Lowboy Loads
Heavy Haul And Oversize Freight

Why the deck is that low

The same 13 ft 6 in height ceiling that governs flatbed and step deck work governs this. A lowboy drops the well between the gooseneck and the rear axles to around 18 to 24 inches off the ground, which leaves roughly 11 ft 6 in to 12 ft of load height, enough for machinery that would be permitted freight on any other trailer. That is the whole design brief, and everything else about the trailer follows from it.

The trade is length. The low well is short, usually 24 to 29 ft, because it has to sit between the axle groups. A lowboy carries a tall, heavy, compact machine, not a long one. Freight that is long rather than tall belongs on a step deck or a stretch trailer.

What is a lowboy load board?

A board filtered to heavy equipment moves, dozers, excavators, cranes, transformers and drilling equipment, on a trailer whose deck drops to roughly 18 to 24 inches so tall machinery clears the legal height. Listings carry weight and dimensions, which on this freight is what tells you whether the job is a permit job before you quote it.

That matters because the quote is the work. A two-axle lowboy handles around 40,000 lb and multi-axle configurations go well past 100,000 lb with permits, so two postings with the same mileage can be completely different jobs. Machinery and vehicle work overlap at the edges, and freight tendered for a multi-car trailer is posted separately as car hauling work.

Lowboy and RGN

A removable gooseneck, an RGN, is a lowboy whose front section detaches so the well drops to the ground and becomes a ramp. That lets a machine be driven straight on rather than craned, which for tracked equipment is usually the only practical option. Fixed-neck lowboys are lighter and cheaper; RGNs are more useful, and the great majority of heavy-haul work in this segment is done on one.

Beyond that the configurations keep going: extra axle rows, jeeps and boosters spread weight over more axles to satisfy the bridge formula, and detachable side sections widen the deck for oversize equipment. Each addition raises the capacity and the number of permits.

Permits are the job

Below 80,000 lb gross, 8 ft 6 in wide, 13 ft 6 in tall and the legal length, a load moves on ordinary authority. Past any one of those limits it is oversize or overweight, and every state it crosses issues its own permit on its own rules, its own fees and its own routing. There is no federal permit and no reciprocity worth relying on.

• Permits are per state and per trip, and the route is part of the permit, you drive the roads it names, not the roads the map prefers.
• Travel is commonly restricted to daylight hours and to weekdays, with holiday and curfew restrictions on top.
• Pilot cars are required past width and length thresholds that differ state by state; police escorts past others.
• Bridge and overpass clearances are checked against the permitted route, not assumed. A route survey is normal work on the taller loads.

Who ships it

Construction contractors moving fleet equipment between sites, equipment dealers and auction houses delivering sold machines, mining and energy operations, utilities moving transformers and switchgear, and crane and rigging companies repositioning their own kit. It is relationship-driven work, and a carrier who handles the permits well and communicates through a multi-day move gets called first the next time.

One step down in height is the step deck, and standard open-deck freight is on flatbed.

Every lowboy load on this board shows its rate before you call, and posting is free for brokers and shippers, which is why the freight is here. See how it works for carriers.