I am looking at a truck and I am seriously considering purchacing it. I can lease on with my current carrier I drive for but I am looking to get home every other night. I live in Nyc and alot of intermodel comes out of North Jersey and was wondering if anyone here has their own athority and only has a tractor and pulls intermodel. Is this vesable and does anyone here do this? Can anyone give any suggestions?

 

I do- [email protected] send me a mail

 

Most of the yards up here in New England have "O/O's wanted" signs up with a number you can call or even an office on site. Pay isn't great and you really need a smallish daycab to do the city runs - but seems most o/o's try to run old otr sleepers, that's gotta suck! If you can do most of your own maintenance you can survive...

 

Intermodal and containers are the bottom of the barrel, they pay lousy, long waits in the piers that you don't get paid for, and heavy heavy loads, and some of the worst equipment on the road.

As far as your own authority to do it, you couldn't afford the insurance that the steamship requires, thats why there are no real independents in the piers.

 

Plenty of independants run up here in New Engalnd with their own authority and/or leased to a container company. I've never heard of insurance being an issue?

As to waits, depends on the yard - the yards up here in New England range from just OK to excellent. I have heard bad things about that NJ port - but there is more than one reason why NJ is called "The Armpit State" :lol: !

As far as MA ports go, The Boston port is very good, the two in Worcester a notch up from that even. The one in Alston is "just OK". The ones in Ayer and Randolph are good.

I've yanked quite a few containers with my single axle - only one was "close" to overweight. Lots of under 30k loads! Of course, we only haul overflow from one of our sister carriers and then I'd guess we would take the lightest of those going out? Max I've heard of was 41k which is only a couple K over my legal - but I can't push back the tandems on a 20 footer as that would make my drive over so I might sometimes be a bit ifffy on bridge law when up in the upper 30K range :wink: .