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Pretend that the cardboard box had never been invented, and you have to move. You gather up your stuff a handful at a time—socks, spoons, pillows, toys, etc. Maybe put some of it in bags, carry it an armful at a time to your car, lots of trips. You drive to your new house, pick it up an armful at a time, and unload your car.

That is exactly what shipping was like before the sea shipping container was invented. Individual pallets, bags, and boxes moved by hand in and out of ships, trains, and trucks. You can move that way, and it works, but moving with cardboard boxes is a lot easier and more efficient. The container is so much more efficient that freight rates and loss dropped 90%. Suddenly, you can ship things economically, and the whole world opens up.

Now, pretend the cardboard box has been invented, but it can only be picked up or taken out of your car with a special crane that you have when you leave and where you arrive. It is a lot easier to load your stuff into the box and into the car, but you can’t unload any boxes until you get to the other end, where you have another special crane. That is what is happening now with sea shipping containers.

Until some guy in Ohio invents a way to pick up and drop off cardboard boxes whenever and wherever you want, without the special cranes at either end—way easier. Now that you can pick up and put down your cardboard boxes wherever you want, things like UPS and Amazon suddenly become possible. It’s exactly the same with sea shipping containers. Some guy in Ohio invented QuickLoadz, which picks up and puts down sea shipping containers wherever you want, without any cranes. Same benefits, just bigger boxes. Warehouses, ports, and loading docks will be a lot less important as containers move end to end wherever you want. What else will suddenly become possible?

Great book on how the box changed the world:

All sheet metal, when it leaves the mill, is hot rolled into big rolls, stored, and shipped that way. Since the roll is flattened and cut into sheets while cold, the memory is still there from when it was wound up hot. The steel on the outside of the roll has less memory because it’s less tightly wound; the steel on the inside has a lot of memory because it’s very tightly wound.

Tread plate has this memory more than slick steel; I assume it’s because of the raised diamonds which are also pressed into the steel while it is hot. But all sheet metal has this memory.

On a QuickLoadz, the deck is made up of 3/16″ tread plate cut into 16″ wide sections and welded to the 10G cross-members. When the plate steel hits the 845° molten zinc, memory in the steel is released. But you also have this 16″ × 42″ wide piece of steel welded in select spots, so the memory has no place to go, and will therefore cause the 16″ wide panels to hump up or down. This isn’t severe and will generally be less than half an inch, but is completely unavoidable unless you dip the trailer, then the deck plates, then weld them together afterwards. If you do that, you get crappy welds because of the zinc, and where you welded, you don’t get the protection of the hot dip galvanizing.

We cut our deck plates into 16″ sections instead of 48″ sections because in 16″ sections, the warp is manageable. Over a 48″ wide section, the stresses become so great that oftentimes it will rip out welds. Also, we are very specific as to where the deck plates are welded, to balance the warp of individual sheets with the strength of the deck overall.

There are odd ball things that will happen. For instance, some plates won’t seem to warp at all, and some warp a full half inch up or down. The reason is that some of those plates were made with outside roll (little memory) and some inside roll (lots of memory). Deck plate warp is noticeable when you’re standing right next to the trailer, but you can’t really see it in pictures. For example, this picture is right down the line of the bed:

The US Army ordered a hot dip galvanized QuickLoadz 40′ trailer.

We have had to do a lot of design work to make hot dip galvanizing possible. I don’t think that there are any other trailer manufacturers that dip an entire 40′ trailer complete. Most dip them in sections and bolt them together. I like dipping the entire thing because it makes it really sturdy, you are almost soldering the trailer together after the welds.

We are fairly experienced in hot dip galvanizing by now, but it is still fun to see. At 45′ long, 9,900 pounds, 8′ 6″ wide and 3′ tall, it just barely fits in the molten zinc tank. It’s the biggest thing our manufacturer has ever galvanized all at once.

A small crowd gathered to look at it.

Watching it go in is spectacular, the smell of sulfur from the acid dip tanks, the boiling water from the cooling tanks, the molten zinc flying in the air as it pops and flings due to the temperature differences, flames breaking out where we have put in high temperature silicon to stop the zinc from sticking to some assemblies, the creak of metal as one side hits 840° and the other is at 60°.

It came out perfect. It took four hours to cool down, and we picked it up the next day.

Maybe as a side line we can sell small galvanized bridges. Oh that’s right, we don’t have enough time as is.

The US Army wanted a trailer that was fast, versatile, easy to use, and to not have to worry about rust. That is QuickLoadz.

Wouldn’t you like to not worry about rust? How is your trailer going to look after this long winter?

At Quickloadz, convenience and safety for the driver is important. Moving 40′ containers, or any 40′ trailer really, requires a lot of room. Much less room if you have sliding axles.

Sliding axles go all the way back on the highway for maximum stability, and for times you need to avoid back swing on the rear of the trailer:

Sliding axles go all the way forward for those tight turns:

“So what?” you ask. “My 40′ trailer can slide its axles.” Yeah, but…

QuickLoadz can slide its axles while moving, without the driver leaving their seat.

That’s right. You don’t have to get out, start your pony engine, push or pull some hydraulic levers.

In a QuickLoadz, while moving, you can:

1. See what is behind you on your smartphone using the QuickLoadz Wi-Fi rearview camera.
2. Start the 40 HP EFI Kohler engine, and slide those axles to where you need them for that turn.

Need something heavier? The same sliding axle works on out 40,000 lb. and 60,000 lb. units—the units the US Army buys from us.

Move to easy. Move to QuickLoadz. You deserve it.

It is 4° out, the wind is blowing, snow is coming down. Straps are frozen solid, chains are untouchable without gloves. Why is Jim smiling?

Because on Jim’s new QuickLoadz, the Lift Wedges raise the container right out of the frozen ground.

Because on Jim’s new QuickLoadz, the drive chains go into the corner castings, and pull on the container without Jim getting out of the truck.

Because on Jim’s new QuickLoadz, Jim doesn’t need straps or chains; the hydraulic locks do it all.

Jim is smiling. In arctic weather, he loaded a heavy container in two minutes without leaving the warmth of the truck cabin. Yayyy, Jim.

Why aren’t you smiling?

Replace that old tow bed with a Quickloadz. QuickLoadz can do everything it does anyway, QuickLoadz is a container mover first, but also a tow trailer.

Plus the rearview camera, the 40 HP EFI Kohler engine, the cell phone remote control—and on the truck versions, you also get a dump truck.

Smile while you remember the bad old days of going outside the truck to load a container.

20′ containers load easy.

20′ containers dump easy.

Let’s try something harder.

Look, Jim, now you have an easy way to move 40′ containers around your yard. Or… just flag it?

Only system that can be made autonomous.

What is better than a self driving truck?

A truck that can pick up and drop off loads all by itself.

Everyone is working on the self driving truck:

– GM has a self-driving autonomous 20’ platform
– Google and Waymo are testing autonomous trucks
– Tesla’s all-electric semi will ship with full autonomy
– Toyota has its own autonomous container system for ports

Who will win freight? Whomever marries the self driving truck with QuickLoadz.

QuickLoadz is the only system in the world that can be made to autonomously load and unload sea shipping containers. QuickLoadz exists today. QuickLoadz is moving containers all over the world today. QuickLoadz is so automated that the driver never leaves their seat in the cab of the truck.

Fast, light, safe, simple, versatile, sturdy and cheap.

The way to truly revolutionize freight exists in a home grown, high tech, heavy manufacturing company in South Eastern Ohio.

Check us out.

Want to see how it works?

Imagine that you had the time, experience and resources to build, rebuild, refine, work a trailer to simply, safely do its job perfectly. That is what QuickLoadz is. At QuickLoadz, we move containers every day—empty, loaded. We have customers all over the world talking to us giving constant feedback.

At QuickLoadz we have the time, machinery, money, and experience to build the perfect trailer for moving sea shipping containers. So we do. We don’t build any other kind of trailer.

At QuickLoadz, design is everything. We build our trailers with CNC cut and bent sheet steel instead of off the shelf channel, and beam steel.

What do I mean by custom cut and bent flat steel vs off the shelf pre-formed steel? Preformed steel comes in specific sizes and is formed at the steel mill. Design is limited to what you can do with those sizes.

With custom cut and bent steel, design is not limited to what you can buy off the shelf.

Holes for hoses, wiring, bolt placement are exactly where you want them, what size you want them, and exact as only a CNC cut and bend can create.

You can create almost any shape you need, in almost any dimension you need. If you need a Z beam at 5 3/16” to make everything fit perfect, you have it.

Not only are perfect custom shapes easy, change is easy. You discover that if you make a beam 1/2” wider, then you can add a feature. Done.

With custom cut and bent steel, you don’t need stitch welding.

Most trailers are constructed with off the shelf channel, angle, and I beams. In trailers, these off the shelf steel channel are not welded the entire length for good reason. If you continuously weld, then you fight warping the steel with heat. For a 40’ trailer, you would end up welding hundreds of feet of steel—just for the side rails. Instead, side rails are stitch welded.

Stitch welding means that instead of welding along the entire length where steel beams come together, they are just welded in places. Often times, between welds is filled in with caulk to try to stop water infiltration. With stitch welding, you also introduce heat stress. If you stitch weld 2 pieces of steel together, it is not nearly as strong as if it were one piece of steel. Under continuous flexing, it will crack at the welds.

At QuickLoadz, our side rails are one continuously bent piece of steel. No heat warp, no heat stress, no stitch welding; just a strong, perfectly shaped piece. Lighter, stronger, no gaps for water to sit and rust to form.

QuickLoadz trailers are built to last, with every single part of the design carefully considered.

Moving containers with the old tow trailers is dangerous, slow, hard, and generally awful.

Don’t be cruel. Don’t do this to yourself or your drivers.

Move containers without getting out of the truck. Tow cars with ease. Move equipment with ease.

See the difference:

We made QuickLoadz to be the multi-use, Swiss Army Knife of trucks, but this is a new one.

We have a contractor who uses a military truck version of the 20k Super Bed. They deliver containers with it, they use it as a dump truck, they use it to move equipment.

But what is new? The first time a QuickLoadz bed was used as a bridge.

They had to clear land for a surveyor; they had their BobCat skidsteer with a brush hog on front.

But the bridge to the back of the property was out. Ten foot drop to the creek bed.

Didn’t stop them—they backed up to the edge of where the bridge used to be, slid the bed back, and used the QuickLoadz bed as a bridge.

The Bobcat is loaded on the QuickLoadz bed.

The QuickLoadz bed slides backwards, crossing the chasm.

The Bobcat drives off the bed to the other side.

The land is cleared; job well done!