Hopper Bottom or Flatbed?

End dump is steady, relatively short wait times so your ability to make the most of your week is better in my opinion. I’ve been doing it for quite a few years now and would only give it up for local work, or possibly private fleet stuff. I have no opinion of flatbed, but I do know hoppers can sit in lines for hours waiting to load, and do the same on the other end, plus the possibility of loads hanging up and sticking is something to keep in mind as well. Dumps are very versatile, there’s a number of commodities that can be hauled, some of which pay extremely well.

 

Depend on where you’re located.
Nucor was looking for drivers to pull steel, did that years ago, would reload roll roofing back from Pryor ok to Memphis Tn/West Helena AR Reload steel from Blytheville Ar back to Tulsa/OKC

Hopper is steady, if your patient, feed mills always need feed for chickens/dog food/cattle

 

Flatbed, no question. You'll never see a hopper bottom at a state scale( unless shanghai'd) those guys always "load the wagon", because it pays so poorly. Flatbed is wide open now, and here in Colorado, that's all I see is flatbed,,,or bull haulers, and I won't even get into that. I always thought, a hopper is for the farmer, who doesn't have much else to do but sit in line with their crop harvests, and almost always no backhaul. Flatbed, without question.

 

During crop harvest is where you can get good pay from the field.
Was hauling corn 15 miles last harvest total of 105 miles/ at 180-200$ load depending on bushels
Could do 7-8 a day.
I’ve taken loads in a hopper to CO, but there’s nothing out of there, so you gotta do like Florida, get a good rate and bounce back to either NE or KS

 

Do flatbeders do a lot of backing?

 

HA! Not too much. I did haul a load of shingles once and had to back into a "slip" of sorts, they loaded them from the side, but generally no, most stuff comes off by a crane or hoist.

 

It’s an old running joke that flat bedders can’t back since they do so little if it

 

Buy a 53 step. Pulled both flat and step. Preferred the step