Instant O/O and Load boards

LOL I can hear you cracking yourself up when you type that list!

Not a problem, they don't do anything anyway.

That's the only way my truck gets any backing miles

No fair! Your wife does this for you. And I bet she even cuts off the crusts and cuts them into triangles instead of rectangles. Call my wife and suggest this for an earful!

I'm dedicated to ALL my runs.

Lotta help that is.. I'm the father, the son.. probably the holy ghost of my business.

Well I'm getting about 2 weeks worth of your hometime all in a row right now.

 

Oh I can SENSE it, I just can't PRODUCE it!

 

Thanks that means a lot!

The hopper has given me some immunity from the lack of miles, I'm running a ton of them, and the pay is very doable.

The downside is you are always pulling about 80k which is hard on the truck and you take a fuel mileage hit (constant risk of overweight violations as well), and you're not really paid more for such heavy loads.

The other downside is it can be very dirty work. I don't mind exertion too much but I'm not a fan of being covered head to toe in corn powder or chicken ash. Of the 15 loads I've deliverd I'd say 11 dumped straight out and 3 I had to jump into the trailer to broom pockets of clumped product out, and 1 I had to slide under the hopper and dig a bunch out with a screwdriver with it falling all over me for a good half hour each hopper.

That said I would have the same benefits with an end dump without much of the down side. But, with a hopper you're not going to tip over when dumping a product. An end dump will also carry anything a hopper will and not vice-versa.

I'm sticking with the hopper for at least a year because that's all I know, but if I set up another truck/trailer I would probably get a dump.

Also, these trailers are about 10' shorter than the dry's and refers. It doesn't help much backing since the tandems are fixed all the way back, but there's no overhang to whip out either on turns.

It's probably about the same amount of physical work as flatbedding but also without the worry of losing your cargo on an off-ramp.

Last negative... your truck gets FILTHY inside and out. A wash will last until your next muddy farm, and there is way too much jumping in and out of the truck to move back or forth to justify changing shoes or putting on and taking off dungarees. Just gotta keep it swept and then scrub the stuff that sticks when you get a chance on weekends. If I smack my seat real good, unknown powders fly out and I wouldn't know where to begin fixing that or keeping it from happening all over again. I've learned to keep the door SHUT which was a mistake I was making early on.

Again the biggest reason to pull a grain trailer right now is money and miles. I've spoken to many of the other drivers and they are all running. Some have better jobs than others but no one is sitting very long. Downside, this will never pay $3 a mile either. Slow and steady.

 

I have low, med, and high. Low doesn't work and it's always in High. I really don't think it was kicking in on that hill and the rpm's were over 20k a lot of the time. I should probably have that looked at. It works great in 8th or higher. I use it just to save wear coming to stop lights. When I was parked, I was tight up against my seatbelt almost slumped over the steering wheel. I think they were embarrassed to post double-digits for the grade.