Newbie Grain Hauling Questions

Jason,Jfaulk99 has probably forgotten more about trucking in general,than i'll ever learn,plus he is more familiar with your neck of the woods than i am,so if he is adviseing you against it in your area,i'd listen purty close.

21,800 with a W900 daycab and 43'x80'',dang man,what do you have under the hood,a C7.

 

C12-X1's and a dead axle.

Hopper freight SHOULD pay more because its specialized equipment however it's not priced that way. I agree that for OTR or longer distance bulk freight a dump is better than a hopper. Except for the empty weight being more there are way more loads available. However neither are ideal because the fair weather truckers (farmers) drove the rates in the toilet.


*edit* I'm not knocking farmers........as long as they play by the same rules. Using the "farm" truck with "farm tags and insurance" to haul commercially is crap.

 

C-12-X1's and a dead axle,never seen that set-up down here in my neck of the woods,but now that you've mentioned it,how much weight did you loose with the dead axle?


I could'nt agree with ya any more,Jfaulk99.When i first bought my truck 15 years ago,i actually ran the red ''farm limited'' tag we have here in Ky. I still was partnering with my dad milking cows(milked 'em every day for over 20 years) and i actually bought my truck for hauling our own sand out of Nugent Sand in Milton,Ky. because we were going thru 55 ton's/month of the stuff just bedding our freestall barn for the cows and i could make the truck/trailer payments with about $300/month left over so i took the plunge. We only farmed 212 acres and only raised a tad over 75 acres of corn,most of which we chopped for silage,so i never sold more than 3 loads of corn/year and if it had'nt been for the sand,i could have never justified buying the rig. But after running the truck on all the little short sand trips to Milton and back,and having a lot of local farmers,mostly relatives at first,asking me to haul for them at harvest i found out 2 things, 1)There was NO WAY i was going to run illegal tags just because every other farmer in my neck of the woods did, my ''testimony'' as a christian has always been more important to me than the all mighty dollar,not to mention having to explain it to my family,especially my son. And 2nd)I found out that i really LOVED driving my 'ol pete a whole lot more than milking cows,and thought,hey, i might could make a decent,honest living doing something different than getting up at 4 am 7 days/week for the rest of my life milking cows. So with that,i leased on with a cousin pulling a 48ft spread axle flat and made a really nice living pulling his skateboard hauling Trane air conditioners out of Lexington going down to get painted in Marietta,Ga. and back,and then at harvest time i would switch back to my dump and haul grain. Well,like everything else in trucking,Landstar came in and the rates went in the toilet hauling the air-conditioners and my cousin wanted me to go OTR with him and it was either that,or get my own authority,so i took the plung again,and started lining up as many feed mills as i could find that i could haul into,found a few larger farmers with enough bin capacity to allow me to run loaded both ways 5 to 6 months out of the year,and that's kinda where i'm at now. Beleive me when i say this,i KNOW what your saying firsthand about all the farmers running illegal because i compete with them for freight every harvest,it's actually gotten to the point anymore that i don't bother with a lot of my local feed mills during harvest since they get every ''red tagger'' they can find to haul soybean meal,hulls, and ddg's back from the processors at harvest time. I payed a measly $1800/year for insurance,no 2290 because of milage exemption,no KYU,no IFTA,no yearly Drug consortium fee,and a couple hundred bucks for my 'red' farm limited tag, Now, it's north of $1400/year for the apportioned tag,$6650 for liability ins.,$750 for cargo ins.,$550 for 2290,$100 for Drug consortium,along with all the fuel/milage taxes that come with IFTA and KYU,and this is just for my little 1 truck/hopper show,and i have never had a speeding ticket or an accident so i get a decent rate on ins.

For what it's worth, Jfaulk99,there are a few posters here on TTR that are willing to share their knowledge of this industry without sugar-coating it(your post fall in that category imo,and for that i'd just like to take this opportunity to say thanks).



Jason,sorry for the small hi-jack of your thread,but i thought it might not be a bad idea for you to actually see what the difference between running legal ''apportioned'' tags hauling grain would look like compared to running illegal tags.The farmers that are willing to run illegal,like Jfsaulk99 and I have already pointed out,are going to be your toughest competion hauling local grain.Wish it was not that way,but it is. Just take a look at the difference of my expences when i had a farm tag,compare them to my expences now,and you will see for yourself what your possibly gona be competing against,not to mention the farmers who are more than willing to run their tax exempt farm fuel in their rigs. My son had farm fuel delivered today for $3.099,i payed $3.499 for road fuel when i filled up today,so that's a whole other can of worms. I'm not trying to paint a terrible picture here,but it has taken me 5 years to get a decent enough customer base to make a living with my hopper, and i had a lot of contacts with the local feed mills from buying feed from them when i was still farming fulltime. I would send Jfaulk99 a PM and see if you can get him to give you some advise on what he'd recommend,just a thought. Good luck with what ever you decide,my hope is that you will be able to earn a decent living doing what you love,all while getting to spend quality time with your family.