Small Flatbed Load Going 950 Miles.

Here is a load that we dropped last night. 71k gross. We teamed on this one to get it there in a hurry as requested.

Oh and the guy that built hwy 50 from Montrose, CO to Gunnison, CO must have been following a billy goat that was dragging a snake.

Nice!

I will say...flatbed will give you a whole lot of variety. I mean, so will dry van and the others....but it's not as interesting when you can't see what might fall off your trailer!

Oh and the guy that built hwy 50 from Montrose, CO to Gunnison, CO must have been following a billy goat that was dragging a snake.

Man, I feel ya. Switchbacks, right?

-mountain girl

Enjoy your time here, in CO. It's very pretty this week...

-mountain girl

Here is a load that we dropped last night. 71k gross. We teamed on this one to get it there in a hurry as requested.

Very cool! Sounds like it was a good mission.

Pat, thanks for posting that. I love the variety of this job, and I enjoy posting some of my interesting flat-bed loads here for people to see. We do some crazy stuff sometimes, and it's fun to share it with others here. I'll never forget the time I hauled a 12 foot wide over sized load, and my permits routed me through some pig-trail roads in Pennsylvania due to construction on the interstate. I kept coming up on Amish buggies filled with Amish families en route to some Amish function. I was a nervous wreck, I just knew I was about to knock someone right out of their buggy and into the next world, but we somehow all managed to squeeze by each other on those narrow little roads. Every day is a new adventure doing this stuff.

They requested that it be down there ASAP for a construction job in resort town. Because we drove as a team, from the time we loaded to the time we unloaded, it was just about 24 hours exactly. Not a heavy driving as it was only about 15 hours but not something one driver could have done in a day. We don't usually drive teams but we do when necessary. One scale called us in and told us we were overweight... LOL not even close the second time we went across.

Yesterday was a good drive home with no rain the entire way. Empty we were able to fly... 70 mph. lol

Old School....

I love flatbedding. A couple of weeks ago we hauled 2 dump truck pup trailers. And before that it was a big oversized screening plant. All that along with trees, concrete pipe, concrete manholes, 43k concrete blocks that are 12' wide, scrap steel, vehicles and anything else that you can strap or chain to the bed of the trailer. You are either cut out to do flatbedding or you are not.

Brett.... I could not do this if the only thing that changed on the trailer behind me was the paint. I did pull a van the other day and I have to admit there was not a worry in the world on my part that day about anything falling off.

On the way back I kept running into this.......

It was not until I got to Idaho that I found an open scale and with that, we only hit 2 open scales in 950 miles.

I forgot to add that I had to argue with the boss about the securement.

On the man basket the 2 2" ratchet straps were more than enough but it needed 2 of them to keep it from spinning. The same thing with the bucket, 2 chains were overkill but we had to keep it from twisting and coming loose.

Now on the forklift itself, he only wanted to put on 4 chains. These chains went from the securement points to one side of the trailer each. He stated that is how so and so does it. But we were using 5/16" chain and so and so uses 3/8" chain.

On the back you have to go from the anchor point to one side or you will remove paint. On the front you can go to both sides with the chain. So here is how it is figured with 3/8" chain.

The forklift has a weight of 35,000 pounds so you need to have 17,500 pounds of securement.

Chain 1 through 1 front securement point and secured to both sides of the trailer = 6600 lbs of wll. (not secured to stake pockets or rub rail) Chain 2 through 2nd front securement point and secured to both sides of the trailer = 6600 lbs of wll. (not secured to stake pockets or rub rail) Chain 3 from securement point 1 on rear to one side of the trailer = 3300 lbs of wll Chain 4 from securement point 2 on rear to one side of the trailer = 3300 lbs of wll

Add these up and you have 19,800 pounds of combined wll so 4 chains is enough.

Now do the same thing the way the boss secured the equipment....

Chain 1 from front securement point to one side of the trailer = 2350 lbs of wll Chain 2 from front securement point to one side of the trailer = 2350 lbs of wll Chain 3 from rear securement point 1 to one side of the trailer = 2350 lbs of wll Chain 4 from rear securement point 2 to one side of the trailer = 2350 lbs of wll

Now if you add these you only come to 9700 lbs of wll. This is because we only went to one side of the trailer with the chain and not both sides with each chain so you are 8100 pounds short on securement.

I successfully argued my point even though he did not understand. I put a 5/16" chain across the boom on the front forks and attached to both sides of the trailer which added the full 4700 lbs of securement for that chain size. But that only equaled 14,400 lbs of wll and still short of the 17,500 lbs needed. To fix that I added a 3/8" chain across the back pintle hitch on the forklift and attached it to both sides of the trailer. This added another 6,600 lbs of wll for a total of 21,000 pounds of wll. Now we are well above the 17,500 pounds required to be legal.

Could we haul it with 4 chains? probably but I would not chance getting stopped and fined for improper securement, it is just not worth it.

By the way, that thing did not even move on the entire trip. Better safe than sorry. There is no such thing as too much securement when hauling on a flatbed.

If the securement device being it chain or strap, the wll is cut in half if only attached to one side of the trailer. Now there are other things to consider like the wll of the stake pockets of the trailer. Most of the time they are around 5000 to 5500 lbs. So with a 5/16" chain you get the full amount of wll for that chain but if you use a stake pocket for a 3/8" chain you will only be allowed the wll of the stake pocket so to get the full amount you have to attach to the outside frame instead of the stake pocket or you will only get credit for 5500 lbs of wll because of the stake pocket.

For those that don't know wll = working load limit