Maybe you’ve seen recent ads for Trailer Transit Inc., which is looking for owner-operators. The company, based in Porter in northwestern Indiana, sent an email to us at HDT and it got my attention. I’ve been intrigued with that outfit because it’s not your typical freight hauler, but as its name implies, a transporter of trailers.

About eight years ago I happened upon a trio of Trailer Transit o-o’s who were pulling empty “frack tanks” – big steel boxes riding on single rear axles – from New Jersey to Colorado. They were used to store water at construction sites. But they're also found at gas and oil wells that need lots of treated water for the hydraulic fracturing process, thus their name.

“We’re hauling anything with wheels under it, like generators for the Super Bowl,” says recruiter Audry Brooks, who's been with the company for 21 years. “Also new and used empty trailers for manufacturers and for dealers, trailers for other trucking companies, government and military, medical trailers, heavy machinery like a wood chipper – anything and everything.”

An example on their website is a news release from NASA about Trailer Transit recently transporting a nearly 45-foot-long rocket assembly from Virginia to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, stopping at museums along the way. The full-scale-mock-up of the launch abort system for NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle, , also known as the LAS pathfinder, helped NASA prepare for the first abort system test.

Trailer Transit's loads are strictly hook-and-drop, with no loading or unloading of freight, Brooks says. A trailer being transported might carry cargo – household goods or camera equipment, for example – but even an empty trailer is considered “loaded.” Trailer Transit’s business is highly diversified, so it’s not too affected by ups and downs in the economy.

Pay is 71% of the hauling rate, which might be $1.20 per mile to hundreds of dollars for short-distance repositioning of something already on a customer’s premises.

Tractors must be tandems and should be 10 years of age or younger, “but you can look at a truck and tell whether he’s a professional,” Brooks says of owners. “We’re more interested in the person than the truck.”

The company has been operating since 1981. It now has 250 owner-operators but is always looking for others. How many? “Just one good one, one professional, one at a time,” she says. Interested? Visit the website at www.trailertransit.com, or call 800-922-7448. If Audry answers, tell her I sent you.