What Is The Weirdest/coolest/interesting Freight You Have Hauled?

Hauled a trailer load of hot sauce from Laredo to New Orleans for Mardi Gra

Um, lets see, video equipment for a Florida Georgia Line thing, numerous loads of staging, lighting, sound and video equipment for festivals and one off shows. All of the Ely Young Band and Juan Gabriel gear. Currently doing a mini-tour with Rockin Road To Dublin. That's all I can think of right now.

That's my kind of load! Were you able to see any of the shows? Are you on retainer? I've always been curious how this industry worked. I would take a pay cut to see live music for free!

When I am on tour, I have an all access "crew" pass. I try to rest after load in (usually in the morning) then get up in time to catch the show, eat and get ready for load out (right after the show) then drive to the next venue and repeat.

With the festivals and one off shows, we usually have to get unloaded then disappear so other trucks can come in. In those cases we can catch the show if we buy tickets. Not worth it for me, I rest.

There are several companies doing this kind of stuff but be warned, it is the hardest most mentally challenging thing I have ever done. Definitely not all fun and partying because drivers have to roll as soon as we are loaded. Then again, it is also the most satisfying thing I have ever done.

Was it hard to get in with a company like this? I would imagine its a pretty sought after job.

Not as hard as you may think. This is the first company I have driven for and that began only a year and a half ago. I did regional truck load for a year then stumbled upon this division and somehow passed the interview/background check process and next thing I know I`m on a plane to Miami to team drive on a leg of a tour to New Jersey.

The keys that I think got me here are a clean(ish) background, a clean driving record, and a good friendly attitude. I have since found out that having a "no fail" approach to every assignment is absolutely necessary to stay in this division. Believe me when I say I have danced with the devil a few times to make a load-in or load-out on time. I will leave it at that.

No one here (OTL) has been hired straight in to what I do off the street. They want to see what you are made of first. It is absolutely doable though, in fact, I hear there may be a need to add several new drivers in the near future.

I once hauled a load of slinkys, the trailer was packed to the ceiling with boxes of them. All I could think about during the ride is if I, god forbid, have a roll over, that this would be the funniest roll over in the world! Thousands of slinkys everywhere. Dark humor I suppose. :D.

I also hauled a load of loose coins to Atlanta once, it was weird have a bunch of money in a dry van , with no escort.

As a flat-bedder I get to haul a wide variety of things that don't normally fit into the traditional box or dry van type situation. This 55,000 pound solid piece of aluminum stands out in my memory as an unusual thing to haul. It was a permitted load due to the fact that it was overweight, but I was still allowed to drive it at night because it was not over sized in it's dimensions.

That, my friends, is a whole lot of melted down beer and soda pop cans. That's primarily what that is. They would put bales of crushed aluminum cans in at one end of the factory and these monstrous blocks of aluminum would come out the other end.

Note how the chains are crossed in the front to help keep that bad boy from crushing me if I had to do a hard stop.

As a flat-bedder I get to haul a wide variety of things that don't normally fit into the traditional box or dry van type situation. This 55,000 pound solid piece of aluminum stands out in my memory as an unusual thing to haul. It was a permitted load due to the fact that it was overweight, but I was still allowed to drive it at night because it was not over sized in it's dimensions.

That, my friends, is a whole lot of melted down beer and soda pop cans. That's primarily what that is. They would put bales of crushed aluminum cans in at one end of the factory and these monstrous blocks of aluminum would come out the other end.

Note how the chains are crossed in the front to help keep that bad boy from crushing me if I had to do a hard stop.

That was a cool load. I like how the end looks from being poured into the mold.

Question of the day.... How many Hondas can you make from that one block of beer cans???? LOL

I once hauled a load of slinkys, the trailer was packed to the ceiling with boxes of them. All I could think about during the ride is if I, god forbid, have a roll over, that this would be the funniest roll over in the world! Thousands of slinkys everywhere. Dark humor I suppose. :D.

I also hauled a load of loose coins to Atlanta once, it was weird have a bunch of money in a dry van , with no escort.

HA HA! I would have that slinky song stuck in my head the whole time.

With what I do it is difficult to choose....

Frac water tanks?

Haul truck?

Bridge Beam?

Old rail flat car?

Excavator?

Rollers?

I think that my favorite though was 14' wide and 17' long weighing in at 75k pounds. I did not get a photo of it but I did haul this one the next day. It is still 14' wide but only weighs in at 55k.

The cool thing is that I get to operate all these if just for a little while on and off the trailer.

That second photo looks like something out of a magazine! Great shot.

Guess mine goes in the "weird" category, but for the small company I worked for once hauled a single piece of equipment for a poultry processing plant from North Georgia to Mt Vernon, Washington (2773 miles). Part weighed 695 lbs and I carried it in a brand new 53' rental trailer. Just for fun we strapped the item in the center of the trailer so there would be no weight issues. And to top the trip off, I drove all the way back EMPTY. At least my boss paid all miles. Did the same thing with another piece weighing 945 lbs to Petaluma, California as well. At least I had a backload on that trip.

The strangest was 42,000 pounds of plastic pellets. I have no idea what they are used for.

The most difficult load I've had was 40,000 pounds of liquid foam in large containers. Might as well of been driving a tanker.

Plastic mold injection . . . that's the form the raw material comes in, pellets . . . they are "injected" under very high pressure and more-or-less "fuse" together to become the plastic item in the shape of the mold . . . that's how most plastic items are manufactured . . . FYI ...

Jopa

The strangest was 42,000 pounds of plastic pellets. I have no idea what they are used for.

The most difficult load I've had was 40,000 pounds of liquid foam in large containers. Might as well of been driving a tanker.

Plastic mold injection . . . that's the form the raw material comes in, pellets . . . they are "injected" under very high pressure and more-or-less "fuse" together to become the plastic item in the shape of the mold . . . that's how most plastic items are manufactured . . . FYI ...

Jopa

Yep sounds pretty close from what I recall... I had the "joy" of working in a factory that did injection molding in my younger years out of high school. The pellets actually get melted down at the point just before getting injected into the mold at a high pressure. Cold water is usually also pumped through chambers in the mold to set the plastic part enough that the press can open and the item drops out onto a ramp or conveyor to the press operator. At least that's how it was where I worked.