Dry van, 101" vs 102" wide

Just a bit off topic but do they still use slip sheets anymore?

 

Hate to be the bearer of logic on you, but there is absolutely, positively NO TRAILER MADE that is 102" wide INSIDE. The US maximum width for highways is 102" OUTSIDE, so unless your trailer has onion-skin paper walls (and even THAT is at least .005" thick), there is no possible way to fit freight 102" wide INSIDE a trailer (that is, without damaging the walls..). Only a flatbed can carry a TRUE 102" wide load.

Walls are not, and can not be 0.000" thick! Even if you use really thin .040" aluminum sheet, you still need ribs, either inside or outside. You can run the ribs outside (we used to call these "plate-side" trailers), but they STILL measure outside width from the outside of the ribs. We used to run a bunch of Pines plate-side 102" trailers for can loads (mostly Anheiser-Busch). On those, the plate skins were .060" thick, and I believe that the ribs were .120". Ad all those together, and you get .360" total wall thickness, living an inside measurement of roughtly 101 5/8" across. And on those trailers, the door frame was 101.00" across.

Saying you can fit 102" wide freight inside a 102" wide trailer breaks an important law of physics; "No 2 pieces of matter can occupy the same space simultaneously".

 

Those 53’ dry vans with 101” on the front and rear are 101” INTERIOR width and 102” EXTERIOR width. The walls are 1/2” thick, each side. My employer have a bunch of them.

 

Welp you better go check out some Vans because I had one that I rented and it was a fruehauf. I did not read anything else you wrote since I have seen them first hand with a tape measure. Oh and I used a tape measure for well over 15 years every day. So take that with a grain of salt!

 

Quaker ships their granola bars boxed and shrink wrapped on slip sheets.

 

Not many Brands work based off of what I understood when I did cans. They would not load most brands of trailers because of that 101". This trailer I have is 101.5" and I would maybe get away with it but never tried to. I know that the 101" will not work for sure on those loads.

 

The old post WW2 standard was 88” outside width. I have a 1947 and 1951 Fruehaufs both 88” outside. Many truck makes had narrower 88” steer axles and the Timken rear axles were set up for 96” at the outside duel tire. Sometime in the late 1950’s the I.C.C allowed it to go to 96” outside on trailers and that standard carried all the way to the 1980’s were 102” outside width on trailers was granted. Most older hands know what it was like to pull a 102 when they first came out with an older 96” wide tractor and the mirrors wouldn’t be far enough out to see behind it.