The journey begins - purchased a truck.

Great. Be interested to hear the review on them sir.

 

The challenging load . . .

Deadheaded 800 miles to pick it up, loaded 1,000 miles, 200 miles empty back home. After all said and done, $12,500 to the truck. Best load so far, but it was a booger.

Had permits ordered for 70' long, 13'5" wide, piece SHOULD have weighed 16,000 lbs.

Discovered upon arrival that it had legs that stuck down, as well as up. Like a table with legs, but about 13 'legs on top that poked up. Found that the downward legs would clash with the tractor tires if I loaded it 1' front and rear overhang on a 68' stretched trailer.

Scrap permits ($400 burned). Re-order permits for 73' trailer, overhang piece 3' off the back, move it back till it cleared the tractor wheel turn. Cool.

6am start - load my trailer, and (because that's what you do), load other guys' trailer. Drape tarps with overhead crane, inside. Nice. Finish up about 11pm. Wore out. I mean WORE THE F OUT.

Borrow 2 tarps off other driver (green ones).




Load looked good after Day 1, 450 miles later. By the end of Day 2, Tarps all over the place, brand new one torn all to bits. Remove rear tarp, consult with agent, receiver, and carry on.

Problem was - the shipper begrudgingly had their carpenter fab up rails on the outer edge and front of the legs, but the whole thing really needed to be crated on top to support tarps. Result - massive flapping, unsupported mid section that refused to allow tarps to stay in place.

Eagleville, MO scale pulled me in - 36,500lbs on the trailer axle. Allowed me to slide tandems back to correct to 34,500 and let me roll, writing weight violation for $300 odd for initial weigh. I thanked him heartily and shook his hand - he could have made my day a lot worse.

Piece apparently weighed 38,500 lbs - big difference from 16,000 - and would have been OK had I known about the legs.




Lesson learned on putting foot down with shipper to ensure correct packaging. I went and bought green patch vinyl, and repaired the other drivers' tarps and returned to him the day after returning home. He lives but 30 miles from me.

 

The last paying load of the year.

Viewed from behind, going down the road by the escort vehicle - the ballooning effect is horrendous.



Sitting at the shipper, looks fairly tidy. The 2 tarp approach helped - somewhat.



The monster tarps. On the left, a 30 by 30 - on the right a 36 by 40, with a 15 by 15 flap. Gargantuan heavy bugger that realistically requires a forklift to handle.




Kind of a rinse and repeat from the previous load. I'd taken a couple of short, legal (and rather cheap) runs in between when this one sprang up. Usual problems - same shipper, lack of overall dimensions, unwillingness to package properly.

So, I bounced empty to get it, raced into Tri-City Canvas late the night before, and managed to secure the 2 used tarps - 30 by 30 and 36 by 40 - normal street value $2300 - for $800 cash. Slightly used, but patched and ready to go.

Overhead crane used to drape tarps, the piece was aluminum (vs the prior steel one) so it was the stated 16,000 lbs . . . (not the 36.5k weight citation version . . . )

Learning from previous experience, I bought felt padding and cut into squares to wrap over the problem areas. There was still tarp damage, but not close to the first one. Also scrapped a couple of permits after finding Missouri didn't allow ANY weekend travel at that width. Added another 120 odd miles, but sailed in there for a Sunday AM unload, saving 36 hours had I waited out the original route. Job all tidy - off to the house I went for another little task.

Agent I run for had a driver go 'missing' - his wife hadn't heard from him since Thursday PM, this was Saturday AM (the week prior to the above load), 51 years old, 12 year old daughter, history of heart trouble, truck still loaded, at rest area in IN with log showing 'on duty' for 28 hours. Law enforcement was called out for wellness check, driver found in bunk deceased, single gun shot wound, self-inflicted.

Upon learning the tragic details I put my hand up to the agent - "Anything I can do to help, including deliver load/return truck", LS took me up on it. Got necessary details early Monday AM - Gretchen and I drove 600 miles in the F-150 to the truck in impound yard, had mobile service come and start it up, delivered load and dropped truck to the widow that evening, visited with her an hour or so - then drove home. Sobering task.

Since then, been at the house for Christmas, will be here New Years, look at work early January.

Next up . . . numbers for the year.

 

Number crunching for 2018. . .

YTD 2018 -

All miles - 73,014

Total revenue to the truck - $234,185

$3.21/mile to the truck.

Fuel - $32,585 - .45 cpm

Maintenance - $24,433 - .33 cpm

Communications - $4,205 - .06 cpm

Supplies - $3,574 - .05 cpm

Tolls - $1,537 - .02 cpm


Then the other miscellaneous laundry, office, business lunch blah de blah.



Profit to loss - 55% profit 45% expense - resulting in $129,668 'gross profit before taxes' - or $1.78/mile profit before tax.

Fixed costs 0.47 cpm.

This will change in 2019, as we paid off the truck early 2018 - $21,136 dumped onto the truck loan - accounting for .29cpm - will pull fixed costs down to 0.18 cpm in 2019. So in other words, time to upgrade trailer.

Variable costs 0.96cpm

Variations here will be fuel prices into the new year, and maintenance. I'll note here that maintenance includes EVERYTHING. For obvious reasons, I account for every penny spent - it's a deduction, on all equipment - truck and 2 trailers. The Onan genset for example on the truck cost over $3,000 at the start of the year. Changing air filters to Fleet Air filters cost 2 new Vortex cans and filters . . . $2,500+, ECM tune and repair - $1,100 . . . what I'm saying is that these expenses are not quite 'necessary' and lend themselves to an inflated maintenance cost. Realistically the Maintenance figure should have been about .22cpm - (once the aforementioned items and a few others are removed from the mix), which is about right for a 1995 truck that gets everything it needs/wants.

Not expecting these figures to continue into 2019 - I feel things may soften some, but I'm also confident new doors will open if others close, or become 'ajar'. We've reached a 'flush' point so far as equipment goes, and maintain the debt free household (bar the F-150 note of 20k), so feel prepared for any potential downturn.

Hope that helps any/every body.

Happy New Years to all that read along for amusement - I've another couple of little stories to share later. First, stack firewood, and I believe it's pizza night.

 

Thank you sir - as always, thanks for the mentoring along the journey

 

Appreciate it sir, nothing we all wouldn’t do for a fellow man/brother/soldier or their family.