If you can scale 47,000 I don't know why they have trouble...yeah the spread might be an issue,,,,but that would only be in the US. I wonder........haven't you had trouble with a few loads because the axles wouldn't scale? What would a McKinnon company driver done in that situation? I wonder if the dispatcher is getting payback.

 

I'm not a fan of bouncing from from job to job but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I'd be asking every step deck O/O I saw about their co. There's better co's out there than MacKinnon anyways. I know one (BPF from Sarnia) but none of there o/o run sliders on their steps.

 

I talked to the leasing company who financed the tarp and they said there is a way out. Basically, I can either cancel the contract and totally bail, which is not what I want to do. In this case, I'd owe them all the remaining lease payments for the 55 or so months (!). Option #2 is called a " discounted trade-up" and the key work here is discounted: if I'm entering into a new lease, they will give me a DISCOUNT on the buyount of the current contract. She said, "Go to the dealer and let them give you a trade-in value of your trailer and tarp, meanwhile we'll look at the numbers on our end".

So, looks like it's doable. I just need to get GE Capital who leased me the trailer do the same discounted thing. Waiting for a call-back from them.

 

I never understood your desire to put the conestoga kit on in the first place, except that you didn't want to have to work hard to tarp. Since this is a done deal, looks like you haven't given yourself much of an option, except spending money...or seeking your own "special" freight.

 

I emailed my Dispatch and asked them how many trucks my load planner handles and how many planners there is in our Flatbed Division. Just got a reply, grammar and spelling unchanged

"D. only looks after the Tandem guys 50 of you."

So, it's not like there's one guy handling 200 flatbeds ... because we also have a "heavy board" which deals with drivers pulling multi-axle flatbed trailers.

Regarding the weight capacity, I did lose a couple of loads because my trailer axles can only take 34,000 lbs. One example were paired bundles of marble plates, and the way they load them is like glass panels: they are leaning on each other. I was picking up 6 of these bundles, so they said they need to load them 2+2+2. The weight was close to the max (46,000) and each bundle was about 10 feet long. My lower deck is 37', right, but the distance to the rear wheels is about 26' ... I know if I go past this 26' mark (the front axle) WITHOUT LOADING ANYTHING ON THE UPPER DECK, I'd have more than 34,000 lbs on the trailer.

I asked them to split the bundles and put 1 on the top deck, then 2+2 and then 1 in the very end, near the wheels. The shipper said "no" (they are top heavy and prone to falling if not braced against each other). So I took that time the way they wanted ... When I scaled I was 36,500 on the trailer axles.

This is just one example where a 10'1" spread would come in handy. Needless to say, I'm not carrying those marble panels anymore (they paid okay going into US out of London, ON).

Basically, MacKinnon's position is that if you have a dropdeck/stepdeck it should be OPEN, with no sliding tarp, and if you want a sliding tarp, then get a flatbed trailer. They are okay with a Conestoga flatbed.

 

Took my trailer to the dealer in Milton. Gonna know the trade-in value on Monday. Also called GE Capital and Mapel Lease to get their "trade-up" numbers (if I enter another lease). So far I've heard from GE. They said, the discounted buy-out is $37,758 and the regular buy-out (walk away) is $45,435. Which is better than what I expected because the Cnd vs US $ exchange is so much better now. (Saw a 53 foot all-aluminum Mac with a rear axle slider and it's selling - brand new - for only US$33,000!).

 

I imagine these shippers have contacted McKinnon and told them not to send you in there again (it's happened to me). After this happens a couple of times, it gets old from a dispatcher perspective and I supsect what you're hearing is the fallout.

Almost anything you can put on a flat you can put on a step with levellers. The only thing I can think of is because the steps are heavier to begin with, adding tarp system makes it even heavier and that sytem must have put you over the limit.

What do they say you need for a tare?

 

I know some owner operators who have Conestoga's on a step deck. They are leased to CRST Malone and mostly run out of Fontana, CA. The last time I ran into them they were staying busy. I believe they both had spreads. I think the main problem with your set up is learning how to load a fixed closed tandem. Some loaders get confused as to where the middle of the trailer is located. They try to center freight on the bottom deck while forgetting that there is also an upper deck to consider. A sliding rear axle would be a good option if you decide to get out from under the trailer. It would save you some tire wear when not needing it open. I have a friend who has a 8' spread and is thinking about moving the front axle back to make a closed tandem. Unless you have a sliding tandem it can be a challenge to get the weights right when you are pulling a heavy load.

 

32,500 lbs. I'm at 33,000 lbs with the drive steel wheels and the Conestoga. I actually got rid of my levelers a while back because I had nowhere to store them on the trailer. The Conestoga folks put bolts through the 2 special stake pockets Wilson made for the load levelers in the front of the lower deck, and I had to move the darn 100 lb levelers practically each time I was loading something on the upper deck. In 8 months Dispatch found only 3 loads that required load levelers so I got rid of them.

The short spread is - I think - a more important issue because I can't haul 40,000 lbs in the rear. I talked to one shop that specializes in trailer modification and they said:

- moving the front axle to the 10'1" position would cost roughly $5,000
- adding a third axle in the middle would cost roughly $10,000

All this when a brand new 48' Trascraft EAGLE flatbed with a 10'1" spread can be had here for US$27,000.

 

I remember Alan wrote drivers in his company were saying it was always easier to position the load properly on a step if you have a really short spread. I think they use a 72" spread while mine is 61". I myself kind of like it because it's good for fuel economy and the tires.

I also learned pretty quickly how to load my step: all I do is tell shippers to center the load against the signal light in the middle of the lower deck. I tell them, "If you go beyond the front axle of the trailer, you have to put something on the upper deck". Basically, as long as the load is centered like this, even with the Conestoga I can take 47,000 lbs. What I cannot do though is take a heavy load that cannot be spread over the upper deck, for example a 33 ft long grader or scraper. If I put it on the lower deck, the trailer axles would definitely go over the 34,000 lb limit because the rear of the scraper/grader (33 ft long) will be past the front axle of the trailer.

But what I also noticed is that shippers will nod their head when I tell them about the signal light being in the center and then they proceed to load me as if I had a 10'1" spread. They just don't listen ...