Twin pups vs. 53' van:

Right it's going to be all the way up in that nose. Forgot that tiny detail. Thank you for the reminder.

 

As well have an extra 3ft of cube.

 

Not only did we always pull sets, but sometimes even triples was more convenient than a single 48+ foot trailer.
Here is an example how I was typically loaded

Trailer #1: T/L of tires
Trailer #2 LTL trailer
Trailer #3 one small pallet on the rear.

Then my trip would look like this:

Triple to city
Triple by customer and pull off last pallet on #3
Triple to next customer and drop off back empty plus con so they can load up full of scrap metal.
Double to drop lot and drop middle (LTL load)
Single with trailer #1 to Tire World and drop off trailer there.
Bobtail back to drop lot and work LTL trailer.
Do pickups on empty LTL trailer
Last step, find out what the other two trailers are doing and pick up empty from Tire World and loaded trailer from the scrap metal company.

Triple back to terminal, drop empty back box and leave con for linehaul
Drop front trailer (with scrap metal) in outbound lane
Dock the middle LTL trailer to be unloaded.

Yes you can definitely do and fit everything in a long box. But imagine how much time you would spend swinging 600+ tires, or waiting to get all the steel loaded.

 

What part was unanswered? I might be able to help.

 

Looking back to your questions, the answer is circumstantial. If you are in Chicago and you deliver Chicago, there is no point pulling a set with your terminal 15 minutes away. Your limitations are if you can get a 53' or need a pup to back in somewhere.

I mentioned in another threat that I was in Three Forks Montana and that I delivered in Butte Montana. That is 70 minutes away. One of my first customers has an entire pup load of tires. This takes two hours to unload. They don't want to pay detention and I don't want to be there that long. The best thing to do is to leave a trailer for a day or three. Same thing goes for pickups. We have two customers in the recycling business. They take about 3 days to fill up a pup.

It's the same reason ABF uses pups to let people move. Sealed household good load that gets dropped off and they get whatever allotted time to unload it.

Bottomn line is it's impractical for me to go back and forth 120 miles to swap trailers.

Even now... I could do more with a set than a single trailer I run now. I don't bring it up cause I am just a dumb truck driver and I also get paid by the hour.

Whatever.