What is it like running a hopper?

I believe it's agriculture, corns & soybeans. Some or most may even operate under Ag exemption from the HOS. It's anything but a 9-5 type of trucking because ag products harvest in great waves and then not for months.

 

There’s everything available in the hopper world from local to regional to long haul.

 

I've heard people call them welfare wagons. I'm not real sure what that's all about buuuuutttttt.
I have never really pulled one, but I figure when you get old and you still want to truck a little bit that be a good job. Evidently @Tall Mike does pretty well.

 

@Judge is doing that gig and should have many stories to tell. Ask him about bone meal loads...........

 

I know a guy that hauled sweet potatoes in one.

 

Our people won't haul cheap, they just won't book the low end stuff.
I switched over to a bucket, not because of money, because of the customer base. Those places that make pet food are on par with grocery warehouse work.

 

It's very obvious by their equipment that they don't haul the low end stuff.

 

Every hopper I see pulling into a sugar or oil plant is a large car with a farm name on the door. I've never seen fleet trucks do this work.

Maybe they do, I don't know.