Un desired loads

I wonder where the USDA gets those prices from. It's not from what my customers charge the Grocery stores for transportation because they all make them turn in two quotes when they respond to the RFQ... 1) with transportation 2) without transportation. If they don't like the with transportation number they just source the truck themselves. I doubt my customers are making all that much on transportation. The margins in the produce business have really shrunk over the years and they are only making around a thousand dollars a load in profit. That means that if they misquote the with transportation option they can potentially not turn a profit for the year.

In apples in particular a lot of shippers no longer even bother trying to be competitive with transport and simply have the grocery stores pickup their own fruit.

 

This is very eye opening, I must say...

Are you telling me that USDA is spewing bad data?

OR..

Is their sampling method unreliable?

OR...

Is the market moving too fast for their analytics to catch up?

OR...

Is it a case of carriers being clueless on what they can ask for or hedge an offer against?

Man...I wish we can PM (too much sauce in the open...lol)

 

lol...he's a shark...eh?

 

The ocean needs sharks to help clean up the detritus. I actually love guys like him because nothing makes me happier than something bad happening to a competitor. I can't punish them directly so I have to take comfort in the fact that somewhere out there Rollin Coal is doing it for me.

And when that really crappy carrier calls me and I turn him down for a load... It's this exact scenario I'm thinking of when I tell him "Just call a different broker and take it... There are like 3 other guys that have some variation of this thing up. They might even pay as well as I am if you ask nicely!"

 

As far as the original point of this thread, un-desired loads, I won't take freight that has to be nailed to the floor, I won't haul garbage, scrap metal, or recycle. Once a long time ago I took a load of crushed soda cans. It was a mess and the trailer was nasty afterwards. But the company I drove for booked it, so I took it. Another kind of load I may or may not take is a load of recycled paper - the kind where it's chopped into tiny little bits, or strips, and you end up with confetti all over the floor, and it takes half an hour to sweep it out.

The idea is to not screw up the floor of a brand new trailer. Since it's in excellent condition, we can use it for food grade loads.

 

The hilarious thing is that none of that freight even pays well. What kind of ### wants to nail their freight to the floor of someone elses trailer?

 

It won't hurt your trailer having anything nailed to the floor. You won't see any daylight when you pull the nails. It's not going to cause your trailer to get rejected for food grade. One thing you do want to avoid is never wash out your trailer. That will cause expansion and shrinkage of the wood floor for sure.

As far as freight being braced and scotched like that to the floor to secure it. All kinds of things will need that. I've hauled production robots and machines from a machine shop that built them to a plant that would install them in their production line. Those can be weird dimensions and have sensitive electronics and require air ride trailer. You most definitely do not want that sliding around in your trailer for a claim.

Used to haul powdered metal out of Lebanon, TN. This was/is used in the automotive industry to make cast iron parts. It's powdeed metal in large bulk nylon bags that are inside big cardboard totes. The same cardboard totes produce shippers use to ship bulk watermelons. These loads are heavy. 9 pallets is a full truck load and weighs 45,855 lbs. It has to be loaded as 4 pallets in the nose of the trailer and 5 centered over the trailer axles so it will axle/scale out legally. Those 5 pallets in the rear have to be scotched with 2x4's nailed to the floor. Under rated straps hooked into flimsy logistics posts ain't gonna hold it. Those are just a couple of examples there's surely a lot more.

I agree with you recycle loads are dirty garbage and I reject them out of hand no matter what. That's another problem with having someone else dispatch your truck. They will book any given load and not even ask what the freight is they are booking. As far as pay back when I had my old trailer I would haul these loads. I used to book scrap paper loads down to the Stevenson, AL or Chattanooga, TN paper mill as a back haul home from all over everywhere.

One time a couple of years ago Lipsey paid $1,250 from Owensboro, KY to Chattanooga 263 loaded miles. That was a good rate. He offered a $1,000 from the get go. I used the old line "I hate these messy loads and I hate that receiver" and he upped it. I don't know why. Markets were hot up there at the time. I assume like any product or commodity out there that you have times when that product or commodity needs to go no matter what. Though $1,250 was not really digging all that deep it was double or more of what that would normally move for. But they are messy loads. I will go home empty before I haul that #### anymore.

Again this was one abnormal load paying like that. 999 times out of a 1,000 it's not going to pay like that. It does go to prove though that anything out here can and will pay well if it really needs to move. And you never know what it might be. I have seen paper roll stock pay phenomenally well but like scrap/recycled that isn't the case 99% of the time.

 

Thanks, RC.

Week before last, we got offered a load of scrap from NE to somewhere near Houston, TX that CHR claimed "paid really well" but my boss doesn't want that kind of stuff beating up a brand new trailer, especially if I'm going to lease purchase this trailer, I don't want that kind of stuff either. We don't even know how much CHR was offering because he didn't stay on the phone with them long enough to find out. I was told that the agent said "But it's paying really well...". I wonder what their definition of "paying really well" is for that kind of stuff? I guess from Lincoln, NE to Houston I would imagine $3,500 would be "really good paying" for any kind of freight in general. I doubt they were offering anything over $2,500.

 

Usually their idea of paying well is a joke so don't worry about it. Like say they probably move it normally for $1.50 a mile and they think a $1.90 is smoking hot great, lol. I had damages with my old trailer was why I quit hauling that garbage. They cut a logistic post clean in two the last time. But crazily I have had a half dozen logistics posts destroyed in my brand new van without hauling any of that crap. I replaced them all so my walls are still straight and new. It's freight and stuff happens but even so it makes you sick all the same.