60-foot containers on the horizon
SIZE DOES MATTER: Evolution of modular transportation is about to take another big step forward
Size matters. We’ve all heard both sides of that statement before, haven’t we, and it always beings a smile to my face.
But, on the serious side of that loaded two-word phrase, I have invested many a decade into dealing with just that. Size!
It certainly does matter in the container hauling business, and even more so these days as they are, once again, getting bigger. I know it will matter. And it will make a big difference.
When containers first starting clogging the highways and byways back in the early 1970s, they ranged in size from 20- to 40-footers. We were not yet using the metric system, so inches and feet still reigned supreme in these new containers.
It was not long before that four-letter word started to be a big factor: S-I-Z-E.
Just when we were getting used to how to load a 20- or 40-footer, along comes a 45-footer.
That meant you had to re-configure how to place your load so you don’t flip on the red “overweight” light at the DOT scale house.
The answer was usually to handstack the last two or three skids onto the floor to make it legal. Or just throwing the cargo on the top of the load, near the middle.
Whatever worked, and blame it on the shipper. That’s what I did, and it worked for years. What the shipper didn’t know …
Just when I got that one figured out, the boss brings in a bunch of 48-footers.
Here we go again. More trial and error loading. Lift your feet when you drive over the scale, and you’ll be okay. That didn’t work too well, but I tried anyway.
I took a break from those darn containers, and started hauling 53-foot vans.
Ever swept one of those suckers out, twice a day? Develop great upper body muscles.
Loading was a nightmare, too. It seemed to take a day and a half to do. Today, those vans and 53-foot containers are everywhere.
I’m finally getting used to them, but I’m happy to be back pulling 40and 45-foot containers.
I enjoy the normalcy. Well, sort of. The problem with normal, is that it never stays that way for very long.
Some 20 years after the introduction of the 53-foot container, some of the big boys are about to launch a 60-footer.
I told you about the Walmart experimental trailer in a column last year. Well, now Canadian Tire is following suit.
It is all a matter of inside cargo space, not weight. Canadian Tire cargo is usually high-cube, low-density, which means weight will not be an issue. The idea is being able to transport an additional 13 per cent more cargo per container, as compared to a 53-footer.
So, their decision makes good business sense to me.
Now, before you start looking over your shoulder on your half-asleep drive to and from work, watching out for a super long 60-footer, I want you to rest easy. These long boys will meet the industry standards set out some 25 years ago, and any normal late-model day cab tractor will be able to pull a 60-footer, no problem. The driver may sweat a little more, but it will be a legal sight to behold.
That said, there are a couple of interesting things at work here for those of us hauling those big boys.
If you are a company-employed driver, you pull whatever size container you are assigned to pull. You are paid by the hour. End of story.
However, if you are an owner/operator, those 60-footers pose a bit of a question about revenue.
When an owner/operator pulled a set of joints, or two 20-footers, he or she was paid one-and-a-half, double or sometimes even two-and-ahalf times the normal one container rate.
So the question is: will the companies pulling 60-footers make more money with the extra cargo carried, and if they do will they share the financial bonus with the drivers?
I‘d like to think they will, but only time will tell.