Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

There is room for advancement from "generic truck" I call it specialization. If you can do something that makes you different from a "Generic truck" people will pay a premium for premium services. Even in the bad times they will pay a premium.

I pull around a 53 foot dry van. About as generic as you can get. However about half my loads use my tank and Haz endorsements.

I also tend to run a high percentage of trade show loads. A few load bars and a couple of dozen straps open up those customers if you get a trailer with vertical E-track.

Trade show folks are hinting that I should get a lift gate put on my trailer. If I do that correctly it will increase my light weight to the point scaling the heavier chemical loads would be a concern.

Throw in the Canadian F.A.S.T. Pass, T.W.I.C card, TSA Certification, and any other proof you can roll where needed..... It's all about being able to fix somebody else's sticky situation.

 

In the late 90s my wife was stationed at Kessler AFB in Biloxi
And the main freight there was bananas

They came into the port there and paid $1.25 a mile when most freight was 75 cents

Only catch was they would unload the containers and have em ready about 4:00 PM and they wanted em delivered before 6:30 AM in Chicago , Bluefield And Parkersburg WV and Salem MO etc

900 miles and 14 hours to be there

The hurricane wiped out the pier and port
No idea if they still come in there or not

A couple years later I bought a cabover international with the set back steer axle and it only weighed 15,000 and 12 of that was on the steers

So I could scale some loads that other drivers couldn’t

 

I'm reading a biography of Charles Goodnight. In 1881 freight costs were $0.01 per 100 pounds per mile coming into the Texas Panhandle. I think it is cheaper now.

 

$.01 in 1881 would be the equivalent of $.26 today.

 

40,000 pound load would would pay $4 per mile in 1881 money? so $100 per mile in today money?

 

I've hauled quite a few banana loads that came into Gulfport Ms just around the corner from Biloxi.
Most were going to Cincinnati and Indy grocery wholesalers.

 

The mule and oxen freighters had to get paid a lot going in because they had to deadhead back empty. I think the native indigenous people had already been sent to reservations by then as well, but freighters still used that excuse of the dangers of the route to boost rates also.

 

They go everywhere. We were doing them too. Dole bananas and pineapples straight out of the container at the ship dock. I would get them from a small broker in Lafayette LA. The rates nosedived a few years ago and I quit calling them. I have no idea what they're doing now. I didn't leave anything in Gulfport so haven't been looking.

 

Missed this thread when getting set up in 2015.

Still very good reading...

 

I’m waiting to re-read it on the 1 year anniversary of me being a driver. This thread helped me in many ways...and I can’t wait to experience it again. Thanks again @double yellow