currently running one unit, one trailer on work which pays very well, after many weeks of sorting out i now have two regular customers this end, one who’ll potentially give me five load a week to south wales and one who’s giving me two load a week to north somerset but who has more work if i could cover it, i also have two customers in south wales i backload out of at good rates who potentially have unlimited work, the problem is all loads are next day delivery with only the odd back load you can get off the same day so although you can comfortably do south wales and back in a days driving it’s impossible to do one run per day, i.e you run down and back one day then the next all you do is tip the backload and then load for the following days run down, giving a max of three runs a week, although this pays a nice weeks money potentially theres a lot more to be made out of the job, the ideal setup would perhaps be three units and four trailers, two running down every day with one purely shunting this end tipping the backloads in the morning and then loading both trailers ready for the next days run, giving a total of twenty load = ten down, ten back and some seriouse money, the problem is of coarse the outlay on another two units plus three trailers, o’license etc although i could hire the trailers in the short term, it’s a high risk high reward scenario.
alternatively i could put one more unit and trailer on and stager the runs so when ones down there the others up here tipping and loading this would still only mean twelve load a week = six down, six back but i’d make a decent profit on the second unit and trailer either way i’d still need to find a driver/drivers who are capable of going and back on a regular basis without doing something daft that would cost me money.
other alternative is simply bring another o/d in with me and take a cut out of the loads he does which would still give him a nice weeks work and just boost my own earnings a bit but keep my customers happy.
post is really aimed at those who’ve run a few wagons and may well know the ups and more importantly the downs of the job that i may not have spotted.
cheers
paul.
Thinking back I can come up with 7 or 8 OD’s I knew who were doing well with one vehicle, earning a good living, limited worries and stress, then they decided to expand and none of them lasted more than a couple of years after that. The single biggest thing that lead to their down fall? Drivers.
On the flip side I know one guy who went down that route and is doing well, he is the cover feature story in this months T&D.
In my opinion I think the working with another OD and seeing how it goes would be the best safest option.
Speaking as someone who took on a friend’s truck as her own, then ended up running his other 5 as well, I can only echo what Neil said with regards to drivers being your main source of problems. At the end of the day, all but the best few employed drivers simply won’t have the same incentive to make the job work as someone in their own truck, and you’ll end up spending a ridiculous amount of time dealing with petty non-problems and trying not to upset the buggers because they’ve caught you at a bad time and don’t understand that you have a customer and two other drivers on the other lines as well as trying to get your own load where it should be.
I’d go with a partnership with another O/D first as well, if only so that when you do look to take on drivers, you can tell them exactly what’s expected of them, hence removing as many possible causes for complaint and whining as possible!
i too have been thinking on these lines , the work i am doing altho on the face of it doesnt pay great , the other benefits make it worthwhile .
the biggest problem i have thought of is hiring another driver and handing him the keys to MY vehicle to potentially ruin me and all the hard work i have put into this venture , i know there are good drivers out there but there is a lot of workshy not my problem people as well , this came home to me when i in a fairly high position in a local big firm and i sat in on some interviews , what these people said in an interview then went and did 2 weeks later i thought they must of been their evil twin brother .
so for me altho i would like to get another motor on the road i just cant bring myself to do it .
if you are making enough paul why not try doing a bit of freight forwarding and giving it away , at a bit of cost for yourself of course
ay up mate, i’ve thought about that but my worry is, i give a load out and the load dosn’t end up getting picked up because the subbie’s had a bit of “bad luck”, my customer from that point on see’s ME as being unreliable becuase it’s me who’s took the load on!
fair comments made but a recent brush with the magistrates court where if things had gone against me i could possibly have lost my license made me realise just how precarious relying on your self running one wagon is.
decided to take a gamble one way or another, take the point about a driver but reckon paying the right money i could poach someone locally who probably knows more about the job than me, someone who’s tried and tested so to speak, at the end of the day the works a dodle, 8-9 hours drive max somedays half that, no planned nights out and back in the house for 4.00pm at the latest with an early start.
the other factor is, as i found to my cost in the steel works, when work goes a bit slack the man handing out the work will look after the bloke with two or three wagons before the one man band simply because he’s relying on that fella more when the work picks up.
it’s actually took me six months to sort the work that i wanted to do i.e the rates i want, paid when i want it paying and all fitting in so theres next to no empty miles and the loads are quick tipping and loading going to areas i want to go doing the miles i want to do on a daily basis.
decided at one point earlier this year after a bad payer and another forwarder mucking me about that if i couldn’t do the job without being on the end of a piece of string for somebody no matter what it paid, i’d jack it in!
simply, to control your own direct work you’ve got to be able to cover the loads and that means more than one wagon one way or another.
If you are having to do a major change on your O-Licence, good luck, the last couple i have had to do have taken over a month just to get the interim licence. Now everything goes through Leeds they are a total joke, one took 6 weeks to get interim (and that was with almost daily pestering) and then about 3 months to get fully granted!!! Many are taking much longer and they really don’t give a toss up there! 
paul b, I have no experience of running more than one but I have considered it. What always worries me most, echoing others, is drivers. I think of lads who I’ve worked with and put them in two groups - one’s I’d employ and ones I wouldn’t. I may be being fussy but I’d only bother with about 5% of them!
However, the work you have (no empty running etc) seems ideal and I might be thinking (if I was you) “you’ve got to be in it to win it” 
. I don’t know your exact situation but is there a danger that if you don’t do the work someone else might? 
My final point is whether you might be better to consider going as a limited company. I have no 1st hand knowledge of the pluses and minuses of taking this route. However, my uncle runs three vehicles and a small amount of plant and was recently strongly advised by his accountant to go limited company due to his turnover level. I would assume that with your idea your t/o would be similar. Also, local contract tipper hauliers with 2or more vehicles were advised the same. Something else to muddy the waters for you! 
If you want to take a little less risk then as well as hiring the trailers to start with as you’ve suggested you could also buy an older cheaper unit for the local shunter as given that it won’t be doing many miles the reliability is going to be less of an issue. That only makes it slightly more expensive than simply putting another wagon on as you can get the shunter truck for the right side of 10k and there’s no capital outlay for rental trailers. If it all works well then in a year or two you can always replace it with something nicer.
Other than that I can only echo what others have said - the biggest issue I can see is finding two reliable drivers who are going to be happy doing exactly the same run 5 days a week over the long term. I know for a fact after a couple of months I would have had enough and be looking to move on, but I also know that there are plenty of people who are happy doing the same trunk on a daily basis for years so I guess it’s personal choice. That said (I’m thinking as I’m posting here) I suppose you can rotate it so a given driver will do two weeks of the run to Wales and then a week of shunting in a 3 week cycle which breaks it up a bit.
Paul
I know an ex- O/D who started with one truck then expanded to 5 and his drivers sent him down the pan. pulling tricks like booking a night out on the Grain the pulling fuses and driving home to Croydon bobtail.
Having said that I’m hiring myself out to and O/D who only had 1 truck 6 months ago and is now running 5 with 2 more on order he mainly employs ex-O/D’s and is doing very nicely thank you double shifting all the trucks
I’d say if you’re gonna do it go in with your eyes open and try to employ drivers from either personal recommendations off of trusted sources or vet them v.v.v carefully
I wouldn’t knock ya for trying or for staying a 1 man band - What does your gut tell ya?
Paul, I may have a solution, and you have mail.
I can see your point, having been TM for a small firm for a while, subbing can create as many problems as it solves - your subbie may decide to try for the work for himself/drop you in it if a better paying job turns up/not be sharp enough getting delivery notes to you for you to bill (strange but true…).
With a driver all I would say is make sure you know them well. As others have said, we all know those who we’d consider and those we wouldn’t.
Paul, I am an O/D but the vehicle is driven mainly by my brother as i am a freelance driver ( ie an agency driver without the agency).
Whether the work you want completing fits in with my work pattern or that of the vehicle would obviously be subject to discussion but i will pm you my number if you wish ( I’m based in Barlborough J30 M1).
Cheers!
Tony
after much deliberation decided the only real solution, at least in the short term, is to sub the excess work out, see how it goes paricularly through the quiet months in winter and take it from there, although theres no real money to be made that way it will at least prove the works there on a regular basis to sustain x amount of wagons and put me in a better position with my customers.
thanks to all who replied.
paul.