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[quote="jmorse7, post: 108491"]I am thinking of starting in the equipment hauling business. Would purchase equipment to haul up to 80,000 lbs equipment. Is there any call for this in the northeast or has this business already been cornered? What are peoples outlooks on this over the next one or two years when the economy starts to rebound?[/QUOTE]
jmorse7, I recently (this past April,) got out of the heavy haul business not as an owner, but employee. I had trucks and equipment over the years, but 2 years ago decided to liquidate and become gainfully employed.
My point is, I worked for an outfit that IS independently wealthy and bought the best and nicest of everything, in NY state also. That makes it a lot easier then.
Fact is, there's literally NO steady business within the northeast to stay busy enough to support such a big investment. You'll have to go where the equipment goes, which is all over the country. If you're single, no debt, no payments on anything at all, and willing to live exclusively on the road for weeks and months at a time following the "load to load game", you could possibly eek out a living.
The question is, who are your customers? Where are you going to get them? How do they pay? Hauling for a dealer like Cat is nothing but a reverse auction all the time, because there's plenty of established haulers in the region competing for that "work" every day. Especially in the northeast, because it's all one dealer pretty much.
Another factor is, if you're going to think about 80K or better payloads, you're going to need a pretty seriously spec'd truck/trailer combo. NY requires 20K lb. steerables now, among other little quirks of the industry.
Permitting loads of that size falls under the heading of a P I T A because of all the bridges now, so you might want to be prepared to sit a lot waiting for approvals.
One of my last loads I sat in NC for 5 days waiting for a permit for Va. with a PC 300 Komatsu on. It was classified as a Superload because I grossed over 125K.(a small load to a lot of outfits actually.) Va. refused it unless it was under 120K (don't ask me why, I just drove the truck.) I ended up on the 5th day going to a Cat dealer and removing the bucket and the 100 gallons of $5.00/gallon off road fuel that got donated to their shop to shed enough weight to get an approval to go into Va. After I shed 6K lbs., the permit was issued in an hour. Now we had to send a second truck to haul the bucket to Atlantic City, substantially reducing the profit on the whole load. 5 days of sitting, a thousand dollars worth of permits, and a second truck to bring the bucket. If it were my decision, I'd have done an about face and brought it straight back to where I picked it up in Florida. Funny how where I picked it up at a small equipment jockey dealer in Fla, there was a heavy hauling company on the other side of the fence with about 30 rigs in the yard...
Not to blow the wind out of your sails, but it's a TOUGH business, especially if you have to borrow it all to make it work. It's a $200,000.00 investment or better to get set up, and you'd better have another good charge of cash in reserve for capital, or I wouldn't attempt it these days.
Good luck.
