Going West with a reefer?
 

I think that it is possible to do better. I haul reefer freight between Bronx, NY and California. When going west I start from NY to Chicago for $600-650 mostly dry freight, after I picking up i Chicago area going CA for 2100-2300. I think maybe adding an additional stop off in Little Rock, AR or Omaha, NE would be beneficial. Still not sure about reefer lanes going West. Coming back to Bronx is not so bad $4500-$5300.

Just my .02, and take my observation with a grain of salt as I'm a leased o/o in a specialty niche...

It appears your NY to Chicago rates suck big time. At roughly 800 miles at 600 bucks and the OH/IN and possibly NY and IL tolls, you're taking an absolute beating.

The 2100-2300 ttt going 22-2300 miles to California, you're making a little money, but nothing to write home about.

I know a broker that does dry fright from Chicago to Denver for 2dpm, and Sony stuff to Alabama for 3dpm. He also has an abundance of salt loads this time of year, but they are super cheap.

From Cali, I wouldn't think it's hard to get 1.75 on your 3000 mile run. I get daily emails from Gallop Logistics with available loads, although the price isn't listed. Sometimes they send a separate email advertising $6000 for west to the east. If you google Gallop Logistics, I'm sure you'll find the page.

Likewise, you may want to change your operating areas. When I ran hhg, off the left coast, I'd often load for Texas and empty, then load from Texas back to the Midwest. I had to unload/reload instead of taking the trips from the west back to the midwest that I'd have to either wait for, or paid semi-decent at best.

Check the rates in different areas of the country and see if you can "pinball" your way through them going home, and possibly make some connections with brokers/shippers off the load boards. In the meantime, the load boards should have higher paying freight in certain areas, even if it is crap paying loadboard freight.

Also, following the freight isn't a bad idea. produce seasons (I hear ) change up seasonally. Florida outbound freight, Yuma AZ, and the Salinas valley always seem to be booming at one time or another.

Just my .02, and take my observation with a grain of salt as I'm a leased o/o in a specialty niche...

It appears your NY to Chicago rates suck big time. At roughly 800 miles at 600 bucks and the OH/IN and possibly NY and IL tolls, you're taking an absolute beating.

The 2100-2300 ttt going 22-2300 miles to California, you're making a little money, but nothing to write home about.

I know a broker that does dry fright from Chicago to Denver for 2dpm, and Sony stuff to Alabama for 3dpm. He also has an abundance of salt loads this time of year, but they are super cheap.

From Cali, I wouldn't think it's hard to get 1.75 on your 3000 mile run. I get daily emails from Gallop Logistics with available loads, although the price isn't listed. Sometimes they send a separate email advertising $6000 for west to the east. If you google Gallop Logistics, I'm sure you'll find the page.

Likewise, you may want to change your operating areas. When I ran hhg, off the left coast, I'd often load for Texas and empty, then load from Texas back to the Midwest. I had to unload/reload instead of taking the trips from the west back to the midwest that I'd have to either wait for, or paid semi-decent at best.

Check the rates in different areas of the country and see if you can "pinball" your way through them going home, and possibly make some connections with brokers/shippers off the load boards. In the meantime, the load boards should have higher paying freight in certain areas, even if it is crap paying loadboard freight.

Also, following the freight isn't a bad idea. produce seasons (I hear ) change up seasonally. Florida outbound freight, Yuma AZ, and the Salinas valley always seem to be booming at one time or another.

Seems way under the rate's. Long Island to CA is running about 4000.00. Chicago area to CA is 32-3500.00. Non produce from CA to NY is running 6000.00.

Once I took a load from Brooklyn, NY to Los Angeles with a drop off in Phoenix. Frozen food. TQL paid $2700. Spend around 100 on fuel. It was my last direct load from East going West. I would be so to find any broker willing to pay 3500 going west from NYC. What they mostly pay is 2200-2800. May be I don't know where to look? For the most part I took loads out from InternetTruckstop or TruckersEdge

Stay away from the CH,TQL's and keep calling. You'll find who is paying more.

How about we talk about going west "for" some reefer? :D

I live in NYC, so was thinking will be better off with a reefer, not sure now. When started had a problem with a load, so didn't get paid $5500 (air chute was turn apart). Now it kinda okey, but need find some lines or loads. It's sucks so much!

Can you expand on this. Who tore chute, why wasn't load paid, who got the food, etc.

Sounds like frozen produce.

I will never understand why one truck operations think they can make the big bucks by running water to water, especially from loadboards.... You can gross the same amount of revenue by running regionally with less wear and tear on your equipment, lower fuel and insurance expenses....... Which in turn puts more money in your pocket....

but he said he went from Brooklyn to LA and spent 100 bucks on fuel. he can get rich pretty quick with that truck!!

For that kind of fuel mileage, I'd buy one for my wife just to run around at home!!!

Sure, thank you for asking. It was my f...ing first reefer load, sorry for using such words here, but every time I think about it it's running me mad. The air chute was torn from the fan. I thought it should be that way. Silly. Get loaded at Salinas, CA. Broker is Riolo. The load was going to Jacksonville, FL. They put temp recording device at the very last pallet (now I put it always myself at senter of a load). That devise for some reason was shoving alarm signal , but I was told it's ok. At receiving in Publix the truck was unloaded and they said that the load was hot. They refused to load it back, motivating that the lettuce was packed in plastic bags with "Publix" logo. I asked to take a look at recording devise, but was told to go to hell! Security kicked me out. Later broker told me that they maybe will accept half load, but it was my bad day. By the way I insisted to measure temperature of the lettuce from the tail, where the lettuce was supposed to be the hottest, it was 42 and 41. I think in the middle it was definitely ok. My insurance did not pay the bill, air chute problems are not covered by OOIDA. Later I got a bill for $17000. Didn't paid it. Adjuster from Riolo called me 3 times, I refused to pay. Why should I? Lettuce was ok, at least in the middle. It could be sold at salvage value anyway. They send some bogus pictures of lettuce in garbage container, probably they use these pictures not once. That is the story.

There are no salvage "rights" on trademarked/logo'ed food products. Reefer breakdown would not pay because that is considered "driver error". No mechanical reason other than the chute which should have been repaired before loading.
The chute dis-connected at the front could easily have frozen the front of the load also.
Did USDA look at the load? What was thier determination of the quality?
Welcome to produce.

Konstantin,

Welcome to the produce business. Stay away from lettuce, cabbage and berries if you dont know how to handle those products when loading, enroute and at unload. That lettuce on the tail was bad or going bad at 42 degrees. About 6 years ago, I ate $17000 worth of lettuce and lost a load of cabbage the same year. Both loads werent pulped and I didnt tell the drivers to pulp, 3 pallets of the lettuce were brought straight from the field and loaded into the truck. Lessons learned, you are out of $5500, you could be out of $17000. The broker may threaten to sue, but they wont. As for your rates, you are definitely running for loadboard rates. Call Sy Katz in the market, he has loads back to NYC from all over the US. NY NJ PA to Chicago is not the move. PM me I can load you Queens to Louisville KY for better than that rate, then S IL into Southern Cal.

Just curious.... do you pay for the advertising of your borkerage that you do on this site ???

The rates you mentioned here are not the real rates at all.If you get $1/mile back to the west anywhere, you should call yourself extremely lucky or blessed.

Also,like someone else said,stay away from lettuce loads.I got burned too when i showed up with the first 6 pallets of the load frozen, on a lettuce load because of the damn chute.That chute is extremely important especially on sensitive loads like that.

Best of luck.

Know what you're doing and you won't have issues with lettuce or any other type of produce.

sounds like someone put him with a reefer without taking time to show him anything or making sure he understood the operation, a few hours training would have made all the difference

Dayum straight! :smokin:
I hauled frozen Chinese from San Diego to Chicago.
When they thawed out, you couldn't stop the bitchin' and complaining. :block:

One of friends, who is a reefer guy told about USDA inspection, when I talked to the broker I was sure he was on my side and do everything to help me out. Was probably wrong. He said the inspection is on it's way, but in the evening when I called him he said that there was no inspection of the load because I failed to ask for it in writing. WTF. Never told me to do that.

Bigdiesel, the message board is intended to be a place to help each other, with advice etc. No, I wouldn't call it advertising. Advertising is snake oil posters on TA about how to install Turbo 3000D. One friend of mine did and said it helped, just curious how deep can you believe in some idea. Luckily I read some posts here about 300D and spent my $200 on beer instead.

No I don't consider myself lucky, and 1$/mile is not good for me, I wouldn't start this topic if it was ok. $1/mile is a disaster. You could find a lot of loads from CR England for that price going West. It's a ripoff, and I never understand people who moves this freight, perhaps they are not familiar with accounting.

Lettuce from Salinas was my preferred produce from West since then, no problem whatsoever. Just check chute before loading, check temp on the back of a trailer couple of times a day, just in case, and pulp produce before loading. Hauled nearly 6-7 lettuce loads this summer. Still not sure about berries, everybody is telling to stay away fro them.

Thanks for your info!

What does "pulp produce" mean?

Pulping produce means you take the temp of the product by ramming a little pocket thermoeter into the center of the prodcut. Think putting a temp probe into a roast and you get the idea except we do the same thing with a head of Cabbage or lettuce.

Thanks.