What changes when the carrier owns the chassis

Notes from the yard — published September 3, 2026 by the dispatch desk at Long Road Transportation.

The chassis is the constraint, not the truck

There is rarely a shortage of tractors in Puget Sound. What runs short is the right chassis, at the right terminal, on the right morning.

Most drayage runs on pooled equipment — DCLI and TRAC operate the neutral pools, and individual lines run private pools of their own; DCLI runs one for Evergreen at Pierce County Terminal, for example. Pools work well until the day the pool location for your line is empty, and then a container that was ready to move does not move.

A split is a second trip nobody quoted

A chassis split is what happens when the chassis has to be picked up somewhere other than where the container is. It is a separate leg: drive to the pool, hook, drive to the terminal, then start the actual move.

On a rented-chassis operation that leg is a fee and a lost half-day. On our own equipment the chassis is already under the truck when it arrives at the gate, because it never left our yard.

Gate schedules move, and they move late

Terminals in Seattle and Tacoma publish gate schedules on a rolling fourteen-day basis, and those schedules change — individual days get pulled, hours get shortened. 2026 has already seen reduced-gate days at Terminal 18.

A carrier planning a week around a schedule published on Monday will lose containers by Thursday. What actually protects free time is watching the schedule daily and having somewhere to put a box when a gate closes.

Owning a yard is the part customers feel

Our container depot at 1531 Portland Avenue East in the Tacoma tideflats, and the warehouse at 8467 S 208th St in Kent, exist for the two situations that cost importers the most money:

• The receiver's dock is full and the container cannot be delivered today. It comes to our yard instead of sitting on the pier where storage accrues.
• The steamship line keeps moving the empty return location. The box sits on our ground until the return is actually open, rather than the driver chasing a moving target on the clock.
• A container is available on a Friday afternoon and the delivery is Monday. It gets pulled Friday.
• The load needs to be stripped and reshipped on pallets — the same yard, the same day, our own forklifts and top-pick.

What this is not

None of this makes brokers or forwarders unnecessary; they source the freight, file the entries and manage the customer relationship, and they are the reason a lot of our containers exist. The point is narrower: somebody has to physically have a chassis under a truck at six in the morning, and that is a different business with different fixed costs.

We run our own tractors, chassis, top-pick and forklifts, and our own yard and warehouse, across the Kent and Tacoma valley off the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma.

Questions we get asked

What is a chassis split?

It is when the chassis has to be collected from a different location than the container, adding a separate leg to the move. It costs a fee and usually half a day.

Why does owning a yard matter to me as the importer?

Because it is where your container goes when the receiver is not ready or the empty return is closed — instead of accruing storage on the terminal.

Do you work with freight forwarders and brokers?

Regularly. They bring the freight and handle the entries; we supply the equipment and the drivers.

Read next

• Liftgate, residential and limited access: what the delivery site costs you
• In-bond freight: IT, T&E and IE, and who carries the liability

Long Road Transportation is an asset-based carrier operating its own trucks, chassis and heavy-haul equipment out of Kent and Tacoma, Washington. USDOT 3388302, MC 113242, SCAC LRDP.