The Truckers’ Report flatbed Hall of Shame.

I’ll add that even if you WANTED to throw straps it would have been difficult or impossible to do. There was no winch track for winches and there wasn’t even really a rub rail or stake pockets you could have fed hand straps through. There were some d ring looking affairs in the floor but I was told that was something Lexington Cartage has spec’d in when new as they were hauling auto parts with them. I assume the d rings were for something associated with the auto racks but again there was only like ten of them and they were inboard from the edge of the trailer a good 9” or so

 

Not all dry van walls are made the same. There are a lot that are aluminum skin with a plywood inner where the etracks are just tacked on. Most of the ones the megas are running are high density polyurethane which can have a tensile strength of 2,000 - 5,000 psi. Basically, if you run a forklift full speed at it, the forks will go through but the fork lift won't. The etracks are integrated into the ends of the panels. The straps will break long before the panel will. Load locks do work - kinda, they generally can only withstand 500 lbs of force. They're great for floor loads - put one across the top right next to the freight and then a strap at the etracks immediately behind to pull the walls in while the bar pushes out. Basically they're stability enhancers, not load securement. I would never use them to build a bulkhead.

The biggest thing for dry van securment is how the trailer is loaded. Is each pallet touching something on at least 2 sides, preferably 3? Is the weight stretched out so you can run mostly balanced between drives and trailer? Can you get the straps clipped in front of the last pallets so the strap makes a trapezoid? Then the freight isn't going anywhere unless you lay the trailer down.

 

Yes, true. E tracks do strengthen the trailer a good bit. The only reason I don't like them is because you can't sench them real tight.

 

Talking about Seely lake , did u see that lumber mill ended up shutting down? There's a youtube video about it. Really sad for that town, pretty much all the jobs just left overnight. We used to pull out of there and take short loads back to missoula, always enjoyed loading there

 

Roseburg shut down too. No mills left in Missoula County.

Pyramid Mtn was sad to see. But part of it was because the town would vote against funding sewer improvements every time it came up. Had they funded improvements Pyramid Mtn could’ve built apartments for employee housing to offset the ridiculous real estate prices.

 

I watched those mills being auctioned off on James G Murphy auction. They never go for very high prices. You can go back and see the history for how much the stuff went for.

 

It's so sad. Every time something like that closes it hurts the country and the locals. We become more dependent on someone else.

 

Hard to get logs when federal sales are blocked by lawsuits. And without the logs going to the mill it’s hard for the particle board plant to get shavings.

 

Oh I know. I would love to see the tree huggers wipe their ##***s on plastic toilet paper. See how they feel about it then. But when the big money cigar boys want to put in a gated community, those trees are gone in a few hours.

 

Logging is a very tricky and weird business.