The new trend
I was at a shipper this week waiting on a feed load normally ment for belt or walking floor trailers when another driver pulled up behind me pulling a hopper. The driver walks up to my truck and asks a little bit about the load. He proceeds to tell me his prior load was blood meal (big no no even with the washout he claimed to have had) and that he was getting "x" amount to haul the load.... Well "x" amount was considerably less than what I would haul it for, but he seemed happy. He also told me he just bought the (used) hopper because reefer and van rates were soo bad.... When I told him the receiver did not have a pit or swing auger to dump his hoppers into he just ignored it..... A day later I show up to the receiver, Mr hopper was pulled off to the side not unloading. When I asked why he was not unloading he told me that word got around (No, I did not rat him out) that he hauled blood prior.... After I unloaded I noticed him getting ready to dump. He said they let it slide.... I will never know how long it took him to pound out and wind-row that commodity, but I doubt I see him again.
Why bother telling this story? Because their problems (van, reefer) will become our problem. Just look at some recent questions posted to this forum from guys who clearly dont know much about commodity hauling and you will see what I mean.
For those guys or gals looking to migrate into hoppers, here's a list of the easiest to unload commodities: 🙂
Hominy
Wet cake Distillers
Beet shreds
Cottonseed
Gluten pellets out of Clinton, Iowa
DDG in the summer months
Did I miss anything else that flows like water?