What is the benefit of doubles?
 

I'm missing something here: Two 28 ft. trailers is only 56 feet, 3 feet more than a 53 ft. trailer. So what is the benefit?

Steve

3 feet, the ability to get a trailer into a tighter area, the ability to drop half your load in a yard, the ability to keep your customers' freight separated. Need I go on?

Still Puzzled
 

Pallets are four feet so the xtra three feet is unusable, most yards are huge so the need for 'tighter' is moot in my experience, dropping half a load is a waste of time if the option is moving a trailer once versus twice, and other than hazmat, why keep a load separated? The economics of using all space for freight is more important (in my thinking.)

Steve

Re: Still Puzzled
 

Trucker math.


28 feet / 4 feet = 7 rows of pallets. vs. 53 feet / 4 feet = 13 rows of pallets. This is assuming that you were actually correct on that 4 foot pallet size. I better tell that company that put 30 pallets in my trailer the other day with room for 2 more that they need to take 4 pallets off me.

truck pulling 2 pup's leaves chicago stops at milwaukee drops 1 pup to be unloaded picks up 1 loaded pup and runs (with two) to green bay.

not all freight is on pallets (ever heard of floor load) and few very pallets are 4ft X 4ft i've had loads were they truned the pallets sideways so they could load two more if they were 4 X 4 that wouldn't work.

we run alot of fedex, ups, bax & conway and about 30% of the load is on the floor. to big or to long to sit on a pallet.

Good Points
 

OK, thanks for the pointer. There is multiple layers to this so bear with me. We have about 11 trucks (53 ft.) running every week from Indianapolis to NC, so I'm trying to think through the economics of going to doubles.

So if we could add an extra row of pallets to each load, do you think this would justify the purchase of doubles? Just assuming general LTL commodity prices, I'm not sure the benefit outweghs the upfront cost of purchasing set ups for doubles (trailers, dolly's, etc.)

Steve

Re: Still Puzzled
 

Is the 28 feet measured on the inside? or on the outside???

Re: Still Puzzled
 

sound like you have never been to a ups/overnight of a fedex/watkins were they have to use a yard dog to put my 53 in and out of the dock because their isn't enought room to turn around a highway truck,

Re: Still Puzzled
 

Ask the OP. I was using his numbers. :wink:

Benefits

1. Single drive axle on the tractor=better fuel economy and more maneuverable and longer tire life and less tare weight.

2. Easier weight distribution because of the axles being out at the end.

3. No more sliding axles

Pitfalls

1. Reverse? HA (disclaimer, I have seen some do it, but not without the aid of witchcraft)

2. Gotta chain up alot more often than a tandem in the winter

3. There is a reason they are called wiggle wagons. :lol:

4. Kind of a pain to make and break the set every time you need to bump a dock.

Usually, pups are used in LTL business, then you can do multiple drop & hooks with a variety of different stops by simply dropping one pup & hooking to another.

Very common in LTL business, also you can put more weight on 2 pups than on one trailer. Up here at least. :D :D

LTL company's haul time sensitive freight. They use pups because they have less than a truck load of freight. Instead of mixing it with all the other freight going in same direction into a 53 foot trailers they load them on pups so the trailers don't have to be loaded and unloaded at every terminal the freight runs through.

It's very rare you have all your freight on the same size pallets so forget pallet size and trailer size, it's irrelevant. A single axle tractor pulling a set of doubles can haul more tonnage than OTR truck. I can't remember the exact numbers but at Conway I think we could legally haul 52k if it was loaded right.

I don't think a set of doubles would be very efficient pulling from one terminal to another? It is more efficient though when you have several different terminals.

That's it...sort of. The company I am leased onto uses pups alot as we have alot of small terminals in every dinky little town in the north, so our configurations are mostly Rocky Mountain Doubles, which is a 48 or 53 ft lead, which will go to a larger terminal & a 27-30 ft pup which will be dropped at the small terminal. This works very well as most of the small terminals will only take a pup load of freight & it beats the heck out of sitting around waiting for them to unload you.

As far as the weights go...for me 2 pups haul more than a single trailer & the Rocky configuration is more than a triaxle. Our weight are significantly higher here so no point in mentioning them. :D :D

Hmm...Maybe not
 

No, I've never delivered to UPS/FedEx/etc. But I've been to a number of places where you'd say "No Way". But if you didn't get it in there, you'd be stuck with the load.

From what I'm reading, for us, there would be no additional benefit to going with doubles. I was thinking primarily of the added freight-room. Since much of our freght is the same as many of you mention; oddball sizes with pallets sprinkled throughout the trailer, it seems that the extra headache of unhooking would cost drivers time, among other things.

What do you think?

Steve

Re: Hmm...Maybe not
 

Once you get familiar with pulling doubles, breaking them and hooking them doesn't take much time at all. After a while you will learn to back the lead with the dolly and then you can just about hook a set of doubles in just about the same amount of time as a 53.

After pulling doubles for a couple years, I prefer to pull doubles than a 53ft.

In addition to the cargo space issue you have to consider the weight of what you haul, customer preferences, etc.

Because pups are usually single axle you will not be able to load as much weight into one as you could a tandem axle trailer. In addition you are not going to be able to load a pup to its legal limit and haul it with another pup also loaded to its legal limit as you are still constrained by the 80,000 lb gross that most states go by.

If you worked in LTL freight or small package multiple stop kind of stuff it would make more sense. City drivers pick up freight. That freight is all brought back to the home terminal, stripped and reloaded on outbound pups based on destination. Road drivers come in and grab two pups, one for Columbus and the other to St Louis. He goes to Columbus and drops both, one goes to the dock to be sorted and segregated and the other goes the yard where another driver will hook it with a Kansas City trailer. When he gets to St Louis, well you get it! Meanwhile the original driver hooks two Youngstown trailers, one off the dock in Columbus, the other a direct load out of Memphis and returns to Youngstown. Where he then goes home and sleeps in his own bed. On the OH and IN turnpike we can pull triples for even more flexibility. Basically the more headloads we can build with the smaller trailers allows us to move freight through the system faster by not putting every trailer to the dock. You have to understand the network. We have over 200 terminals and at least 15,000 pups. Flexibility is the biggest reason.