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Whether
you’ve got a backhoe or an excavator, more than likely you’ve
got to move that piece of heavy iron from your yard to a job site.
Generally, that’s going to mean putting it on a flatbed or
a trailer, unless you’ve got all the time in the world and
don’t mind driving a slow-moving piece of equipment down the
highway. Knowing you need to move the equipment might be the easy
part; the tough part is what, when, and how. By Lynn Merrill |
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There are several questions that need to be asked before you move that grader or loader. First, should you own the trailers, or should you be hiring an outside company to move the equipment? Second, if you decide to own your own trailers, what’s the best type of trailer for your particular operation, and what additional features should you consider to make that move safely and cost-effectively? The decision to own a transport trailer is similar to deciding what other pieces of equipment to own. If you are a small company that owns only a dump truck and a backhoe, chances are it will make more sense to own the trailer connected to the dump truck. But if you’ve got a variety of equipment that might all need to move to one job site quickly, if you’ve got multiple job sites, or if your job site is far from your yard, it might make more sense to outsource the work to specialized equipment haulers. The answer lies somewhere between these two extremes. For most contractors who have several pieces of equipment and who operate in a limited geographical range, it makes sense to use a combination of owning their own transport tractors and trailers and using contract haulers. Many medium-size contractors own and operate two or three diesel tractors with trailers that have the capability of moving a piece of equipment in the morning or a load of pipe or timbers in the afternoon. But for those larger jobs that are some distance from the yard and require several pieces of equipment to be moved simultaneously, almost all turn to specialized contractors. In Fredericksburg, VA, W.C. Spratt Corporation has been in the highway construction business since 1927. The company is centered between Washington, DC, and Richmond, VA, so it enjoys a wide variety of construction projects, including demolition, utilities, and excavation, within a 60-mi. range of its corporate yard. The company employs 60 people and operates 50 pieces of equipment in the field. The company owns two transport trailers, a 25-ton tilting-deck trailer, and a 50-ton lowboy trailer. "The equipment that we move is mostly midrange tractors," says president Doug Tait. "Most of our bulldozers are D5-size tractors; that’s probably 75% of our moves. The lowboy trailer we use primarily for the things that are over 25 tons; some of our larger excavators that are overwide and overweight; for instance, a Cat EL300. With the tilting-deck trailer, you can get on job sites a lot quicker and unload and load a lot quicker than you can with the lowboy. There’s no unhooking or rehooking. It’s just simpler and faster. The faster you can get your piece out to the job, the faster you’re making money." Tait also finds it cost-effective to use outside contractors in different situations. "If we have to go across state lines, for instance, if we’re taking something into Maryland, many times these people use backhauls. We don’t, and our haul price is going to include a trip to and from and only having one unit to haul, so from an economic standpoint, it makes sense to get an outside hauler. Also, they’re very familiar with the different regulations and laws in other states more so than we are because we don’t do a lot of it. If it is an extremely heavy load or an extremely oversized load, rather than fussing around trying to get the permits, it is just simpler to outside-haul it. It also depends on the time frame. If I’ve got 15 pieces to move in one day, we’ve only got two trailers, so I may want to outsource that just to be able to accomplish all the moves in one morning." The Heavy Haul Division of Pan Western Transportation in North Las Vegas, NV, specializes in moving heavy equipment within most of the Southwest. "People who should call us should never own their own," laughs Mike Porter, manager of the Heavy Haul Division. His company runs a fleet of 10 power units, six five-axle trailers, seven nine-axle trailers, and a variety of other trailers capable of handling an array of moves or equipment. "I move a lot of stuff up here for a pretty-good-size crane company, and we do a lot of their trucking when it comes to the specializing stuff. I’ve told them, ‘I’m in the trucking business, I’m not in the crane business.’ They’re in the crane business, they’re not in the trucking business, so that is what we know and know best. As a contractor, I guess it would kind of go back the same way. He knows how to move dirt. We know how to move the iron." Porter feels it makes sense for a contractor to outsource the movement of the equipment, especially if it requires the larger-capacity trailers that have limited usage except to move a piece of oversized equipment out to a job site. "There’s a big company in the Sacramento area that own a lot of five-axle [trailers] but won’t buy a nine-axle, yet they have nine-axle work," states Porter. "Their biggest theory is that they won’t generate enough money to pay for that trailer. That trailer is pretty expensive. The other thing is they’d always have to have their guy constantly coming back and forth to the yard switching out trailers. A contractor is not going to spend that kind of money having to pay a guy to constantly deadhead back and forth to the yard to switch out trailers."
Trailering equipment requires a significant amount of planning in order to safely get the equipment to and from the job site. Depending on the size of equipment to be moved, various permits might need to be issued, and other factors, such as escorts for oversized loads, might need to be arranged. In these cases, it makes more sense for a contractor to go to a specialized hauler who is used to dealing with the myriad details and approvals. "If it’s going to be hauling equipment with our name on the side of it, we’re at risk, so the reputation of the fellow that we use locally is impeccable," states Tait. "His reputation is sound, and to my knowledge there have been no accidents of record involved with his moving of equipment, so that’s pretty important to us." Tait understands the amount of work that goes into a safe move. "There needs to be a little bit of planning, especially if you’re using the lowboy," he states. That planning includes deciding on access points and particular haul routes and securing fuel permits and trip tickets. "Annually we have to subscribe to the Department of Transportation to get the overload permits. We have three drivers, and they’re all very familiar with the areas. When one of the crews calls in to the dispatcher at the office, usually the move is pretty well talked about, and it’s decided how they’re going to get to the site and if there are any special requirements that are going to be needed. For instance, an escort or traffic control that is going to be required out at the job site–to make sure that’s lined up." The rules are dictated by each state, says Porter. The process to make the move starts with the phone call from the customer, who provides information relating to the piece of equipment being moved and the physical configuration of that equipment. "I’ll call up my permitting agent and tell him my height, width, length, and weight. I will get the permit back in a couple of hours. I will go over the permit and see where my regulations are. In California, they will list variable regulations that you go by, whether you’re going to run at night or daytime, whether you have curfews or pilot cars. It states the date that you get to start moving and stop moving. Usually the permits are good for about five days. If you get into a variance permit when you start getting over 15 feet wide, they’re going to start adding CHP [California Highway Patrol]. Once you get all your ducks in a row, you’re ready to go move the equipment." Picking It Up, Moving It, and Putting It Down
When the transport arrives at the job site, it’s important to have a clear understanding of where the piece of equipment is located and to have a place that is level and provides sufficient room for the driver to load the equipment and get back out of the job site. "I try to teach my drivers that when you show up to the job site, try to look far enough ahead to understand that you’ve got to come back out of there loaded," advises Porter. The first thing I do when I pull into a project is look for the most reasonable, flattest place to load. Believe it or not, this equipment likes to play around on dirt and can play on a hill pretty good, but you start putting metal to metal on a trailer and it’s just like an ice skating rink. It becomes a potential hazard." Depending on both the piece of equipment to be loaded and the trailer being used, the trailer may be detached from the tractor. The equipment is moved over to the trailer and loaded, and the power unit is reconnected. "At this point, you will start moving the machine back and forth on the trailer to establish your weights," explains Porter. "Most people in this business have done it long enough, and have weighed things, that they pretty much know where you need to put that to make weight. Then you’ll start securing it down with your chains, flagging it, and as soon as your pilot car shows up and you’ve got your permits in your hand, you’re going trucking." According to Porter, the typical time for loading up a piece of equipment is 30 minutes. "I’ve seen some guys be able to do it in 20 minutes. I’ve seen guys take up to 45 minutes to load a piece of equipment, but for your average construction equipment, I would say 30 minutes is average." Making sure that the load is secure on the trailer is the next step toward a safe move, recommends Tait. "One of the things we try to instill here is to make sure the load is secure and that, if required, you’ve got appropriate lock-in devices. For instance, on the wheel loaders, we try to make sure that we’ve got the center hitch locked as the manufacturer recommends. We make sure that we cross-bind, meaning the chains are in an ‘X’ fashion across the trailer, and we make sure any loose objects are off the trailer. Windshields are not cheap, and we have purchased a few of those–and I’m sure we will in the future–but trying to limit that certainly helps us out. Making sure all the lights on the trailer are operable, that’s part of the routine check. Every morning it’s supposed to be done. Let’s see.… While moving the equipment, it’s always a good idea to stop at some point along the road to make sure your tie-downs haven’t loosened and that everything is still secure on the trailer." Moving a piece of equipment that can weigh up to 240,000 lb. along streets and highways occupied by pedestrians and passenger cars operated by drivers preoccupied with talking on their cell phones can be unnerving. Add into this mix the fact that the load being moved might be over width or over length, and it can keep the heavy-equipment driver as busy as a fighter pilot at Mach 2. "You’ve got to keep in mind when you’re going down the road that, other than your height and your width, you also have a weight-pushing problem, and when you step on the brakes, you’re not going to stop like you’re driving your four-wheel car," cautions Porter. "It’s like a train. It takes a good city block or more to start slowing this thing down. Second, if you start slamming on the brakes hard enough, that load might end up on top of the truck. Not a good thing." Upon arriving at the job site, the steps are similar to those for loading the equipment. Good planning for delivery of the machine should include as much information as possible about where to make the delivery. "You want to make sure you have the right point of drop-off," recommends Porter. "Some of these contractors will only give you a cross-intersection. You pull up and there are four corners under construction. OK, he didn’t really say what corner, so usually you have to either make a call or you try to pinpoint exactly where they want this piece of equipment. If it’s rubber-tired, if you miss it by a block or two, they can road it over, but obviously if it’s a track machine, then you have a problem. You might have to come back and pick it up and put it in the spot where he wants it." It’s important to recognize that the risks associated with moving equipment include liability and that, if you’re moving your own equipment, safety is critical. That’s your first line of advertising as well, observes Tait. If you don’t get your equipment to the job in a timely fashion, you’re not making money. The risk you have on a day-to-day basis from moving pieces of equipment with this size and weight, especially in today’s congestion, is enormous. You’ve really got to have a good handle on your drivers and make sure that they’re representing your best interest when they’re on the road. Guest author Lynn Merrill is director of public services for the City of San Bernardino, CA.
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