Super Heavy Haul Costs

Its not the retail cost you need to think about, that thing will pay for itself in a few moves the first year.

You cannot do short cuts on anything that serious. It's going to take a bunch of money to do everything right. You seem concerned with trying to save a dime on a dollar spent.

 

Interesting, I’m definitely out of the loop. When I was around it 70/75,000 a year plus perdiem. I can’t remember any of them saying they made more yo actually drive it was just a flat salary.

 

I think your all wet on this one. A “dual” lane is still considered a 19 axle if it has 19 lines of axles on the road wether it has 2 4 or 8 axles across. I’m not sure what Diamond has built recently but the have plenty of dual lane 19 axles. Steve invented the 19 that expands (or that’s what I read) there’s a difference between a 19 axle dual lane and an expando like a cozad.

What in seing more of is these Schuerle and Goldhofer style transport trailers with steerable axles that can be reconfigured with different decks and stuff.

 

All this talk about drivers driving these big load my experience is by the time the driver gets there the routes been all planned out. They have guys that do that. It’s not like what I do where I order a permit, they issue it I load and go. These take months sometimes, you have to meet with the state DOT a lot of times and drive various routes, then coordinate with utilities if need be, the state/local police. Usually when the driver shows up this is all been long since done. I know a lot of those companies move the drivers from move to move, the load is already planned they just move it.

J Supor brought some big duct piece from the port to Beverly Ohio and we unloaded it. They routed him up 78 and he wasn’t happy. He said that him and his route planner we’re going to have a come to Jesus meeting about this.

 

I've known some 12/13 axle guys working for that kind of money in the past. Not sure how they pay on them now except I've personally been offered significantly more to run a 13 but that also comes with being gone a minimum of 3 months, up to 6 months or more.

As for the guys running the really big stuff, that's a whole other game, they are drivers only in the sense they wheel the truck but that's the least of the job they do. Most of them, with the support and assistance of the project manager, run the whole show from how the mechanics build the trailer for that particular haul to routing, permitting etc. Not to mention loading that piece exactly 1" further this way to avoid a $50k citation on that axle group.

So, the guys (and at least 2 gals) I was referring to get a base salary just to be employed and get all kinds of additional pay such as performance bonuses, completion bonuses etc. for "a job well done".

I was loading 8 axles one time, did all my due diligence and got it exactly right. A very old, weathered looking driver looked at it from across the property where he was loading a Goldhoffer and said I had it about 6" too far forward. I blew him off because my gauges and math said otherwise. He strongly suggested I have the riggers move it while they were still on site. I didn't and I found out at the first state scale how far off my gauges were and how expensive it is to get a crew to a scale to move something 6".

That caliber of "driver" is few and far between and take a certain amount of money to capture and keep. That old man never got within 100' of my truck and trailer, he simply asked me what the piece weighed, studied it from a distance for a minute and told me I wouldn't be able to scale my front axle group where I had it.

 

I’ve got no evidence the back up my claim and argue with you so I won’t. But the two biggest complaint I ever heard from those drivers what is it didn’t pay enough and home time. I do know every big move I’ve been involved with which for me was on the loading or unloading because I worked for a crane company the load placement and trailer configuration was planned way in advance a lot of times by an engineer. You can’t really reconfigure a trailer like that onsite because it changes dimensions and axle spacings which affects permits.

 

I've met some of these guys as well, the rock stars who roll in, drive the truck and roll away to the next one. The OP could find one of these "experienced" drivers as well and probably pinch a penny doing it but whos going to set up the trailer, argue (with valid and provable points) with the highway engineer in Arkansas that this particular load absolutely cannot go that way or know who to call to get the trailer fixed when it makes that "special" pop while backing out of where the engineer sent him in the first place.

The OP is searching for a way to do something normally handled by team with just a driver. It can be done but "driver" needs to be just a subset of an otherwise lengthy resume if he has any chance of being successful.

 

I'm not trying to argue or ask for evidence of proof. I've been around those drivers as well with the same complaints with regards to pay and home time. Both stink in that level of freight, home time being the worst. Same with trailer configuration, that's planned months in advance and times where it has to be approved way ahead of time by governing bodies and cannot be changed without starting the whole process all over again.

However there are times when, even after all the calculations and everything else has been done the load goes on the equipment and something isn't right. That's where the old guy with the knowledge steps in and knows if he moves this block that way, puts a shim in here, adjusts an air bag there that it can work.

 

I’ll agree with you on this one.

 

That’s why I said on my post yesterday that you could hire a crew not just a driver.