Nebraska to Vegas Heavy: I-70 or I-80

Hey @Rontonio , you know about heavy loads. You ever pulled something quite that heavy?

 

Take 70 if you have time and want lots of scenery. 80 if you want make time and like other said save probably 60 gallons and your brakes.

 

I always take I-80 from Nebraska to Vegas or SoCal, you don't have to got thru SLC. Leave I-80 at exit 146 and take Hwy 189 thru Provo Canyon to Provo, don't follow the sign to I-15 detour around Provo, it's about 5 miles more, go thru Provo to I-15. Lots of traffic lights but you're usually faster.
I'm with a heavy load about half an hour to 45 minutes faster on 80 and save lots of fuel.
About 45 miles more.

 

A little ... given that I weigh more than that empty.

I don't think it makes a bit of difference which way you go at that weight.

 

They don't give you an option to reroute? After a few months running solo at Swift I developed a good relationship with my driver manager. Normally they scrutinize your out of route percentage, but after I questioned route selection on a few different runs he said, "Plan the safest and most efficient way, then ask for a new fuel plan".

I did a few runs from Nebraska to Las Vegas or SoCal. After my chat I always elected to run I-80, except one time when a blizzard closed both I-80 and I-70. Then I ran south to I-40 on a load headed to LA.

It's disappointing to say the least when desk jockies dictate route selection based on what a computer says a car can do, or to save 5 miles running a truck through a dozen small towns instead of freeways.

 

80 is smooth sailing right now with a little road work. I just took it from Des Moines to slc.

Plus you can go as fast as your truck will let you. You'll hit some steep downgrades in park city but other than that it's very mild. Good Thai food in Rawlins.

 

80 is good.

You did not state the origin of the load.

70 has a number of mountain passes. Usually someone screws up and close the whole thing.

If going to vegas, I-15 is what you want to take eventually that will get you there.

43000 is a nice weight, but not particularly heavy. Winter is coming, you actually prefer to be heavy in weight so you will be succesful in routine snows.

 

Unless they've changed it recently, that's a no-go with a 53'.


I've run both ways, and you can turn it in the same time from Beaver to Big Springs (Provided you have a decent engine, of course.) If the weather is nice, I'd almost always go that way, rather than deal with the fustercluck that I-80 has become. Especially if it happened to be one of the busy days on 80.

As far as how tough of running it is... back in the days before these high-powered jakes, 80 made more sense. And while 70 has some hard pulls, it also has far more easy running than 80. Hell, the very best fuel mileage turn I ever made in my last truck was Denver to Grand Junction loaded, empty back. That's the only turn in 850k miles that I ever averaged over 6 mpg!

Y'all make it sound like it's 700 miles of dropping into the Salt River! Pull to the top, set the cruise about 30, and let the Jake do it's thing going down the other side. You can run that whole stretch without even touching the brake pedal. Of course that depends on the ECM being properly set up, which leaves the majority of you company guys out in cold!

 

I agree.

You drivers are the captain of the ship. The more you abdicate and let the company take control, you might as well quit and have the company buy robot trucks because truckers are not robots. Nor should they be treated as one.

What is my problem?

Cost Containment gone wild. That is my problem, full on display here.

If I wanted to be difficult with dispatch, I'll contact Co dispatch and find the most crooket vertical direct routing via US Route to I-15, this being summer most all passes are open and the weather is beautiful. Time to get some mountain driving on.

 

Take 80, especially if it's a Hazmat load. Loveland Pass sucks and you'll have to use it to bypass the tunnel. There's no truck services between Denver and Grand Junction either, I hate Colorahole. And I prefer Nebraska over Kansas, Kansas is brutally boring...