First attempt at LTL

Well, I'm picking up two partials in RI, headed for the Orlando area. Negotiated the brokers up for around $1.75/mile including deadhead. Not a rate I'd normally take, but I'm swapping loads with our other driver in NC tomorrow so he can get down to FL to see his father in the hospital.

After this morning's efforts looking at posted LTL loads, there seems to be some potential in using them to head south out of the Northeast and get a better rate than truckload. I'll probably be giving this a closer look in the future.

 

Agreed. We've worked out a Friday or Monday delivery on both. One of the drops requires an appointment to be set 48 hours in advance, so we'll set a Monday time when we call tomorrow. The other is HHG crates, so it's FCFS all day either day.

Turns out that the 2nd pick was 5' longer than advertised because the shipper calculated the length based on the size of the freight instead of the size of the pallets. I had anticipated some expansion, but not THAT much. Fortunately the dock hand and I were able to play tetris with the freight and get the doors closed. I called the broker and asked for $200 extra to cover that third pick that I couldn't load now that their error had filled the remaining space in the trailer. Broker agreed without blinking. I think the overall per mile on this is around $2.00 now, including deadhead. Not great for going into FL, but not bad for coming out of MA/RI going south.

Maybe I took it too cheap

 

Well, the load ultimately worked out pretty well. No hassle from the broker at all regarding covering the loss due to the shipper's error. The relay went smoothly, and both drops came off quickly when they were supposed to. Some of the pallets (custom built) were damaged upon arrival, but the freight was intact so no claim. And in hindsight, the overall rate was better than most loads going into FL last week.

Getting a load back out at a fair rate was quite a challenge, but that's for another thread