NEMF, pt.1:

Do the LTL's worry about "dwell time" ? That's a concern on railroads, stuff sitting and not moving.

 

i worked for them too, for a little over 6 years...actually glad that i had left, and never tried going back..that's like taking 2 steps forward (when leaving), then 27 steps backwards returning.

when i did line haul i pulled pups, you'd be surprised at the empty pups i hauled, and the 1/4 full, 1/2 full and 3/4 full.....total waste of equipment.

 

The way we approximate that advantage of pups is to create a "headload" in the nose that is going to the farther destination, with break freight behind it going to multiple destinations. At the breakbulk/hub terminal, only that freight in the tail is stripped to be sorted, and they will then fill it the rest of the way with the far destination's freight. That is one way of reducing unnecessary handling using long boxes.

 

We do, apparently.

Our trailers are not supposed to stay in one terminal's territory longer than 2 weeks (other than liftgates assigned to that specific terminal). They have a clock on them in the system to track how long they've been at each place once they arrive. Gotta keep 'em moving.

 

Watch out, 33-foot pup trailers may be coming soon. This would be a game changer in LTL. Companies that only run long boxes will find themselves at a disadvantage.

 

Is that still a possibility? Thought they shut that down a couple years ago?

 

I think they're trying to not let them 1) sit at customers for an excessive amount of time, possibly getting lost or being used for storage (Amazon was bad about holding trailers hostage) and 2) not let them hang out at terminals without shops, where they may be allowed to get raggedy or be fixed by vendors with lower standards than our shops have. That way they can also make sure the actual PMs are done in our own shops.

I'm just guessing, though. I don't know the reasoning for sure, but I do know about the time limit in the system.