XPO | a limit needs to be put on weight off the floor1

[dalesr]

That's fine. If you are okay with it. I won't load them that way. In some earlier posts the guy said put the forklift in the nose , sideways , and put a sheet of plywood over the top , then load on that.

Everybody has their line , this happens to be mine. On our outbound I can't be sure I'll see enough freight or the right kind of freight to balance out a 4000 lb. in 4ft counterweight.

One thing is for sure : I will NEVER send you out with a load I wouldn't pull myself.

I like your last line there. I feel the same way and load each trailer that way. Too bad many dock workers (and some drivers) don't!

 

[dalesr]

How is most of the weight on the floor if you have one deck with 3000# on it alone ? I don't like high centers of gravity. And am not a fan of heavy crap on the decks.

Last night I had 6 skids of bags. I could have stacked directly on them. But they were perfect to drop decks over and stuff those decks with light freight. 13000# on the floor in 12 foot. And maybe 3000# over the course of three decks above it. With 3500# in the first 8 foot. I was at around 19500# with 8 feet to go on the trailer. All the weight in the center and low. Got 2500# more in there to finish it off. Good trailer.

A do keep most of the weight on the floor. I'm just not afraid to put 3k on a deck. Not 3k on every deck. I didn't word my last post quite right. If I see or load what I consider a top heavy trailer back to my sc where it will be stripped (not a pure where who knows the next guy pulling it), I let them know. Hey, this one's a little top heavy, or, hey, this ones a little heavy on the left or right, like with a forklift sideways. I'm usually not the only one loading our trailers, so we all share the knowledge of how they are loaded. Like icuicp said, I'd never load one I wouldn't pull and would never ask anyone to pull my stuff home. If I know I've got a funky load, or one I didn't see loaded, I also drive accordingly. All I'm saying there is it's different then pulling a set of or empty kite, or something you know has a low center of gravity or very light (I think I clarified that right?).

 

[Northern Flash]

One thing is for sure : I will NEVER send you out with a load I wouldn't pull myself.

I like your last line there. I feel the same way and load each trailer that way. Too bad many dock workers (and some drivers) don't!

Common sense and just simply "giving a damn" is always the best practice. If I would be uncomfortable pulling it, I wouldn't expect anyone else to pull it either.

Side note: I would never put a forklift in the nose. It's too much weight in front of the pin.

 

[BIG R GUY]

A do keep most of the weight on the floor. I'm just not afraid to put 3k on a deck. Not 3k on every deck. I didn't word my last post quite right. If I see or load what I consider a top heavy trailer back to my sc where it will be stripped (not a pure where who knows the next guy pulling it), I let them know. Hey, this one's a little top heavy, or, hey, this ones a little heavy on the left or right, like with a forklift sideways. I'm usually not the only one loading our trailers, so we all share the knowledge of how they are loaded. Like icuicp said, I'd never load one I wouldn't pull and would never ask anyone to pull my stuff home. If I know I've got a funky load, or one I didn't see loaded, I also drive accordingly. All I'm saying there is it's different then pulling a set of or empty kite, or something you know has a low center of gravity or very light (I think I clarified that right?).

A little top heavy, is too much top heavy. Just saying....

 

[highspeeds]

That's fine. If you are okay with it. I won't load them that way. In some earlier posts the guy said put the forklift in the nose , sideways , and put a sheet of plywood over the top , then load on that.

Everybody has their line , this happens to be mine. On our outbound I can't be sure I'll see enough freight or the right kind of freight to balance out a 4000 lb. in 4ft counterweight.

One thing is for sure : I will NEVER send you out with a load I wouldn't pull myself.

Exactly. Load it like you are the one pulling it. And if something got a little of wack, let everyone know you want to be the one to pull that one. Once you tell them about it, they usually pull it anyway. But better that they know before they leave out with it.

 

[highspeeds]

A do keep most of the weight on the floor. I'm just not afraid to put 3k on a deck. Not 3k on every deck. I didn't word my last post quite right. If I see or load what I consider a top heavy trailer back to my sc where it will be stripped (not a pure where who knows the next guy pulling it), I let them know. Hey, this one's a little top heavy, or, hey, this ones a little heavy on the left or right, like with a forklift sideways. I'm usually not the only one loading our trailers, so we all share the knowledge of how they are loaded. Like icuicp said, I'd never load one I wouldn't pull and would never ask anyone to pull my stuff home. If I know I've got a funky load, or one I didn't see loaded, I also drive accordingly. All I'm saying there is it's different then pulling a set of or empty kite, or something you know has a low center of gravity or very light (I think I clarified that right?).

But if there is 3K on the deck there is almost certainly less than 3K on the floor below it. It makes me ask why you wouldn't reverse that. Put the 3K on the floor and whatever else on the deck ? And if you had something heavier on the floor for 4K then put the 3K and the 4K on the floor with probably 1K on each deck above them that makes 9K in 8 feet. A pretty heavy trailer you are working on there. The justification for 3K on the deck is difficult for me to rationalize.

 

[icuicp]

I worked outbound for a couple of hours Friday. I broke 3 city trailers. Loaded some outbound trailers. I was disappointed with one of our dockworkers. Docking freight that could have been loaded ( waiting on someone else to build a rack ) Floor loading freight that should be racked ( it's easier to floor load ) and finally , stacking bigger freight on top of smaller freight ( it would have fell over as soon as the driver hooked his set )

I probably would have broke 6 trailers instead of 3 if I wasn't going around fixing these issues every few minutes.

Oh , and if I bring this to managements attention , they will probably attack the messenger instead of attacking the problem. But , I will still bring this up on Monday with the terminal manager.

 

[dalesr]

But if there is 3K on the deck there is almost certainly less than 3K on the floor below it. It makes me ask why you wouldn't reverse that. Put the 3K on the floor and whatever else on the deck ? And if you had something heavier on the floor for 4K then put the 3K and the 4K on the floor with probably 1K on each deck above them that makes 9K in 8 feet. A pretty heavy trailer you are working on there. The justification for 3K on the deck is difficult for me to rationalize.

I get what you are saying, I wouldn't put 7-8k in a 4 foot space between the floor and the rack. I wouldn't have to have the heavy freight under the heavy top freight, and yes, light freight up as much as possible. We deal with a lot of timing chains and oil rig chains on our outbound. If a couple have to go up, they do. We load some on the floor, dock the rest and wait to see what comes down the dock. They go on the floor as much as possible but if you don't have a lot of lighter freight to go on the racks, then they go up. One other thing to consider is how high up the racks are. If the racks are as low as they can go, I am more comfortable with more weight. I know a driver that put his heavy kite on the guardrail of an on ramp. He blamed it on load shift. We opened the trailer when it was towed in, everything was floor loaded and strapped in. One of our l/h guys loaded that trailer and we knew it was loaded right. The state trooper that filled out the report also said load shift as the cause (not speed or driver error) and the driver was not charged.