Flatbed for freight that will not fit in a box.
Forty-eight to fifty-three foot open deck, tarps and chains on the truck, and drivers trained on securement rather than drivers who learned it on the job last month. Steel, lumber, building products, crated machinery and anything that loads from the side or the top.
Illustrative photography — not Prime Trans equipment.What is flatbed trucking?
Flatbed trucking moves freight on an open deck instead of inside an enclosed trailer, so it can be loaded by crane or forklift from the side or overhead. It suits steel, lumber, building products, pipe and machinery. The load is held by chains and straps and covered with tarps when weather requires it.
Side-load, top-load, or too wide for a door.
- Steel and metalsCoils, plate, bar, structural steel and pipe out of the Carolinas and the Birmingham industrial base.
- Lumber and building productsBanded lumber, trusses, panels, roofing and drywall to jobsites and yards.
- Crated machineryEquipment that ships crated or skidded and loads with a forklift or overhead crane.
- Anything over-width for a dockIf it does not fit through a fifty-inch trailer door, the deck is the answer, not a bigger van.
Deck height is the whole decision.
People ask for a flatbed when what they need is a step deck, and the difference is one number: how tall the freight is. A standard flatbed deck sits about sixty inches off the ground, which leaves roughly eight and a half feet of legal height above it. A step deck drops to about forty inches and buys you a foot. An RGN drops to about eighteen inches and buys you three.
| Trailer | Deck height | Legal freight height | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flatbed | about 60 in | up to about 8 ft 6 in | Steel, lumber, pipe, crated goods |
| Step deck | about 40 in on the lower deck | up to about 10 ft | Machinery, tall crates, equipment on tracks |
| RGN lowboy | about 18 in in the well | up to about 11 ft 6 in | Excavators, dozers, loaders, anything that drives on |
Send the height, width, length and weight before you ask for a price. Every open-deck quote that goes wrong goes wrong because one of those four numbers was a guess. There is a longer walk-through in which open-deck trailer do I need.
What comes with the truck.
| Equipment | 48 to 53 foot flatbed, air ride, tarps, chains, binders, straps, edge protection and corner boards on the truck |
|---|---|
| Securement | Loads secured to FMCSA cargo securement rules; the driver checks and re-checks within the first fifty miles and at every stop |
| Tarping | Steel and lumber tarps carried as standard. Tarping is charged as an accessorial because it is thirty to forty-five minutes of work in whatever weather you are having |
| Permits | Legal-dimension loads move without permits. Over-width, over-height or over-length goes to Heavy haul & oversize |
| Insurance | Auto liability $1,000,000 · Cargo $1,000,000 · General liability $1,000,000 · Workers' comp [Statutory / on file] |
| Rate basis | Per loaded mile plus a fuel-surcharge table tied to the DOE index. Tarp, extra stop and detention after two hours are stated on the rate confirmation, not discovered on the invoice |
Honest scope: our open-deck capacity is a small number of trailers running mostly on the I-85 and I-20 corridors, and some of it is placed with vetted partner carriers under our brokerage authority ([Broker MC - pending]). We will tell you which one your load is on before you book, every time. If you need a nationwide flatbed network tomorrow morning, we are not it.
Straight answers
What is the maximum legal load on a flatbed?
About 48,000 pounds of freight on a standard flatbed inside the 80,000-pound gross limit, and up to eight feet six inches tall, eight feet six inches wide and fifty-three feet long before it becomes a permit load. Past any of those numbers it moves as heavy haul.
Do you tarp?
Yes, and we carry steel and lumber tarps on the truck. Say at booking whether the load needs tarping, because it is thirty to forty-five minutes of a driver's day and it is priced as an accessorial rather than hidden in the line haul.
How is flatbed freight secured?
Chains and binders for steel and machinery, straps for lumber and packaged goods, edge protection wherever a strap crosses a corner. Everything is done to the FMCSA cargo securement rules, checked in the first fifty miles and again at every stop.
Can you load at a jobsite with no dock?
That is the point of a flatbed — it loads from the side or the top with a forklift or a crane, so no dock is needed. Tell us what is doing the lifting and whether the ground will take a loaded truck.
Where to go next
Step deck
Step deck and flatbed capacity for machinery, steel, lumber and building products, with securement-trained drivers, tarps and permits handled.
Read onHeavy haul & oversize
RGN lowboy capacity for heavy equipment and oversize loads: permits, route survey, escorts and securement, out of Spartanburg across the Southeast, South and Midwest.
Read onDry van
Dry van capacity on our scheduled lanes to Texas and the Upper Midwest, and on dedicated shuttles around BMW Spartanburg, Michelin and Inland Port Greer.
Read onManufacturers
Dedicated van and step-deck shuttles for the BMW supplier park, Tier-1 plants, tire and DC lanes, and Inland Port Greer.
Read onA unit on the lot costs you every day it sits there.
Tell us the origin, destination, units per week and first pickup date. A written quote comes back the same business day.