Hotshot trucking, from the carrier that actually runs it.

What fits on a 30–40 ft gooseneck

A gooseneck deck carries the freight a full flatbed is overkill for and a parcel network can't touch: a single machine, a few pallets of steel or building product, crated equipment, an expedited replacement part. Open-deck loading means forklifts and cranes reach it from the side or the top, and securement runs chains, straps, and tarps to spec — the same discipline as our full-size flatbed work.

The cue that says hotshot: real freight with its own deadline that doesn't justify — or can't wait for — a full truckload.

What ships hotshot most often

The freight that keeps coming back to a gooseneck deck sorts into shapes rather than industries: the piece is self-contained, it loads from outside, and it has somewhere to be. Read the list as fit categories — if your freight looks like one, hotshot is worth pricing.

• Skid steers, mini excavators, and compact equipment that drives or lifts onto a deck
• Compressors and generators between sites
• Crated and palletized parts, where the crate is the shipment rather than one pallet of many
• Single-piece industrial components — fabrications, weldments, tanks, structural sections
• Construction supplies going to a jobsite, not a dock
• Replacement equipment where the freight is small and the downtime it ends is not

Machinery & equipment freight →Construction & building materials →

Ramps or no ramps

Our gooseneck decks run with and without ramps, and which one shows up changes what has to be waiting at both ends. Ramps mean a machine can be driven or winched on under its own power — no forklift, no crane. That is the difference between a jobsite pickup that happens and one that turns into a wasted trip.

Without ramps the load has to be lifted on, which assumes a forklift with the reach and rating for the piece, or a crane, at both ends — not an assumption to make quietly, so the desk asks. Tell us how the freight loads and unloads and whose equipment does it; if the answer is nobody's, that gets named at quote time rather than discovered at the gate. Whether the unit has ramps is stated at tender and named on the rate confirmation; if the load needs a forklift or crane at either end, that is the shipper's or receiver's to arrange, and the desk will say so before dispatch.

Expedited, without the air-freight bill

Expedited, here, means one specific thing: your freight gets a dedicated truck running from the pickup to the delivery. No consolidation with other shippers' freight, no terminal stops, no re-handling — and every touch removed is a place something can no longer be delayed or damaged. That is most of what people are buying when they reach for air freight on a piece that does not need to fly.

What we will not do is put a transit time in writing before we have looked at the lane: distance, routing, the pickup window, and federal hours-of-service rules decide it, however urgent the freight is. Give the desk the real deadline and you get a plan that meets it or a straight no — a carrier that says yes to every clock is telling you something about its other yeses.

Non-CDL and CDL operators, both on our authority

Hotshot is the one service where the operator's licence class enters the conversation, so here is the line. Under federal rules a commercial driver's licence is required once the vehicle combination's gross combination weight rating reaches 26,001 lb; below that line a qualified non-CDL operator can run the freight legally. That threshold is about the combination, not about the driver's ability or about your load.

Both kinds of operator run on Arrow's authority under the same lease, insurance, ELDs, and safety program — the licence class changes which combination an operator can be assigned, not the standard your freight is held to. For a shipper it comes down to one thing: the desk matches the load to a combination that can legally and safely carry it, and says so if what you described does not fit one.

Hotshot vs. full flatbed vs. LTL

Against a full 48–53′ flatbed: hotshot wins on speed to dispatch and cost when the freight doesn't fill a deck; the flatbed wins on capacity and on loads whose weight or footprint outgrows a gooseneck. Against LTL: hotshot gives your freight its own equipment and a direct run — no terminals, no cross-docking, no other shippers' freight riding along.

Pick hotshot

Partial or single-piece open-deck freight, tight windows, direct runs. Your freight is the only freight on the deck.

Pick full flatbed

The load fills a 48–53′ deck, or its weight and footprint outgrow a gooseneck.

Pick LTL elsewhere

Small, non-urgent, dock-to-dock freight that tolerates terminals and transfer handling. We don't run LTL, and we'll say so rather than sell you a truck you don't need.

The lanes we actually run

Safford, Arizona is our staffed MC headquarters; Sedalia MO, Bolingbrook IL, and Fredericktown OH are equipment domiciles, not offices. Freight moves nationwide; operational hubs in AZ, MO, IL, and OH keep us dense on the I-10 / I-55 / I-70 corridors.

The qualification is the useful part: a lane running along or between those hubs is one we are already on. Tell the desk the lane; if it's one we're strong on, you'll hear it in the response time.

How tendering works

Call or send the lane through the capacity form: commodity, dimensions, weight, how it loads, and the windows. Pricing is quoted per lane on a written rate confirmation — never estimated by a widget — with accessorials named before the truck moves. Every truck runs an ELD, so you get pickup, transit, and delivery updates, and the claims process runs to 49 CFR Part 370, published on this site before you ever need it. Verify the authority first: MC #1800150 on SAFER, two minutes, no login.

Verify MC #1800150 on SAFER →