11-30-2009, 02:06 PM
If you have 40 foot trailers, and are modeling a more modern era where the majority of trailers would be 48 or even 53 footers, 40 footers can still be used for beer or batteries. There may be other commodities that are just too heavy to use a longer trailer as well. If a company is using a leased owner operator's trailer to move a commodity, they would probably end up loaded into a longer trailer; but for company owned equipment, using 40 feet of a 53 foot trailer instead of special ordering a new 40 foot trailer is probably not very common. 40 footers are much easier to maneuver in tight places than a 53, and thus less likely to suffer accident damage. A friend of mine here in So Cal works for a local beer distributor, and they special order 40 foot trailers, even paying an extra price for something "non-standard" because they couldn't load all 53 feet in a longer trailer anyway.