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Modelcar the 102 means inches in width. I recall early trucking there were differences between the 96 inchers and 102 inchers that reveal themselves at the tractor's drive wheels and invites a citation from a cop if you are on a road that restricts against 102'ers. I for one DO NOT want to see cabovers make a comeback to haul 57's In fact I believe 57's are just too long. Zapp has it right. I was raised in Maryland and I think they finally allowed 53's but 48's were the "Big" trailers back in the day. I also recall that some new drivers were not permitted to haul 48's until they had some time in 45's back in the day. The Tandem on the trailer's position is I think, is the "California Hole" If you look under the trailer you see a series of holes on rails for the tandem to slide on. You can make a 53 foot trailer feel like a 48' er on the road by sliding them up. Now one hole is usually marked as the California Hole because CA does not want the wheel base to be any longer than that specific length. I also believe the Tractor kingpin's own settings also are impacted so there is a little wriggle room but not too much. One reason the shippers push for 57's and longer is they can haul more stuff for the same cost. Period. Anything they can do to keep from paying that one truck, one driver and one company is money in thier pocket. Regarding chassis useage against JB Hunt's stocks I have to state some disbelief and have a desire to watch a few stack trains go by and see if that is actually being done. I would expect JB hunt to be possessive of thier chassis. If railroads are slapping trailers on and off any chassis they see regardless of who owns which chassis then there is either a lack of oversight (Money paying workers to track....) or... lack of interest in purchasing and maintaining pool chassis. I almost can smell the strong arm power of the almighty dollar at work here. I have shipping container experience with both 20's and 40's and recall that they lock at the corners. Sometimes the locks are busted and have to be fixed. You can run on three locks but not two. Best to have all 4 in place. I recall going into chester PA with a empty container and having to turn in the box, then the chassis, then finding a suitable chassis with either 20', 40' or goose neck (Wow now what is a goose neck??) and then getting the load out of the stack next to the ship and checking, inspecting, customs and paperwork time to get all that stuff out of the port and onto the road to the customer. Time was of essence here and no one looked too hard except if they found something that costs THEM money directly. Goosenecks are a way of gaining additional interior height in containers. You can spot those by seeing yellow and black markings and the 8.5 or 9 foot markers. You dont want to put a high box on a normal chassis as you will increase your bridge height and hit somebody's bridge. I see railcars that accomodate an entire trailer now in the trains. They just drop it in and off they go. It never fails to amaze me the constant problem of hauling freight from the 50's bulk loading to pallets in the 60's and TOFC and to containers. I recall you did not see containers in the interior of the USA very much until someone discovered that you can slap 400 boxes onto a train and ship it east coast to west coast and beat the transit time (Via the Panama Canal) Suddenly additional "Inland ports" complicate the problem as everyone frantically tried to connect to the international trade. Down in Mexico along the border.. I believe that Mexican truckers bring the freight to the USA line, transfer it to American Truckers and THEN it goes on to the customer. Very time consuming at times. I dont know if they improved the situation down in Eagle Pass, Nogales or similar places by now. Canada's border freight is essentially transparent. Theroratically you can get a peice of paper in smallville IOWA and end up in Hamilton Ontairo with just a few minutes at the customs booth on the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. Everything is taken care of so the driver usually dont have to worry about the customs in Winsdor. Those are the best loads. The rest usually have to stop in and visit the broker and customs man.
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