Posts Tagged ‘trucking loads’
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Everyday trucking loads are taken through the Eurotunnel on shuttles designed to take trucking transportsacross the English Channel. The Eurotunnel is one of the most amazing feats of human engineering on the planet and history, but since it has begun operation the Eurotunnel has had a few rough years during the past decade. This of course is due to the recession that has been strangling business opportunities in the trailer trucking industry and the fact that major users of their trucking transport service decided not to resign after using the service for a few years. This was obviously a bit of a surprise to the officials that operate the Eurotunnel and they appear to have been caught off guard a bit by the sudden departure of customers they were obviously counting on.
The operators of the Eurotunnel did recover beautifully and despite falling volumes of freight for their trucking transport service they have been busy at work finding customers that are different than the customers they were after before. This time they are diversifying their business by trying to attract medium and smaller companies to their services, rather than the larger firms that they were servicing before. This strategy appears to be working as they have reported better numbers in the fourth quarter of 2009. They also looking forward to growing their business even further in 2010 with medium and small trucking firms, which should give them a better financial base upon which to conduct their business operations.
Apparently, the Eurotunnel has found new customers to keep the truck shuttles moving at a constant rate through the tunnel and pay the bills that keep adding up if you don’t pay them. Things are looking a lot better for the Eurotunnel, now that they have a few new customers, and they expect the numbers to keep going up as we head further into 2010.
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017751651
Tags: freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trailer trucking, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport, trucking transports
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Monday, March 29th, 2010
There are specialized trailer trucking units of many kinds taking freight of specific kinds to destinations around many counties of the world. One of the most unique are trucking transports that are used to take trucking loads of flower and plants from the Netherlands to wholesalers and retailers around continental Europe. The flowers and plants are actually carried in roll cages and the newest trailers have been designed to allow for maximum use of the storage ability of trailers. The latest refrigerated trucking units being used include a split-door system that allows separate loads to be carried at different temperatures within the trailer. A neat innovation that must allow trucking firms that use these new units to provide services to a variety of customers with different requirements.
Hannon Transport recently recieved an order for ten of the latest refrigerated trucking trailers being made by Schmitz Cargobull that will be operating out of Hannon Transport’s business in the Netherlands. The new refrigerated trailers will be put to work taking flowers and plants from some of the world’s largest flower auctions to buyers that hail from all parts of Europe.
Hannon Transport currently operates around 90 trucking units in their fleet, but they have been adding to their fleet lately and appear to be thinking about making moves to improve business in 2010. Hannon Transport is a trucking transport firm that should be watched in the years ahead. They appear to have big plans for their particular business profile and could be making a few moves in the trucking transport industry in the years ahead that will be unique and particularly interesting.
http://www.mhwmagazine.co.uk/LatestNews/Sc…sport-6008.html
http://www.hannontransport.com/company.htm
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017751618
Tags: freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trailer trucking, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport, trucking transports
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Monday, March 8th, 2010
A different type of intermodal transport is being proposed for the I-81 corridor, which is quickly becoming a favorite of freight carriers; since it goes through the relatively unpopulated Shenandoah Valley rather than the more populated I-85 and I-95 routes, it has less traffic to contend with. A rolling highway has been proposed for a Harrisburg PA-Knoxville run, giving trucks the option of rolling onto a flatbed rail car, grabbing a seat in a passenger section and let the railroad do the rest.
That’s not as efficient as classic intermodal transport, where just the container is moved by rail and picked up by another tractor or ship at the other end. However, some freight can’t be containerized and some firms might opt to have their driver and trailer come along. Such systems are currently being used in Austria and Switzerland to ease the burden of trucks trying to tackle the Alps on their own.
It’s a nine hour drive between Harrisburg and Knoxville, and if trucking loads came from a bit further away, drivers would have to stop for the night to finish the run; with a rolling highway taking 15 hours to cover that run, a trucker could get his time away from the truck in and be ready to do the rest of the leg. That would cut four hours off the trip if a trucker needed 10 hours of down time to keep HOS-legal.
Such a rolling highway would take some of the strain off of I-81 and take away the need to expand the highway to accommodate extra traffic. The key question is whether such a rolling highway would make economic sense to trucking transport firms and whether it would have to be subsidized by state and local governments in order to make it cost-effective for truckers.
Sources: http://www.thetrucker.com/News/Stories/201…81gridlock.aspx
http://www.railsolution.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway
Tags: freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Here’s an interesting bulk trucking cat-and-mouse game coming from Malaysia; the Malaysia version of the DOT had set up a checkpoint on one of the main roads going into Singapore in its Malaysian sister city Johor Baru, or JB as the locals call it. JB has grown to become Malaysia’s second largest city and is a key manufacturing hub; it’s become intertwined with Singapore not unlike the relationship between Windsor and Detroit over the US-Canadian border.
Trucks hauling construction material into Singapore caught wind of the checkpoint and pulled over to the side of the road; if they were overloaded, they could be hit with a year in jail and a $2900 fine; justice is a bit rougher in Malaysia, for I can’t think of overloads getting someone arrested in the US. By pulling off the road, the police could only hit them with a $90 ticket for traffic obstruction, since they had no good way to figure out whether the freight carrier was overweight or not.
Overloaded truckers in the US have been known to engage in coop-dodging, where they’ll exit just before a weigh station, go overland for a bit, then get back on the freeway after the station. Here, the truck drivers merely had to play possum until the coop-equivalent shut down, then continue trucking loads of gravel and other items into Singapore.
Finding loopholes in rules is as old as anything, and knows no borders; in fact, the more authoritarian a country is, the more people are forced to game the loopholes.
http://motoring.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/…209-197579.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johor_Bahru
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/currencie…currencies.html
Tags: Bulk Trucking, freight, freight carrier, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
The Canadian government is looking to buy the privately owned Ambassador bridge between Windsor and Detroit; with a steady flow of trucking loads crossing each day, the bridge carries a quarter of the trade between the US and Canada. One of the reasons why Transport Canada (the northern analog to the DOT) is interested in buying the bridge is that the owner of the bridge, Matty Moroun, has been in court trying to slow down an alternative bridge that the Michigan and Canadian governments are working on downriver from the current bridge that would shunt a lot of freight carriers south. The area has a need for more room to cross the border, but the new bridge would cut down on business at the Ambassador, so Moroun is keeping his lawyers busy.
Moroun has supposedly put a $3 billion price tag on the bridge, but with only $60 million in toll revenue, the bridge would be more likely worth half that figure; at a 5% required return, $60 million a year indefinitely would only be worth $1.2 billion before expenses were factored in. Transport Canada was willing to pay closer to half of Moroun’s asking price.
This might be a good place for eminent domain to kick in and have the governments involved force a sale at fair market value. Unlike some of the more controversial uses of eminent domain where cities have forced a sale of property in order to turn it over to developers, this one would be a seemingly legit use of that government power, although one a bit tainted by the collateral benefit of shutting up a pesky adversary.
Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2538184
Tags: freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Bulk trucking of commodities isn’t a sexy topic, but it is how stuff gets to market, whether it is orange trucks taking fruit out of orange groves in central Florida or coal trucks working their way down mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee. However, the flatlands of central Florida are a lot easier to ship freight through than Appalachian mountains.
A coal truck crashed in Tennessee last October going down a mountainous road; a U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration report found that the truck was both overloaded and had its engine brake disabled; the trucker was going too fast, but the lack of engine brakes didn’t help matters. Engine brakes are noisy, so many towns ban their use, but they help slow a truck down in a pinch. However, the lack of a “Jake brake” (the Jacobs Company is the leading maker) may have been the difference between keeping the truck upright and having it overturn.
Both the mining company and the trucking company were fined for safety violations; one of the reasons why the DOT is so hawkish on weight issues is that trucking loads are harder to handle when they are overloaded. Having spent some time near the coal-mining areas of Kentucky, I experienced some of those winding roads and would not want to be driving an overloaded truck on those roads.
The effort to achieve cheap freight costs has its side effects, and in this case, the loss of life is one of those side effects.
Sources:http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/feb/04/t…y-brake-switch/
http://www.essortment.com/all/jakebraketruck_raio.htm
Tags: Bulk Trucking, freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, ship freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Air freight has had a good 2009 compared with ship, rail and truck based freight carriers. Evidence of that good business is coming out of Seattle, where the new freight version of the 747, the 747-8, is going to make its first flight tomorrow. Ten of the behemoths are already on order from Luxembourg-based carrier Cargolux and eight more are on order from Nippon Cargo Airlines. With a $310 million list price, Boeing has made about a $5 billion dent in the trade deficit with those sales.
The new 747-8 is a bit larger than the current 747s, is more fuel efficient and produces fewer emissions. However, green freight haulers won’t sell unless there is freight to haul, and the upturn in the air cargo market has made such planes feasible. Airbus has a bigger cargo plane on the drawing board, a version of their A380 passenger jet, but they have yet to get a sale for one; the 747-8 has the advantage of fitting into existing 747 slots in airports, while the largest-in-the-world A380 doesn’t fit existing slots as well.
Trucking loads should be increasing as well in this environment, as it generally takes a truck to ship freight to and from the airport; ship-to-plane or rail-to-plane transfers aren’t as common. Air freight is generally more time sensitive than other freight, so trucking logistics firms should benefit from taking care of the transport needs of customers on both ends of the 747-8 flights in a timely manner.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9769862
Tags: freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, ship freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
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Friday, February 12th, 2010
Earlier this week, plans for a new double-stack compatible rail tunnel between Detroit and Windsor were moving forward; now, the plans for a new bridge between the two cities is moving to the bidding stage, promising to make trucking logistics a bit easier in the years to come. Transport Canada and the Michigan DOT are asking would-be builders to submit a proposal of interest by St. Patrick’s Day.
The large amount of traffic flowing between Michigan and Ontario has been one of the unsung success stories of NAFTA; parts move freely across the boarder, but a lack of space to handle the amount of trucking loads going through the Ambassador Bridge and Windsor Tunnel made the new bridge a priority for both countries.
The new Detroit River International Crossing project would be a bit south of the Ambassador Bridge; connections to I-75 will be part of the project on the US side, but a connector project to hook the DRIC to Ontario’s main 401 highway are being done separately.
The DRIC will make it easier to provide trucking services between Ontario and points in the US. With a new facility that is designed with NAFTA levels of trade in mind, trucks should be able to get through customs and across the border much faster than at present. That should translate into lower costs to ship freight to and from Ontario and enable car companies to have a more reliable flow of parts, allowing them to find-tune their just-in-time inventory systems.
Source: http://www.todaystrucking.com/news.cfm?intDocID=23229
Tags: freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking logistics, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Controversy has circled around the belief that transporting freight by rail is more fuel efficient and creates less of a carbon footprint than trailer trucking freight to destination. We all have our own beliefs, but a recent document by a noted economist Noel Perry believes that claims by rail advocates that moving freight by train is three times more fuel efficient than bulk trucking could be based on conclusions that need to be gathered using more accurate means and definitions than were used, in order to get a more accurate estimate of the fuel efficiency of rail and freight trucking services.
There has been a lot of media mention of the superiority of moving freight by rail as opposed to trucking during the past year. The true facts haven’t gathered, so far, but you can bet both sides are working on finding whatever facts they can to support their beliefs. The one truth in the situation seems to be that moving more freight by train should decrease the amount of trucking loads on the roads of America and hopefully the problems with traffic congestion should lesson a bit. This of course should decrease the number of large trucks involved in accidents, if only by decreasing the number of transports on the roads.
We can never really do all freight movements by rail because rail only services a very limited geographical area of the country and trucks will always be needed to get the freight to final destination in the case of most goods. Destinations that are less than a thousand miles and ones heading to geographical locations with limited rail access will always require trucking transport. In truth, we could only transfer a small percentage of current trucking loads to rail because rails don’t bring the freight to the door. Rail does have an advantage in the long-haul market where the volumes of freight being moved are large, but in the middle range markets, which are the most important for trucking, rail really can’t compete.
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/fact-sheet/rail
http://freight.transportation.org/doc/FreightRailReport.pdf
http://www.todaystrucking.com/news.cfm?intDocID=23006
Tags: freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
With the port of Port-au-Prince badly damaged in the recent earthquake, container transport became problematic. However, one firm has taken a page out of the amphibious landings of the past and managed to get containers onto shore by transferring containers on to smaller-draft ships, who then took them directly to a beach; it reminds me a bit of the D-Day landing, where amphibious trucks delivered goods onto the beach from ships out in the harbor. That gives shippers a route to get containers into Haiti when the country needs the help the most.
Trucking logistics is still a major issue in Haiti, as many roads are still blocks and in ill repair after the earthquake. However, as recovery efforts turn to managing the lives of the survivors rather than trying to pull people out of the rubble, one of the priorities will be to fix main roads so that aid can flow in and start to rebuild other infrastructure damaged in the earthquake.
Since the majority of goods are shipped via containers these days, getting a methodology for landing containers is critical, and this ship-to-shore method opens up the port to container delivery. This could wind up becoming a useful technology to get container service into smaller ports that might not be able to accommodate larger container ships. Whether it is economical enough to use on a non-emergency basis is a key question, but it does give shippers a tool to get containers into an area where the shipping infrastructure is either damaged or non-existent.
Source:http://www.joc.com/node/416209
Tags: container transport, freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking company, trucking loads, trucking logistics, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »