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TForce | Has anyone heard about using vans for outbound moves?

Apostolic

Apostolic

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Using these pups have some logic of not having to break down full van loads to be able to fill out a pup with a large order and not have to touch it from origin to destination.
But the way the back axel is fixed on these pups,they are like driving diving boards,with no flex boxes bouncing down the highway.

Whatever you run over with the back wheels causes whatever is inside to fly around if it isnt lashed down.

I heard some of our outbound dock crew talking about the company may be going to try using vans?

Thats all that New penn uses to haul their freight,and they have few claims with fallen freight.

The load racks are good as long as the freight is secured,but if theres any room for skids to move in a pup than they will just have that much farther to go off a load rack,from the outbound terminal to the final inbound terminal, theres a lot of damage before the freight is unloaded for delivery.

Its hard enough to make money in LTL with the deep discounts,if we could cut the claims down,we'd be able to realize that much more profit.

What do you truckingboard folks think?
 
Apostolic said:
Using these pups have some logic of not having to break down full van loads to be able to fill out a pup with a large order and not have to touch it from origin to destination.
But the way the back axel is fixed on these pups,they are like driving diving boards,with no flex boxes bouncing down the highway.

Whatever you run over with the back wheels causes whatever is inside to fly around if it isnt lashed down.

I heard some of our outbound dock crew talking about the company may be going to try using vans?

Thats all that New penn uses to haul their freight,and they have few claims with fallen freight.

The load racks are good as long as the freight is secured,but if theres any room for skids to move in a pup than they will just have that much farther to go off a load rack,from the outbound terminal to the final inbound terminal, theres a lot of damage before the freight is unloaded for delivery.

Its hard enough to make money in LTL with the deep discounts,if we could cut the claims down,we'd be able to realize that much more profit.

What do you truckingboard folks think?
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You are right Apostolic.....anything loaded on the rear of a pup gets bounced around quite a bit. RDWY came up with "the closer" idea. Deck bars, dunnage and air bags to keep freight loaded on the rear intact. Vans with their longer wheel base don't bounce up and down as bad. In the past 8 months RDWY has invested in a number of 53 foot trailers. With the longer trailers freight isn't cramed into the smaller space and damages are reduced. If you had a way of controlling it, skids in the nose and loose, hand freight on the rear could cut down on claims. At RDWY we aren't supposed to load hazmat in the last 8 feet of a pup. I'm surpised that UPSF doesn't use more of them. DS.
 
10-4 driver!!

I've been with 15 LTL trucking companies in my 43 years of driving.
They all had damages mostly from going from the origin,to the destination terminals.
The way the freight was loaded,and secured,or just shoved in crammed,and slammed to get the most loaded as they could.
I know a lot of dockwokers that just can't relate to whats going to take place in transit of customers shippments.
But the one thing I've always thought is that if any company could deliver all the freight the same condition it was picked up.
regardless of what their freight rates may be,they would be hauling most of the freight.

Sounds to me like Roadway is headed in the right direction with their outbound loads.

Maybe UPS Freight can learn from proven methods of other trucking companies.
I can only hope,its very hard facing a customer with a damaged shippment.
In fact its down right embarasing.
 
When I worked at Carolina, they used air bags, cardboard and pallets to brace and secure the laods. Dont recall any loads coming in all banged up.
 
Go on out there and hustle up some new accounts so them pups get loaded top to bottom and front to back . Then your freight won't rattle around !!!
 
Well the use of vans to move UPS Freight is just one..

more item that no-one seems to know anything about as usual?
I guess it was just wishful thinking of a few of our terminals outbound dock crew,that I walked into on my way home late thrusday night?

Just another good idea,that turns out to be a no-go with the UPS Freight outbound moves.

I'm kind of sick of hearing about all the lost revenue with shortage,and damage,when we have our quarterly meetings.
Because it never seems like the powers that be ever address the cure for healling the problems?

I think I've posted this before?
I've been with 15 LTL Trucking companies in my 43 year driving carrer.
11 of them,are bankrupt,all union I might add.
The stated reason for going under was poor management.

I wounder if any of them would still be in buisness if they would of listend to their workers?
 
Loading vans works for companies like New Penn and NEMF because they are regional carriers and are loading direct terminal to terminal.

Now what I heard was UPS wanted us to stop stacking skids on top of other skids, though I have yet to see much proof that this is policy, and I would imagine logistically it would be a nightmare.

Pulling a van would be so much nicer on my back, but it really would not make much sense except on very short hauls where a van can be used to shuttle freight.
 
Apostolic said:
more item that no-one seems to know anything about as usual?
I guess it was just wishful thinking of a few of our terminals outbound dock crew,that I walked into on my way home late thrusday night?

Just another good idea,that turns out to be a no-go with the UPS Freight outbound moves.

I'm kind of sick of hearing about all the lost revenue with shortage,and damage,when we have our quarterly meetings.
Because it never seems like the powers that be ever address the cure for healling the problems?

I think I've posted this before?
I've been with 15 LTL Trucking companies in my 43 year driving carrer.
11 of them,are bankrupt,all union I might add.
The stated reason for going under was poor management.

I wounder if any of them would still be in buisness if they would of listend to their workers?
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Apo don't let them snowball you. The only time you will here about damages,is when reweighs and freight reclassification $$$$ don't equal damages. If these things do not balance that's when the company starts to beef. And I am not just talking about upsf,all the ltl companies.:Banger-Cow:
 
For all the lost revenue in claims you'd think they could..

improve their freight handling technics.
It wouldn't hurt to try using vans on a trial baces.

another thing they could try is to use ratchet starps to lash down skids to the E-track on the sides of the newer pup trailers.

I saw a Jevic trailer at one of my stops that had that very thing,even though he had a 53 foot trailer his skids were decked on the tops of other skids,the ratchet starps kept everthing in place.

The load racks we use are a very good idea for stacking skids without crushing the bottom skids,but if a skid falls off a rack its very hard to get righted,as well as it crushing whatever freight it falls on.
The thing with a pup,no matter how you try to close it out with skids,and dunage,when it starts bouncing down the road.
even one spot opening up in route will cause whatever is around it to fall.

I can only hope there may be a UPS Freight supervisor reading these truckingboards that can put our good ideas into practise.
Because everytime I run any ideas past my TM,he always says,thats a good idea,than just forgets about it.
 
We just started getting airbags on the dock here in Milwaukee 101 last month and our TM hasn't mentioned if our DPE has dropped yet. They come in handier than I ever thought. The freight stays there! Pallets for dunnage are extremely hard to come by here and often there are none at all to start an O/B shift. Talk about frustrating! All too often freight is still loaded out and fingers are crossed that it makes posted service time damage free. One time with any question of ride quality is too many. I agree with Apostolic, and we've been told that customers are willing to take a hit in transit time of a day or so if the freight consistently gets to them in the shape it left the shippers dock.

More stack racks and adequate E-track bars in the ex-Overnite 26-4xxx+ and ex-MC pups that are supposed to have them would be a near god-send. The plywood sheets we use with cardboard for stacking are 48x48 and care has to be used loading freight around them to avoid catching them or pinching the freight with the overhang from the skid in front. The next size aquired should be 40x48 I hope, but we've seen some 48x48 lately with short boards on the bottom for decking. Handy if there are bars to deck on. The straps would be nice too if we had some for linehaul trailers. A few city drivers have bought their own and it has saved some recouping time. There have been new ratchet handle load bars we have been using in linehaul also. We can do it if we have the tools.

As far as vans go, as an EOL terminal, the only vans we ship out are when we run out of pups, maybe twice a week, or if we get any in that are domiciled somewhere else and have to go back. Usually somewhere in the SOH MH area, but occasionally from FON or DAL. OVNZ 92 series, 51 series, and leased 45 and 48 foot rails are occasional visitors (OVNZ 45 series are extermely rare here) but hard to load anywhere other than HRS. And the fact we have no tandem tractors in Milwaukee means we have to be very careful loading them to avoid overweight on the drive axle. We could load them to capacity if there were tractors available to pull them legally.

I wonder if the new Great Dane vans coming with 8 load bars has any intended disposition down the road? Our city units definitely don't require 8 bars and many guys have either stowed them at the roof in the front where it would be impossible to get them if you needed them at the rear (extremely slim chance) or taken them off except one or two. Maybe it's just a way to get more bars into the system on a pricing deal where they were included with the new vans. Or maybe vans will be worked into linehaul in more lanes. A couple 53'ers and a tandem tractor would do us more good than the costs of jo-dogs and pups and the associated time involved making and breaking sets in short haul (108 mi. one way) double turns from here to SOH. Pups will still be best in certain lanes though. Just hope UPS doesn't press for Rocky Mountain doubles. LOL

Now if we could only get SOH to put away the 20hp freightblower, we'd all see improvement.

Dave
 
dave1 said:
We just started getting airbags on the dock here in Milwaukee 101 last month and our TM hasn't mentioned if our DPE has dropped yet. They come in handier than I ever thought. The freight stays there! Pallets for dunnage are extremely hard to come by here and often there are none at all to start an O/B shift. Talk about frustrating! All too often freight is still loaded out and fingers are crossed that it makes posted service time damage free. One time with any question of ride quality is too many. I agree with Apostolic, and we've been told that customers are willing to take a hit in transit time of a day or so if the freight consistently gets to them in the shape it left the shippers dock.

More stack racks and adequate E-track bars in the ex-Overnite 26-4xxx+ and ex-MC pups that are supposed to have them would be a near god-send. The plywood sheets we use with cardboard for stacking are 48x48 and care has to be used loading freight around them to avoid catching them or pinching the freight with the overhang from the skid in front. The next size aquired should be 40x48 I hope, but we've seen some 48x48 lately with short boards on the bottom for decking. Handy if there are bars to deck on. The straps would be nice too if we had some for linehaul trailers. A few city drivers have bought their own and it has saved some recouping time. There have been new ratchet handle load bars we have been using in linehaul also. We can do it if we have the tools.

As far as vans go, as an EOL terminal, the only vans we ship out are when we run out of pups, maybe twice a week, or if we get any in that are domiciled somewhere else and have to go back. Usually somewhere in the SOH MH area, but occasionally from FON or DAL. OVNZ 92 series, 51 series, and leased 45 and 48 foot rails are occasional visitors (OVNZ 45 series are extermely rare here) but hard to load anywhere other than HRS. And the fact we have no tandem tractors in Milwaukee means we have to be very careful loading them to avoid overweight on the drive axle. We could load them to capacity if there were tractors available to pull them legally.

I wonder if the new Great Dane vans coming with 8 load bars has any intended disposition down the road? Our city units definitely don't require 8 bars and many guys have either stowed them at the roof in the front where it would be impossible to get them if you needed them at the rear (extremely slim chance) or taken them off except one or two. Maybe it's just a way to get more bars into the system on a pricing deal where they were included with the new vans. Or maybe vans will be worked into linehaul in more lanes. A couple 53'ers and a tandem tractor would do us more good than the costs of jo-dogs and pups and the associated time involved making and breaking sets in short haul (108 mi. one way) double turns from here to SOH. Pups will still be best in certain lanes though. Just hope UPS doesn't press for Rocky Mountain doubles. LOL

Now if we could only get SOH to put away the 20hp freightblower, we'd all see improvement.

Dave
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Welcome Dave1. Enjoy the boards
 
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