Drastically lower sales of building materials have stung those who produce and sell them-as well as those who ship them. In fact, with the severe drop-off in freight, an estimated 200,000 trucks have been pulled off the road over the last two years.

That translates into more than 3,000 trucking firms going out of business in 2008 and more than 2,000 going under in 2009. Analyst Donald Broughton, Avondale Partners, predicts another 2,000 trucking companies will close this year due to higher operating costs and lower demand. 

And, as lumber distributors painfully discovered during this spring's uptick in business, fewer trucks mean more work to find a shipper and higher freight rates. Just imagine the hassles once the lumber industry finally does rebound.

Building-Products.com asked several industry professionals for their insight on the current transportation challenges:

"No doubt trucking has become substantially more expensive and more difficult to procure. Our customers all arrange their own trucks, but what used to be a two- to three-day delay between release and pickup of an order now averages eight to 10 days."

"We don't control the trucking out of our facility, we sell FOB Mill, so I don't deal with the truckers directly. I have heard many complaints, though, from our customers on the subject, and we have seen that it takes longer for our customers to find trucks for their purchases at our mill because there are less trucks on the road to choose from.  They have also mentioned that freight rates have increased, in some cases dramatically."

"I've heard from some of our mills that getting trucks is more difficult now. There also have been a lot of center-beam lumber rail cars that railroads parked when markets dropped that are slow to move back into service.

"We predicted that transporting lumber to market would be an issue once things pick back up. So far, shipments are only up 11% from last year, which was one of our lowest years for volume. And look at the transportation problems that rise caused. Once home construction activity comes back for real, it may uncover more problems like this."

"Arranging the freight for our outbound loads is my daily task. In the last three months, since I have started arranging trucking, the availability of haulers has been greatly reduced. Trucking companies and brokers have gone from providing trucks in a day or two down to not being able to provide trucks for up to two weeks in some cases. One factor that is driving the shortage is diesel prices. This rise has caused truckers to demand more money per mile.

"Another factor would be the destination of each load. We have had many loads going into the Dakotas and are finding it almost impossible to arrange freight into these states. I am told by many of my truckers this is due to available materials and loads returning from there-pretty much nothing comes back this direction. Truckers would rather wait for another available load than take one into North and South Dakota, even though they are offered more money per load. 

"Another trend I have noticed was the lumber market took a long up-rise in the past couple of months, driving the demand up. We had buyers wanting large volumes of material due to the price they were receiving from consumers. This caused freight all over to be in large demand because buyers were needing these materials quickly before the market started to fall off. 

"Now that the market has started to fall, for about the last month, I am seeing less demand for materials and freight. We have gone from arranging several trucks a week down to one, two at the most. Although this is the case, I am still finding some of the shorter hauls hard to arrange freight for. Truckers are waiting out to take longer hauls to make more money, causing our cost to rise as well so we can get trucks to commit. 

"On the other side, I am receiving inquires from many smaller trucking companies looking for possible loads, telling me that things have slowed down dramatically-but not enough to get truckers to loosen up and take loads. Hopefully, freight will free up somewhat, allowing mills to move what materials they have sold cheaper and more quickly. All in all, it has been a rollercoaster ride in the freight world with so many ups and downs in recent weeks. It has been very difficult to predict freight availability and price from one day to the next with all the uncertainty."

"Trucking has been very tough this year. It seems that certain lanes have been more difficult than others. It has been particularly tough to get trucks from Georgia to eastern Tennessee and back to North Carolina. We have had to rely on rail shipments much more than in the past and expect this to be the trend going forward."

"Trucks this year have been very difficult. I have had to spend at least two hours a day finding and booking trucks. I have heard that over 25,000 trucking firms have shut the doors or are off the road in the last two years. 

"We are definitely seeing the effects of this and with the fuel increase and lack of trucks, freight has gotten very costly. Some areas of the Northeast, especially Pennsylvania, are very hard to get to because the trucks say there are no backhauls out of this area. It is slowly coming to the point to where it will take a part-time employee just to handle booking trucks for our company."

"I do see fewer trucks available, but I think more due to smaller independent guys just getting out of the business. I used to have quite a list of truckers who had just one to five trucks and would work very hard to keep shippers happy. Many of the trucks we see now are part of bigger concerns and their equipment is heavy, or not equipped with tarps and such.

"We have seen the rates move up over the last six months due to fuel increases, but as of late we have been able to back that down a little because fuel has come down.

"We have had to change the way we chase trucks in order to move our loads."

"We have had more difficulty hiring both inbound and outbound trucks the last two years. In some areas we have had to run our own trucks round-trip to keep deliveries going."

"Inconsistency in sales volume has caused erratic shipping schedules. Many truckers do not have regular routes anymore. We're doing more LTL work and using more carriers than we used to. If we had to rely on only a couple of haulers to move material, we would have a lot of disappointed customers."

"Our long-range transportation model works in times like these. We use only a few trucking firms, with whom we have set formulas, fuel rates, etc. We work hard to keep them busy in the slow times and they work hard to cover our needs when trucks are tight. If we have to go outside the circle of our normal truckers, then, yes, it's very difficult and expensive to get the loads covered."

"We have always focused on those customers that have been willing to allow us to develop a long-term relationship as a partner in their transportation needs. This means that we have asked them to pay fair and competitive rates, adjusted for fuel prices and market conditions at the time. 

"The lumber business has for the most part been addicted to back-haul rates, heavy loads (48,000#), and in many cases their shipments require 8-ft. tarps, also known as lumber tarps. Unless one has ever tarped a load in winter or summer conditions, and I have only done one back when I was a young lad, I can tell you it is one of the worst parts of the flatbed movements, and drivers will choose not to tarp and take different freight when they have the choice, as they do in the current market conditions. 

"Very few of the lumber mills have developed real relationships with those carriers that have capacity, because in the past few years the market collapsed for trucking companies. Customers were able to find trucks at 'mercenary rates,' which the lumber mills took advantage of. I am not saying they should not have done this, but as with any decision there is a consequence, and they are now experiencing that consequence. 

"Now many of those trucking companies that hauled freight at rates that did not really cover their operating expenses have succumbed over time and left the market due to hauling freight at unsustainable rates. The market has flipped over the last few months to where transportation demand is up and the total number of trucks available has declined. We continue to provide capacity to those customers who treated us as partners, such as McShan Lumber, and while prices have gone up, our partners still get preferential pricing, while those people that call us trying to be our new friends are put at the bottom of the list, and charged accordingly.

 

"We have a long-term outlook for our business, and we do not focus on loads, but rather providing consistent quality service to those businesses that will in return treat us fairly. That does not describe the average lumber broker from the perspective of the trucking industry. The old saying is 'Live by the sword, die by the sword.' The mills for the most part have always lived by cheap rates and relied on the desperateness of the trucks for freight. Thus, in times when the market flips, they are left in a bad situation." 

"We are lucky to have local trucking companies close by in Central Oregon that have been very available for our shipping needs. We also have many wood manufacturing companies around us that have products hauled in to remanufacture, and those truckers need to get back out of the area and are very receptive to calling on us for outbound loads. (That's) not to say that I am not calling a lot during the day to find them and coordinate the effort, but we have been able to find trucking for our prompt timeframes to meet with ship loadings. 

"At one point California was a tough destination, as no trucks were going that way from our area. But at this time, all seems to be fairly smooth. We do not ship by rail any longer, as we just go over the mountain to Portland with export, so trucks are our best option."