Where to find a driver for interstate delivery

No no no, forget the forwarding and logistics companies. It's entirely too much hassle that way. I work in LTL freight dealing with shipments such as yours on a regular basis, and I can tell you that the phrase "too many cooks spoil the broth" is no more true than in my line of work. The broker will give the carrier wrong information and things will get all screwed up.

What you want to do is call a carrier directly. ABF may be able to help you. R+L Carriers offers free liftgate service, as another option.

The first thing you need to do is package the stuff for transport, meaning secured to pallets and stretchwrapped, because the carrier needs to be able to handle it easily and efficently. If it's large, you need to have a way to load it, because liftgates are only good for standard size skids.

Once you do this, call the corporate office of the carrier of your choice and ask for their rates department. You'll need to describe the shipment, meaning how many pallets, or how big it is if it's a density item, and you'll need to tell them the estimated weight, and the destination.

They will then quote you a price. Take note of the quote number, for when they transfer you to their collections dept. if you want to pay for it then and there with a credit card.

You could also send it "collect", meaning the receiver will be responsible for the freight charges at the time of delivery. But he better know about this ahead of time or he may refuse delivery and the shipment will come back to you.

 

No, these questions are not ridiculous.

48"x40"

It depends on the items in question. Some things handle stacking better than others, such as tile.

I will assume for the moment, from the information you've provided, that the freight in question is dense, and is packaged in 1 cubic foot boxes. You should be able to put 60 of those on a standard size pallet, and a 30 lbs per ft, that would be an 1800 lb skid. That's heavy, but it's doable with a pallet jack.

This will work out to about a 12 skid shipment.

You need not worry about this. Most pallet jacks are rated for 5000 lbs or more.

The carrier (not the driver) has insurance that covers the freight they carry.

Matters not, freight is freight. The carrier's job is simply to move it from here to there.