well, took the merc back to the dealers this morning and i’m now offically out of haulage, bit sad to call it a day after putting so much into it but, onwards and upwards as they say!
off out next week to price two site jobs and hopefully find some decent plant at the right money, then it’s back to getting cold n wet on a regular basis, i must be crackers!
Paul,
let me know what your looking for and I’ll keep an eye out in our Autotrader,
Canada binned then 
wasnt this guy contemplatin more trucks not so very long ago.doin so well thau
ght of using subbies etc etc.aint it laughable.maybe im wrong
maybe your right, subbed quite a few loads out, but no real money in it, more wagons is/was the only answer but to me personally the possible profit compared to the outlay didn’t pan out, although the o/d i’ve handed the work to has just put his sixth wagon on the road and seems to be doing ok.
still laughing■■?
paul, i havent been on here for a week or two but if i had known i could have given you some good paying work out of yorkshire to scotland. i,m always sad to hear of hard working o/ds giving up. I hope your new venture works out but remember its never to late to start again good luck with it.
thanks for that mate but work wasn’t the problem although nobodies enjoyed this last fuel price hike! to be honest i’d become a bit dissalusioned with the job a while ago and reckoned on canada being the answer but the wifes backed out of the idea, not being able to face leaving the kids behind so when my pal sugested we setup this new company, i found it pretty easy to say yes.
obviously i’ll keep my o’license as you never know.
are you the fella who’s done me some loads out of cardiff?
I think there’s maybe one of those big “URO” plant auctions happening in Dromore Co.Tyrone soon if your in the market for plant. 
that’ll be where they sell all the legit plant that of coarse hasn’t been pinched from a site in london! 
paul b:
that’ll be where they sell all the legit plant that of coarse hasn’t been pinched from a site in london!
You could well be right 
I think most of it comes from the far East though. 
Sad to hear about Paul. Good luck in whatever you do in the future. and like you, I’d be off tomorra, If I could persuade the Wife. This country’s Knackered 
Best of Luck Paul
IIRC Scanny77 is the guy to ask about plant(s)
paul b:
thanks for that mate but work wasn’t the problem although nobodies enjoyed this last fuel price hike! to be honest i’d become a bit dissalusioned with the job a while ago and reckoned on canada being the answer but the wifes backed out of the idea, not being able to face leaving the kids behind so when my pal sugested we setup this new company, i found it pretty easy to say yes.
obviously i’ll keep my o’license as you never know.
are you the fella who’s done me some loads out of cardiff?
havent been to cardiff area for some time so i dont think am the person your on about. my truck is a white megaspace and a black curtainside trailer.
i have months when i ask myself WTF am i doing, but i dont think i could do anything else to be honest. but i also have some really loyal good paying customers, so its a case of good and bad times.
weewulliewinkie:
if i had known i could have given you some good paying work out of yorkshire to scotland
Isn’t the problem there getting something that pays well coming back? One place I’ve been talking to has fairly frequent loads from York to Glasgow that pay £400 which I think is pretty good but it’s no use if you can’t get something half decent to get you back.
Paul
Sorry to see you’ve sold up, seen you in Rotherham a couple of times in the last few weeks. That scrap really does some damage to the trailer deck though.
if one wagon dont pay i fail to see how more wagons will.if rates are stong each wagon stands a profit.are you saying if one makes a loss buy five more and make money.its all down to rates one guy on thinks 400 york to glasgow is a good rate.
now i really am laughing
instead of bleeting on about fuel cost they should take a look in the mirror and see where the blame really lies
blueboy:
its all down to rates one guy on thinks 400 york to glasgow is a good rate.
now i really am laughing
Well it works out to about £1.90/mile which from reading what I have on here seems to be well above average and more than enough to make a profit even factoring in all the fuel you use getting over the A66 and up the hills on the M74. Obviously you need to find something on the way back that will pay too (I’m not suggesting that you go there for £400 and then come back empty, I realise that would be a sure fire route to losing money).
Is it really that funny?
Paul
anyone that rates a job has to rate both ways.come back empty and its less than a pound a mile suicide.good luck with all that work you can have it all,
guess you be selling your motor shortly
I agree, the rate should be for the round trip at, say, a minimum of £1.50 a mile. This must include an element of profit after all fixed & variable costs paid. Then any back load is bonus.
If the job is not priced in this way, if the back load falls through, as another poster said, you would likely be running at a loss.
There should never be any such thing as a back load rate!
Well you 2 lads are going to be very busy…
twiddling your
thumbs
and
drinking tea
while you
sit in
the yard waiting for the phone to ring.
If you are expecting £630 plus for a day trip to Glasgow I think you too will soon be out of business
blueboy:
if one wagon dont pay i fail to see how more wagons will.if rates are stong each wagon stands a profit.are you saying if one makes a loss buy five more and make money.its all down to rates one guy on thinks 400 york to glasgow is a good rate.
now i really am laughing
instead of bleeting on about fuel cost they should take a look in the mirror and see where the blame really lies
the point was that the work i had setup logistically couldn’t be done in a day i.e load down tip, load back tip then reload for the next day it could be done if you got a flyer but was far to tight to plan doing it that way on a regular basis and because there was no tipping saturday meant you’d average two and half runs a week, which was ok money wise but not covering the loads as either costomer would like, the obviouse answer was to have someone shunting loads this end, purely swapping trailers each day would’ve meant doing a run a day but the cost of another wagon, trailer and driver bit to much out of the profit to make it viable, the shunter would’ve only been doing three hours work a day, so baring in mind there was enough work both ends, the ultimate setup would’ve been three on the road and one shunting, on paper this worked out very well with both loads paying £2 plus a mile, there was some seriouse money to be made BUT no contracts meant i could spend a lot of money setting it up only for someone to undercut me at some point on one of the loads leaving me with wagons and drivers not earning, maybe i should’ve took the gamble? i could probably have found other loads either end to keep the wagons busy if the worst came to the worst but at what rate? plenty out there who’ve ended up running for crap money just to keep the wagons on the road!
tried always to do it with one wagon but there was no way of working it that would garantee you three runs a week which you needed to be earning decent money and the costomers were getting fed up with me turning down loads that i couldn’t cover, this work is a prime example of why mileage rates aren’t always the be all and end all, work that pays £2 is no good if your only going to do a 1,000 mile a week!
for those who think theres artic work out there that pays £3+ a mile so it dosn’t matter if you come back empty?
all i can say is, GOOD LUCK!