11000 Lbs One Piece

Marc, in my opinion the answer is YES. Especially in the front to keep the crate from sliding forward. Load lock bars both front and back. Side to side depends on the width of the crate. A number of times I picked up a pre-loaded trailer that had a seal already in place. I never really liked that because I wanted to see how the trailer was loaded. But it is what it is. Sometimes loads were secured by 2X4 blocks gun nailed to the floor. That was good, but it's always a pain to pull those nails. After the first time, I added a medium sized crow bar to my tool supply. And even then, sometimes I had to get a vice grip on the nail and then use the crow bar. Gun nails have glue on the skank that activates from the friction as the nail goes in. And when it goes into an oak trailer floor, it really takes a grip.

Made it all the way safely, no damage, went super slow around all bends and babied other bumpy parts of drive. I’ve already told my FM I’m not doing a load like that again, I’d refuse it if I found it like that at customer. Was wrong when I thought it was good to go, the customer I delivered to can’t unload it because it is not a flatbed and said customer in Wisconsin should know better. They have to get a rigging crew to come out and unload from trailer Tuesday or Wednesday at earliest, $1500-$2000 which they are billing to customer in WI. I dropped the trailer and bob tailed to my next load at fedex in Memphis.

Whew! Glad you made it Mik. Thanks for posting this and the photos because it was a great learning experience.

I wonder if this load was created by the same guy that I dealt with in Iowa back in January. A company in the bowels of North Central Iowa that made injection molded plastic parts for the medical industry close their plant, and Outsource all their manufacturing overseas. A Canadian Corporation came in and bought all of the equipment, and hired a rigger service to load it into containers for shipment to one of the Stans.

When I got there with my 45 foot container, I ask the project manager what the weight of the product was going to be. He told me, confidently, 38000 pounds. The rigger, a good old boy with Truck Driving Experience, snuck the information to me that he thought they were going to be heavier than that, and I need to check my drive axle weight real carefully.

After they shoved everything into the container, and did a decent job of securement, I pulled the load out of the sloped loading dock, got it level, and saw that this suspension pressure gauge said my drives were close to 34,000, most likely legal, or I could make adjustments on the fifth wheel to get it to work.

I pulled it ten miles to the QuikTrip, set it down on the cat scale , and found out I was 12 and some change on my steers, 34500 on my drives (5th wheel workable), and somewhere north of "WOW!" on my trailer axles. Communicated this to driver mgr, and let him know my plan was to take it back and get a rework done on the load. Yeah, I know... Anyway...

Haul that bad boy back to the shipper , the project manager had already left for the 45-minute drive to the hotel that he was staying at. The rigor finally got ahold of the guy, he drove back to the shipping location, now about 8 at night, and tried to convince me that I really could pull that load, and he would pay extra if I would carry the load anyway. He suggested back roads, avoid scales, all the tips and sneaky things that other drivers might be willing to do.

I informed him that him attempting to convince me through financial compensation to engage in a violation of the Federal Motor Carrier safety act was a federal offense, and borderlined on dragging me into a conspiracy to commit said offense. It did get a little personal when he told me I had no idea what I was talking about. I was instructive in my experience prior to getting behind the wheel of a truck, and bluntly told him I would be happy to have a conversation with the Iowa highway patrol, and pulled my phone out...

He sagely opted to pay the rigger extra money to rework the load, which , while a better example of load integrity was still overweight on my steers, and now overweight on my drives. After I got off the cat scale and went to park my truck he went into the scale operator, and got the cat scale ticket. When he saw that we were still over he got even more insistent on offering to pay the company more to haul the load knowing that it was overweight. I called my boss, and put him on the phone with the shipper.

Upshot of a deal was, they took one piece of equipment off, he needed an extra container, I had a legal load and a 10-hour, and our company contacted the Intermodal coordinator and informed them of this guy's actions, his understating of weights, and informed them that we would not be doing business with him again.

What I took out of this was never haul industrial equipment that doesn't fit onto a standard or oversized pallet. The stuff is shipped to the businesses in parts and assembled on-site. It's just too darn heavy, and as you noted unstable, to haul in a standard container or van. Flatbed is about the only option for this stuff.

Intermodal would require a flat rack to handle the load.

You know, you'd think if it was your job to schedule loads or find a truck to haul a load, you might actually be good at it. Its astonishing how many people go through life sucking.

You know, you'd think if it was your job to schedule loads or find a truck to haul a load, you might actually be good at it. Its astonishing how many people go through life sucking.

Actually, the rigger was amused by the fact that somebody finally stood up to this guy. Apparently, he had been understating weights on loads for weeks at this location. I think that drivers had been pulling the loads without even scaling them. That's why he suggested that I scale it. I told him anytime the bill of lading shows a weight over 30,000, I automatically scale. On a certified scale.

So, yeah, he sucked. But intentionally.

Mr. Curmudgeon,

Great story. One question...

I thought containers being made of steel these sorts of things could work (if legal weights). I thought the biggest issue with MikD's load was their placing it in an aluminum trailer.

What am I missing?

Yes I haul lots of forklifts. BobCat us correct.. they're bottom heavy, and have 3 wooden wedges surrounding every tire. The wedges are nailed through the floor of the trailer.

I've also hauled smaller tractors and other industrial equipment. Normally that stuff is crated and the crates are secured with wood wedges and 2x4 bracing, that's again, nailed THROUGH the floor of the trailer. I tend to haul much of what would be considered flatbed loads. The walls on these lightweight trailers flexes and bows, which is why we do not use load locks, because a load lock will bust through the side of the trailer. The only thing that stabilizes the wall panels is the floor and the ROOF of the trailer.

I too would have refused to haul that. I'd have made them get it off my trailer and called our safety director.

Surprised they ran this in a box, instead of a skateboard.

Rick

That was exactly my thought.

I’m not doing a load like that again, I’d refuse it if I found it like that at customer

Risk management is one of the most critical disciplines you must have to stay alive and stay in the game long term. About a dozen experienced drivers all said they wouldn't have hauled that load in the first place, and yet you did it anyhow. Now you're saying you would never do it again.

My question: If you knew it was dangerous, which you did, then why did you do it in the first place?