The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Good luck with the search... Being in a city there should be more local stuff... Where I am it is pretty hard to find anything local that pays decent and has any kind of benefits. The small companies that are around here want to run further east anyway, and I have had enough of that.

 

If I had the same route east everyday I would be ok with it. You kinda know what to expect that way. Lol I hate in blind.

 

I'm in cleburne tx headed up to st. paul. Havnt said anything in a while so I'm just kinda jumping in here

 

I did a dedicated Fed Ex route when I first started driving, Cleveland to Newark to Pittsburgh then back to Cleveland. After the first couple of weeks it got so boring I could not stay awake to make the trip. I had to get off it before I killed myself or someone else. It was a good trip, usually less than 20k in the box, just doing the same thing over and over...

 

That's where everyone is so different. Especially as an o/o I would love a dedicated run as long as the daily miles were enough. I'm at a point I don't need to see the USA in a Chevrolet, Cascadia, Columbia or any other vehicle. For me the more boring the better. For a while I was doing some out and back from Clarksville TN to Columbia SC. 485 miles each way, a dedicated like that would be exactly what I need for this business.

 

Good point about the miles... But I did a "dedicated" curtain run for three weeks, several years ago in Texas. While the miles were there, the money wasn't. The D/H miles were equal to the loaded miles normally and the way loads were scheduled, just burned up my day scampering from one point to another and waiting for hours to load or unload..... I was able to get home on the weekends though since Curtains short hauls normally empty on Fridays and don't reload till Monday. I would empty out Friday afternoon, d/h to Dallas, then d/h to the shipper early Monday morning. Normally about 120 miles both ways on my dime.....

Dedicated runs sound good, but unless you're loaded in both directions, it's not really good financial move, in my opinion....

 

Things are slowing some. I don't think it is going to be as bad as it was in the fall of 2008, but tonnage is starting to slip. We need some "change" in Washington, then maybe things will pick up. Van freight should be picking up soon as the big box stores start stocking Christmas items in the DC's. I think alot of people are sitting on money, taking a wait and see before they buy much, I know I am. We have been buying what we need, and trying to save the rest. I am half afraid of what it is going to be like through the holidays, and into the begining of next year.