Super Heavy Haul Costs

It’s usually 6 sets of three and the steer.

 

I think despite all else no one would insure this tom Foolery and if your customer.er recognizes that your trying to cut corners in moving their multi million dollar equipment by hiring a swift diamond driver and sending it they are gone as well.

 

Lol, swift diamond driver.
That's cream of the crop there.

 

What’s the payroll run for a good 19 axle crew ....?

1/2, a mill a year ....?

 

Depending on where you are going and the dimensions you are dealing with, it usually starts getting more economical to ship by rail when you get above 200,000#. Only limitation to rail is they can't take very wide stuff. About 12' wide is all you can do. They can haul some really tall stuff and heavy stuff, but they can't handle wide at all.

I know the last load we moved off rail, was 12'4" wide. There was a holdup on the last 30 miles because they had to wait for the train schedule where there wouldn't be any trains passing in that 30 miles, for fear they would hit.

 

Want to know the absolute worst thing about your idea, @Juno123?

You’re trying to beancount.

Every time someone wants to get involved in heavy haul and hire a driver, they HAVE TO go after an inexperienced driver, because an experienced driver wouldn’t bite. The first thing a beancounter does is try to cut corners. Be it driver wages, permits or pilot cars.

And when the truck and trailer needs maintenance, you guys get real stingy.

If you were smart, you’d hire a company with the DRIVERS, insurance, credentials, connections that you need, get a quote, tack 5-7% on top your cut and let someone else do all the legwork.

 

I’m not supporting or diminishing the idea. I will say that I’ve worked around 19 axles a lot and spent a lot of time taking to them. It honestly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to hire an entire experienced crew away from a company if you offered enough. I can honestly see the appeal of working for the same customer and similar loads all the time. The single biggest complaint I used to hear was hometime, this could actually be a decent deal for a crew.

 

Yikes! Lots of scary comments here...

If I was in the OP's shoes, I'd ignore the comments about failure. (kind of assuming that's already being done) If you were guaranteed to fail, there would be no "heavy haul industry". Can you do it? Maybe you can, maybe you can't. It all depends on how good you are at what you do... And how good the people you find are, at what they do.

The post about a million (multi-million) dollar set up, needing to stay on the road making money.... That's a personal view, that many would call short sighted. It doesn't matter if its a 1k tool that sits, a 100k tool, or a 2m tool that sits, as long as its existence can be justified. You are the only one that, when you have you're ducks in a row, will know the answer. There can be many different ways to make the justification, and although yours at least appears to be on the surface, its not always about money.

If I was in the shoes of the OP, I would probably start with finding the right help. I personally would recognize, that the cost of the operation... trucks, trailers, insurance is the easy part, its getting the right help that will be the problem. The right help will make or break you.... The right help will help you better understand everything it will take.

The only thing that I know for certain in this life, is that if you are wondering if you can do it... you're in for a challenge. If you decide that you are going to do it... and that's all there is to it, then the challenges ahead don't really matter.

Someone that has never flown an airplane, will be overwhelmed in the ####pit...
Someone that has never ridden a motorcycle, will be scared on the highway...
Someone that has never fired a gun before, is usually scared of guns...

On top of the biggest problem, of finding the right help... Is the fact, that you don't know... what you don't know. The challenge, is realizing when you know enough to get the job done.

 

I agree, what I read from the OP is that he’s already involved in much of the process and seems to understand it. He didn’t say he was going to recruit from a driving school, he even said he realized that a flatbedder with 10 years experience isn’t enough. I read a lot of biographies and the one thing successful people have in common is they do things that others say they can’t.

 

I'd say if you are going to venture out then start with focusing on the 13 axle since that will be the smallest setup you are looking for. They are tending to be more common these days as freight as grown. You can scale 160,000# payload no problem and with the correct practical 13 axle setup you can axle up to 170,000# payload. (depending on what states your running in) Don't get me wrong you will need to do your homework to get the right truck and trailer as you can make the trailer specifications ordered in hundreds of different ways.

Now as far as the 19 axle thing thats kind of over my head about all of the details, but I do know 19 axles have gotten pretty much "outdated" over the past few years due to dual lanes being more permit friendly and more maneuverable while at the same time the purchase costs are pretty close to the same.