Coils, plate, structural, rebar and tube. The federal coil rule, why a legal gross weight can still be an illegal axle, what a mill queue does to a schedule, and the paperwork that travels with the metal.
Metals freight is dense, concentrated and unforgiving. A flatbed's legal payload is roughly 48,000 lb, and a steel load frequently reaches that using ten feet of a forty-eight-foot deck. That single fact drives most of what is different about this vertical: placement on the deck is a legal question, not a convenience; blocking and dunnage are load-bearing rather than protective; and a securement failure on a heavy, concentrated, high-energy load is a different category of event from a shifted pallet.
The second thing that shapes it is where it loads. Mills, service centres and scrap yards run overhead cranes and queues, not dock doors and appointments. Load times measured in hours are normal, scale tickets and heat numbers travel with the metal, and the receiving end is often a fabrication shop with one crane and a schedule of its own. None of that shows up on a rate comparison, and all of it shows up on the invoice.
These profiles need different equipment, different paperwork and different rate expectations. Treating them as one category is the most common reason this freight sits on a board.
| Profile | What it is | Usual equipment |
|---|---|---|
| Coils — hot and cold rolled | Steel and aluminium coil. Governed by their own federal securement rule; frequently a single piece heavy enough to be the whole load. | Flatbed / Step deck |
| Plate & sheet | Cut plate, sheet bundles, blanks. Extremely dense, so placement and blocking decide axle legality. | Flatbed |
| Structural — beams, angle, channel | Wide flange, I-beam, angle and channel. Length drives the tiedown count and, past state limits, the permit. | Flatbed / Step deck |
| Rebar & mesh | Bundled reinforcing bar and mesh, tied to the construction cycle. Length-driven and usually untarped. | Flatbed |
| Tube, pipe & bar stock | Round and square tube, pipe, bar. Rolling cargo — blocking and chocking are the whole securement problem. | Flatbed |
| Coated & finished metal | Galvanised, pre-painted and polished product where surface finish is the value. Tarp abrasion is the main claim source. | Conestoga |
| Castings, forgings & fabricated | Machined and fabricated pieces, often crated or skidded, sometimes over-dimension. | Step deck / Flatbed |
| Scrap & recycled metal | Baled, shredded or loose scrap moving to mills. Priced off commodity markets, so volume swings with them. | Flatbed / Power only |
The default for almost all of it. Roughly 48,000 lb of legal payload, loaded by overhead crane or from the side. On steel, the binding constraint is almost never space — it is weight distribution, coil securement and, on long structural, the tiedown count and the length limit.
Current national benchmarks, and what carriers, brokers and shippers each pay: flatbed freight rates →For pieces that are tall as well as heavy, and for crated fabricated work. The lower deck — about 38–42 inches against a flatbed's 60 — keeps roughly 10 feet of cargo legal without a permit, and shifts the centre of gravity down on an already heavy load.
Current national benchmarks, and what carriers, brokers and shippers each pay: step deck freight rates →The answer for galvanised, pre-painted, polished and otherwise finished metal, where a tarp is itself the damage risk. It costs more per mile and gives up a little usable width and height, and it removes both the manual tarping hour at each end and most of the abrasion claims.
Current national benchmarks, and what carriers, brokers and shippers each pay: conestoga freight rates →Mill and service-centre shuttles, scrap runs and repetitive short hauls on preloaded trailers. It takes the truck out of the mill queue, which on a facility that loads by crane is often the single largest cost in the move.
Current national benchmarks, and what carriers, brokers and shippers each pay: power only freight rates →Rates on this freight follow the equipment, not the industry — a pallet of canned goods and a pallet of hardware price the same in the same van. See all market rates per mile or the weekly market reports.
Metals is the vertical where the federal rules are most specific and the physics is least forgiving. These are the items to establish before the load is posted.
| Metal coils — 49 CFR 393.120 | Coils have their own rule, with separate requirements for eyes crosswise, eyes lengthwise and eyes vertical, and for coils grouped in rows. Coil racks, timber cradles and chocks are part of the securement, not accessories. Say what the coil is and how it will sit. |
| The general securement rule still applies | Aggregate working load limit of at least half the cargo weight, and immobilisation in every direction — 49 CFR 393.100–393.114. On dense freight this drives the number of chains, not the number of straps. |
| Tiedown counts by article length | One tiedown up to 5 ft and 1,100 lb; two if heavier or between 5 and 10 ft; and over 10 ft, two plus one for every additional 10 ft or part of it. Structural and bar stock hit this constantly. |
| Weight concentration and axle placement | A load can be legal at 80,000 lb gross and illegal on a tandem, which is capped at 34,000 lb, purely because of where it sits. On steel, deck placement is a legal calculation. |
| Blocking, dunnage and chocking | For pipe, tube and bar, blocking and chocking are the securement. Who supplies the dunnage and whether the shipper blocks the load is a real question with a cost attached. |
| Edge protection | Required wherever a chain or strap would bite into product or be cut by it. On finished and coated metal it is the difference between a clean delivery and a claim. |
| Tarping | Hot-rolled and structural frequently ship open; coated, painted and finished product is tarped or moved under a Conestoga. State which, and how many tarps — it is priced labour. |
| Paperwork that travels with the metal | Mill test certificates, heat numbers and scale tickets. Missing certs stop the metal at receiving even when the freight was flawless. |
Capacity on this freight is close to constant through the year. Demand is not, and that gap is what moves the rate.
| Period | What happens |
|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | The low. Construction demand is frozen out of the northern half of the country and open-deck capacity is abundant. The cheapest window of the year for steel that is not urgent. |
| Mar–May | Construction restarts and flatbed capacity tightens quickly. Rebar and structural volumes move first and hardest. |
| Jun–Aug | Peak open-deck competition — steel is bidding against construction material, farm equipment and machinery for the same trailers. Least give on rate all year. |
| Sep–Nov | Still strong, with projects pushing to close out before winter. Service-centre inventory movement stays steady into the autumn. |
| Dec | Falls away with the construction shutdown, though mill and service-centre shipping continues at a reduced level through the month. |
| Mill queues are measured in hours | Loading is by overhead crane in a sequence you do not control. A half-day at a mill is routine, and it is the largest single cost item most steel shippers under-budget. See the detention pay policy. |
| The crane, not the dock, is the constraint | At both ends. If the receiving fab shop has one crane and it is busy, the truck waits regardless of the appointment. Confirm crane or forklift capacity against the heaviest single piece. |
| Scale tickets and heat numbers | Weighing is part of loading, and the paperwork travels with the metal. A load that cannot be identified to a heat number can be refused at receiving on documentation alone. |
| Tarping a steel load takes real time | Thirty to sixty minutes at each end, more in wind, and it is physical work on a high deck. If the free-time clock does not include it, you are budgeting detention you did not intend to pay. See the driver assist policy. |
| Reload restrictions after certain commodities | Some finished-metal receivers will not accept a trailer that last carried scrap or anything that could mark the product. Worth stating rather than discovering. |
| A cancelled crane is a cancelled day | If the receiving crane or crew is unavailable, the load does not deliver. Agree in advance what that costs. See the TONU policy and the layover policy. |
Every one of these is an accessorial with a written LoadBoot standard, agreed before the truck moves rather than argued about after: detention, layover, TONU, lumper fees, driver assist and FCFS versus appointment.
Metal coils, 49 CFR 393.120. This is the section that makes steel different. It sets out requirements separately for coils transported with eyes crosswise, eyes lengthwise and eyes vertical, and for coils grouped in rows, including the use of coil racks, timber and chocks. It sits inside the wider commodity-specific set at 393.116–393.136, which also covers concrete pipe, paper rolls, heavy equipment and more. A coil described simply as 'steel' on the posting has not been described.
General securement, 49 CFR 393.100–393.114. Aggregate working load limit of at least 50 percent of the cargo weight, immobilisation against movement in every direction, and tiedown counts driven by article length. A violation is an out-of-service condition — your metal stops at the roadside, not at the receiver.
Weight law, and why steel hits it differently. 80,000 lb gross on the Interstate system, 34,000 lb on a tandem axle, and bridge-formula limits based on axle spacing. Because dense metal occupies a small footprint, a compliant gross weight in the wrong deck position produces an illegal axle. This is a loading decision made at the shipper's yard.
Permits on single heavy or long pieces. Long structural, large fabricated assemblies and single heavy pieces cross into overweight or over-dimension territory quickly. Permits are issued per state and per route, with curfews, escort requirements and lead times that range from same-day to several days. See oversize load rates.
This is general operating information, not legal advice. Regulations are amended and state rules vary — confirm current requirements for your commodity and route before relying on them.
Rate is rarely why this freight sits. It sits because a carrier cannot tell from the posting whether the load is legal on his trailer, how long he will wait, or what he gets paid if it goes wrong. Six things fix most of that.
| Exactly what the metal is | Coil, plate, structural, rebar, tube, coated product — and for coils, the orientation. This is what determines which federal rule applies. |
| Piece weights, not just total weight | The heaviest single piece decides the crane or forklift needed at both ends, and drives the axle-placement question. |
| Dimensions of the longest and tallest piece | Length sets the tiedown count and the permit threshold; height decides flatbed versus step deck. |
| Tarping and edge protection | Open, tarped or Conestoga, how many tarps, and who supplies edge protection for coated and finished product. |
| Blocking and dunnage responsibility | Whether the shipper blocks and chocks the load and supplies the timber, or whether the carrier is expected to. |
| Loading and unloading equipment | Overhead crane, gantry, forklift and its capacity — stated separately for origin and destination, along with realistic load and unload times. |
Post a metals and steel load → · Why posting is free for brokers and shippers →
Because of the physics. A coil is heavy, dense, round and capable of rolling or sliding with enormous force, and the way it must be restrained depends entirely on how it sits — eyes crosswise, eyes lengthwise or eyes vertical each present a different failure direction. 49 CFR 393.120 therefore writes out the requirements separately for each orientation and for coils grouped in rows, including coil racks, timber cradles and chocks. This is also why describing your freight accurately on the posting is a safety matter, not a formality.
Because gross weight and axle weight are separate limits. The federal tandem limit is 34,000 lb, with bridge-formula limits based on axle spacing. Steel reaches full payload using a short section of deck, so putting that weight in the wrong place overloads an axle while the gross stays compliant. Deck placement on dense freight is a legal calculation, and it is made at the shipper's yard.
When the surface finish is the value. Galvanised, pre-painted and polished product is damaged by tarp abrasion, by strap pressure without edge protection, and by the handling that tarping itself involves. A Conestoga costs more per mile and gives up a little usable width and height, and it usually pays for itself on the claim rate alone. See the Conestoga rate page.
Because mills load by overhead crane in their own sequence, not by dock appointment. The crane serves the mill's production priorities first, and a truck joins a queue it cannot influence. Half a day is normal. The realistic responses are to price the free time honestly, or to move the lane onto a drop-trailer or power-only programme so the tractor is not sitting in the queue at all.
Typically mill test certificates and heat numbers identifying the material, plus scale tickets from loading. Receiving departments at fabricators and service centres match the metal to those documents, so a load that arrives on time and undamaged can still be held at the door if the certification does not match. It is worth confirming who provides what before the truck loads.
It prices as open-deck freight and follows the same seasonal curve as construction material — cheap in January and February, tight from May through October. Conestoga carries a premium over flatbed, and over-dimension or overweight single pieces price separately because of the permit and escort work. Current national benchmarks are on the flatbed, step deck and Conestoga rate pages.
Posting is free for brokers and shippers — no subscription and no per-post fee. Every carrier who can accept your load has had authority, insurance and safety checked first, every load carries live GPS, and the accessorial terms above are written down before the truck moves.