It has changed drastically here over the last 4 years or so. It started with more long boxes being used to eliminate empty miles off the East Coast. It progressed to using them on short runs to end of line terminals such as Sharon loading Western Express for XEG (270 miles one way). It has now reached the point where we load them off the East Coast back to the mid-west. Two Werner's were loaded the other night in Milton bound for Chicago-land. If sequenced properly, 350 of the roughly 600 miles could be run on Con-way triples. We were always told SUB-service was to eliminate empty miles so why would we load them in a back-haul lane?
Last night the lunacy progressed to a new level. Half-way through the FAC a call was made to load two west-bound long boxes. So instead of pulling loads, the terminal affected was now going home (250 miles one way) on 5 empties with 5 drivers. Again, much of the distance covered in this lane would be on our triples. Just after this, I heard the FOS discussing the fact Milton was loading a long box for South Plainfield, NJ. This is about 170 miles one way. I'm sure that freight made it in time.
This morning, once again, west-bound trailers we pulled home from the FAC were stripped out and loaded on vans for the 500 remaining miles to eliminate our day line-haul. What is funny here, I have been pulling empties east-bound at least once a week now and when I get to Newburgh I see SUB-service vans that are all one or two codes. They would have made some nice pures in my empties. Maybe so much Sub-service is being used east-bound that it has become our back-haul lane.
Sorry for the length but I despise Sub-service. I keep hearing how slow we are but in my area Sub-service is the biggest reason for the lay-offs - not bill count or tonnage.
