Conestoga: worthy investment?

I have a couple curtain sides not Conestogas. You can make good money through dedicated accounts. I wouldn't invest the kind of money for a curtain/Conestoga (I got a new 53'x102" curtain this year and payed 70k its pretty fancy) unless you have a dedicated customer. You won't see any more money trying to load it from a load board. The only reason I have them is because my out and in bound loads are tarps required everytime. It saves me alot of time loading and unloading. And I'm lazy. Haha. If you can find a customer that has to have every load tarped and you have a curtain you can negotiate your rate higher because they know it will be tarped everytime.

Where I load alot of the flatbed guys will leave before its tarped. Little do they know the shipping managers office is overlooking them and they get $500 bucks knocked off the rate immediately. Sure they argue but when you have video of the truck leaving untarped they can not argue. This happens alot during the summer in oregon. Why does it have to be tarped it's not raining?????? The answer...... cause the customer said they want it tarped.

 

As a co driver I'd rather use a FB or SD and tarp than a conestoga. The time wasted running chains through the side deck gaskets and more time spent on performing load checks in my opinion take me longer than tarping.

 

Chains through gaskets does suck. It's not so bad from the ground but it's a pain if you're kneeling on the deck. If I was setting up my own trailer I'd have chain pulls for sure.

 

Use j hooks.

 

I have them and will use them if pulling straight up. I tried them a few times when pulling at an angle and they would cut into the stop bolts and/or into the j hooks. Even had to pull out the big hammer to get one unstuck one time. They need to make the bolts taller.

 

Try turning them around. They should be able to angle to the center of the trailer. Ours lay facing the center then you can lift them up to 90 deg. Past that you lay them the other way and lift up. If that makes since?

 

I like the idea of a track rolling tarp system. To me they offer more flexibility and the benefits out weight drawbacks. There are stands that the entire tarp can be rolled onto an external stand removed from the trailer entirely to run oversized loads. Don't know how easily or not the stands work but seems like a good idea. If running a lot of over dimensional freight, the rolling system would not be an good investment. I am seriously considering the investment. I'd like to rent an outfitted trailer for a while so to test the business aspects and tarp system prior to jumping into it. Yes... I too can be selectively lazy as well.