Access described optimistically
The single biggest cause. A site booked as dock-high that is not, or a gate that will not take a 53-footer. Tell us the restriction and we bring the box truck.
Logistics · 24 August 2023
A week on the I-74 lane
Our longest-running standing route, written up as it actually ran in the third week of August — including the stop that went wrong and what it cost.
- Sheet
- 38
- Revision
- 2026-10
- Scale
- 1:1
- Drawn at
- Peoria IL
312Containers moved
5Stops
0.4%Damage rate
1Dry run
Free pickup is not generosity, it is routing. The reason we can collect a dozen empties for nothing is that the truck is already going past, loaded with containers somebody else ordered. Here is one week of that, honestly.
| Day | Stop | Out | In | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Bloomington — ag retailer | 48 Grade B | 0 | 7am dock window, on the pad by 6:40 |
| Tuesday | Champaign — specialty blender | 24 Grade A | 36 empties | Swap run; declarations checked on site |
| Wednesday | Danville — brewery | 12 food grade | 18 glycol + grain | One bill of lading both directions |
| Thursday | Mahomet — municipal yard | 20 Grade B | 0 | Brine prep, early for the season |
| Thursday | Rantoul — manufacturer | 0 | 0 | Dry run. See below. |
| Friday | Peoria — three local pickups | 0 | 86 empties | Consolidated, no minimum locally |
The Thursday dry run
A manufacturer in Rantoul booked 40 empties for collection and described the site as dock-high. It was not. It was a gravel yard with the containers stacked three high against a fence, no forklift on site that day, and a gate too narrow for the flatbed to turn inside. We spent forty minutes establishing that, left, and rescheduled with the box truck and a pallet jack.
That stop cost about three hours of lane time and roughly a hundred and eighty dollars of fuel and labour, and it is entirely preventable with one sentence in the intake form. It is also why our form asks about access rather than assuming — and why we would much rather you tell us the awkward truth than the hopeful version.
How a load gets strapped
- Rows built cage-post to cage-post. Never bottle-on-bottle, not even for a short move across town.
- Four straps per row minimum, corner boards at every point a strap crosses galvanised tube.
- Empties double-stacked only with matching heights. Mixed 275s and 330s go in separate rows so the straps sit flat.
- Filled containers single tier, bulkhead forward, load bars every two rows.
- Tarped on flatbed regardless of weather — it is about debris and road spray as much as rain.
- Walk the load before pulling out, and again after the first ten miles. The second walk is the one that catches things.
Our damage rate across 2022 was 0.4% of containers moved. Almost all of it was cosmetic cage scuffing from strap contact, and almost all of that happened on loads where somebody was in a hurry and skipped the corner boards. There is no clever equipment behind that number. It is corner boards and a second walk.
What actually delays a lane
Missing declarations
We will not dispatch a load we cannot describe. If the last-contents paperwork is not ready, the load waits, and the lane moves on without it.
Dock windows that drift
Receiving at 7am means 7am. We hold our end and we need the other end held too, or the whole day's sequence slips.
Weather on the open stretches
We call it early rather than ditch a load. A day late beats a container through a cage.
On the I-74 corridor?
Bloomington, Champaign, Danville and everything in between is a weekly stop with a three-to-five day lead time. Tell us your access honestly and it is usually free.