad day. They just do business a different way

 

And Vaseline isn't included!

 

I do remember them yes. My daily run there for awhile was up to North Jersey to normally the repo yards up in Hackensack etc.
I didn't live there in those years, lived closer to BWAE in those days. Those were the Auction Transport days. Man the money that inbounds to the auctions use to pay back then. If only more knew what they SHOULD be making for the times.

 

I hear you sxdime, as a company driver in one of the Landoll 5 car carriers I was making more than I do now as an owner operator. When Copart went all sub-hauler they offered their company drivers a chance to buy their truck and work for them, the rates they offered to the truck owner were only slightly higher than they made as company men with great benefits, vacation, etc. That was the beginning of the end for salvage transport, regular auction work is taking the same down turn, it is sad.

 

Cool picture. I have seen one of those Landoll trailers on the road that looked like it was a six car trailer. Very interesting design.

 

DMAX66, they were available with either a 4 or 6 car trailer design and a 1 car cab carrier, one winch for each vehicle, the axle slides forward and the nose of the trailer tilts up from the fifth wheel plate putting the tail on the ground for easy loading of salvage or non-running cars. great for that, not so good for clean cars as they had a steep loading angle to help the salvage slide back off when it was time to unload, plus limited adjustment of the decks limited what types of vehicles you could haul, but they had their purpose in the salvage auction fleets. I loved my Freightliner in the picture, it was very easy to load and maneuver around the New York City area that I operated in, in my opinion it was easier to get around with than our 4 car carrier straight trucks. i miss those days, but every good thing comes to an end, and my current gig hauling lease turnbacks and repos is so much easier, but I do miss the ease of getting around with the 5 car hauler.

 

Like the one I called on, "Oh it just has a right front flat tire." BS, when I got there, the right front tire was under the left front of the car.