What’s the minimum tonnage you’ll accept?

Only if it doesn't pay for ####.

 

If it pays the same as 45k, why not? Lol!

 

Like you said, it's not worth the time spent getting back in line, especially if there are a few trucks ahead of you.

Most of those guys have their head up their ### to begin with.

 

A case in point. A few years ago we tried hauling rice bran in our pneumatic doubles.
The stuff was fluffy and light and we couldn't get a load on. The bran wouldn't settle unless you pressurized the trailers and blew the load down. It wouldn't settle much then.
The driver jumped through all the hoops and went back for more material twice. He got another 1800 lbs on. It took two hours to load, weigh, cuss, blow the load down, reload, weigh, cuss some more, and call the office.
At his hourly rate the driver was losing us money every time he went back. The bran paid 20 bucks a ton.
The driver was one of our best guys so I know he wasn't milking it. He told me on the phone "Terry, if I keep going back for more material I'll be making more money on this load than you are."
LOL...I think we'd already passed that point.

.

 

Well for me it depends. If it's a flat rate load then I load 24-25 tons unless it calls for less tonnage. If I get pad by the ton and I don't go near scales I load 29 tons (only have two axle dump trailer). It's all about more money for less tonnage but the shippers want more for less.

 

They do that with hydrated lime. That stuff goes in those surreal tall pneumatic trailers, fluffy and a mess, rarely fills full first time. They asked, with a straight face, why I didn't want to haul it. Give me cement and fly ash any day.

Now, hauling nitrogen, we are concerned with weight because we run interstate, but the client is interested in cubic feet. They don't like seeing less that 500,000 on the BOL. I've got 535-something back there now, still at 79.5, key is unloading thoroughly so the BOL number looks impressive. Takes a few extra minutes with the pump running slow and using the recirc to keep it from cavitating and I look like I'm killin' it.

 

We've hauled hydrated lime too, but not much of it.
We're slow learners but it finally dawned on us why shippers, with great access to local and readily available trucking, we're calling us country boys from way up in the boonies to come haul their loads.
Nobody local wanted to haul that crap, that's why. They'd been through that mill and hadn't had any luck so they turned down the loads.
I had a shipper ask me for other trucking companies when I turned him down. I suggested the Union Pacific Railroad.

 

The Utterly Pathetic deserves freight like that.