Steel, Coil and Pipe Freight That Rides Legal on Every Scale
Metals hit the weight limit long before the deck is full, and where the weight sits decides whether the truck clears the first scale. We coordinate flatbed, step deck, RGN, stretch and heavy container capacity for coil, plate, structural, pipe and scrap, secured to the federal standard and tarped because wet steel is damaged steel.
What Makes Metals and Steel Freight Different?
Metals freight is the load that reaches the legal weight limit before it fills the trailer, every single time. One hot rolled coil can weigh what a whole trailer of packaged goods weighs, and it concentrates that weight into a few feet of deck instead of spreading it across forty eight. So the question stops being how much fits and becomes where each piece sits, what keeps it from rolling and what holds it down. Federal securement rules pull metal coils out as their own commodity class, with a tiedown arrangement keyed to which way the eye is pointing. Steel starts oxidizing the moment water reaches it, pipe threads bruise if a chain lands in the wrong place, and a load that is legal on the gross scale can still be over on one axle group. All of that is decided at loading, not discovered at the destination.
What Metals Freight Actually Looks Like on the Deck
- Hot rolled coil, pickled and oiled, riding in a cradle with the eye crosswise or lengthwise
- Cold rolled, galvanized and prepainted coil where the surface is the product and a water stain is a rejection
- Plate and sheet in lifts, full mill plate and cut to size orders bound for a fabricator
- Structural shapes: wide flange beams, channel, angle and HSS tube going to a steel erector or a metal building plant
- Rebar bundles, welded wire mesh and dowel baskets delivered to a jobsite with no dock and no forklift
- Bar stock, billets and wire rod coils moving mill to processor
- Line pipe, casing and tubing with thread protectors on both ends, plus drill pipe out of a pipe yard
- Scrap and recycled metal: bales, shred, prepared heavy melt and turnings moving to a mill or an export dock
- Aluminum and non-ferrous: extrusions, ingot, coil stock, copper cathode and wire
- Overweight containers of coil and pipe pulled off a port or a rail ramp
Who This Page Is Written For
- Traffic and logistics managers at mills and processors shipping coil, plate and bar to service centers
- Service center dispatchers turning inbound coil into cut to size and slit orders on a daily schedule
- Purchasing and shipping managers at steel fabricators, metal building plants and rebar shops
- Pipe and OCTG distributors moving casing, tubing and line pipe between yards and pad sites
- Scrap dealers and recyclers hauling prepared grades to consuming mills and export docks
- Aluminum extruders and non-ferrous distributors shipping product that cannot take a chain mark
Metals Weigh Out Before They Cube Out
A tractor and a flatbed leave you somewhere in the mid forty thousands of pounds of legal payload against the 80,000 pound interstate gross limit. One hot rolled coil can eat most of that by itself. Two of them and the truck is loaded, on a deck that still looks empty from the shoulder. That single fact drives everything else about this freight: you are never filling space, you are placing weight.
Placement is where metals loads actually get in trouble. Federal limits are not just a gross number, they are 20,000 pounds on a single axle, 34,000 on a tandem group, a steer axle capped by tire rating and state law, and the bridge formula tying allowable weight to how far apart the axles sit. A concentrated article like a coil or a bundle of billets parked three feet too far back puts the trailer tandems over while the gross reading is perfectly legal. Nothing about the ticket looks wrong until the scale prints the axle breakdown.
Then it is a problem you cannot solve on the shoulder. Sliding the tandems buys a few thousand pounds of transfer, and after that the coil has to be lifted and moved, which takes a crane that does not exist at a weigh station. Some states add their own geometry on top, like the kingpin to rearmost axle limit that forces a different load position on a truck routed through California. Steel is a divisible load, and states do not permit around an overweight divisible load, so there is no ticket you can buy at the counter. The fix has to happen at the mill.
So the plan starts with a piece list: weight per coil, per bundle, per lift, and the dimensions of each. From that the load is built with positions assigned before the crane operator picks the first piece, which is the difference between a truck that clears the scale house and a truck that sits in it. Total tonnage tells you nothing here. Twenty thousand pounds spread across ten bundles and twenty thousand pounds sitting in one coil are two completely different load plans.
Coils Have Their Own Rule in the Federal Securement Standard
The federal cargo securement rules carve metal coils out as a separate commodity with their own requirements once the coil or the group weighs 5,000 pounds or more. The reason is simple physics. A coil is a dense cylinder with its mass on one axis, it wants to roll, and once it starts moving nothing on a flatbed reverses it. The rule turns on eye orientation: eye vertical, eye crosswise to the trailer, or eye lengthwise toward the front and rear.
Each orientation gets its own arrangement. A coil with the eye lengthwise takes tiedowns through the eye arranged to restrain it forward and rearward, with blocking where the rule calls for it. A coil standing eye vertical takes tiedowns criss-crossed through the eye plus a tiedown over the top, so the coil cannot tip and the wraps cannot walk apart. In every orientation the coil has to sit in something that removes the possibility of rolling: a coil rack, a purpose built cradle, or timbers and chocks positioned and secured so they cannot slide out from under the load. This is why the orientation you load in is a dispatch question, not a detail. A truck rigged for eyes crosswise is not automatically rigged for eyes vertical.
On top of that the general rules still apply. Aggregate working load limit has to reach at least half the weight of the article, so a heavy coil is counted in chain, not guessed at. Chain is the normal choice on steel because a sharp plate edge or a snapped coil band will cut synthetic webbing under tension, and corner protection goes anywhere a tiedown crosses an edge. Aluminum and coated product flip that logic, taking webbing and non-marring dunnage instead, because a chain laid on a bare extrusion leaves a mark that scraps the piece.
Steel also settles. Timbers compress, the load beds into the dunnage, and chain that was tight at the mill is slack twenty miles later, which is exactly why the driver has to inspect and re-tension inside the first fifty miles and then at set intervals through the trip. None of this happens on a truck that shows up without a coil package, so the assignment names the equipment: rack or cradle, timbers, chain count against the piece weights, edge protection and steel tarps physically on board before dispatch.
Pipe, Structural and Bundles: Rolling, Threads and Length
Pipe is the other cargo on this list that rolls, and the rule for anything likely to roll is the same: chocks, wedges, a cradle or an equivalent that removes the movement rather than resisting it. Rows stack in a pyramid with the bottom row blocked into the stake pockets and dunnage strips between layers, because a bottom row free to shift takes the whole stack with it. Mill banding holds a bundle together, it is not securement, and every bundle on the deck gets its own tiedowns counted against its own weight.
On threaded pipe the threads are the expensive part of the joint. Casing and tubing ship with protectors on both ends, and the protectors stay on through loading, transit and unloading. Chain never lands on a thread, joints do not get dragged across the deck, and the ends are kept off bare steel. A bruised or galled thread does not fail visibly at delivery, it fails at the rig floor or on the fabrication line when the joint will not make up, and by then the joint is scrap or a recut.
Length is the third variable. A standard flatbed decks forty eight or fifty three feet, and product that runs past the trailer starts a different conversation: rear overhang has to be flagged and marked, states cap how far it can project, and past that the load moves on a stretch or extendable trailer under permit with the route checked ahead of it. Height works the same way. A tall bundle or a coil standing in a rack can put you against the thirteen foot six inch height most lanes are built around, which is what a step deck solves by dropping the deck, and an RGN handles the pieces that have to load off the rear or sit too tall for anything else.
One note on scope, because these get mixed up on a quote. This page is the sector. The trailer and mode pages are the how. A single piece that is over width or over height is an oversized move with permits, escorts and a surveyed route, and a fabricated multi piece shipment that has to land in erection sequence is project cargo. Metals freight uses both, but most of it is ordinary legal weight steel that simply has to be loaded correctly.
Rust Is Cargo Damage, and the Tarp Is Product Protection
Tarping a steel load is not about how the truck looks. Bare steel starts oxidizing the moment water reaches it, and on cold rolled, galvanized or prepainted coil the surface is the product. Water that gets between the wraps of a coil stains inward and stays there, and galvanized product picks up wet storage stain, the chalky white corrosion that forms when moisture sits trapped against zinc with no airflow. A receiver buying that coil for an exposed or coated application does not sand it, they downgrade it or reject the whole coil.
Condensation does the same damage without a drop of rain. Steel loaded cold and driven into warm humid air sweats under the tarp, so product ships with its mill wrapping and its vapor corrosion inhibitor paper intact, and tarps go on tight rather than left to balloon, since a loose tarp at highway speed pumps air and water into the load all day.
The tarps themselves are specific. Steel tarps have a shorter drop than lumber tarps and are built for sharp edges, and corners get protection so a plate edge does not shred the tarp in the first hour. Tarping a coil load in weather is real work on the clock, which is why it belongs in the dispatch conversation and on the rate confirmation, not as something the driver discovers at the mill gate. If the load has to be tarped, that requirement travels with the assignment.
How a Metals Load Fails in Transit, and What Prevents It
The catastrophic failure is a coil that breaks loose. Nothing on a trailer absorbs that much mass in one lump, and a coil that gets moving in a hard stop goes through the headache rack. It is prevented at loading, not on the road: the correct pattern for the orientation, a cradle or chocks that make rolling impossible, working load limit that actually covers the weight, and the re-tension inside the first fifty miles once the load beds into the timbers.
The quiet failures cost more often. Mill bands snap on a bundle of bar or a wire rod coil and the pieces spread across the deck, and a strand of loose rod catches air and beats against everything near it. Forks and slings mark cold rolled sheet and aluminum extrusion, and a handling mark on surface critical product is a rejection even though the metal is sound. Plate that shifts scores the piece under it. Threads bruise from a chain laid in the wrong place.
Moisture is the failure that shows up as a claim weeks later, when the coil is unwrapped at the processing line and the stain is between the wraps. Condition documented at pickup and at delivery is what settles that argument, because the only question that matters is whether the product left the mill dry and arrived dry.
Then there is the axle violation, which is a failure even though nothing is damaged. The load is legal on gross, over on a group, and it sits at the scale until a crane can be arranged to move a piece. Non-ferrous adds theft to the list, since copper and aluminum resell by weight with no serial number to trace, so those loads warrant a recorded seal, no unsecured stop in the first hours out of the shipper, and a team on the truck when the value justifies keeping it moving instead of parked in an open lot.
Why Dobie Fits Metals, Steel and Pipe Freight
Dobie coordinates transportation: a vetted carrier network managed by dedicated logistics specialists. For metals that matters in a specific way, because this cargo fails when the truck that arrives is not the truck the load needed. The carrier assigned is verified the day it is assigned, not once a year on a file review: operating authority in force, cargo insurance current with limits that correspond to the load, and equipment that corresponds to the assignment. On a coil load, equipment that corresponds to the assignment means the rack or cradle, the timbers and chocks, the chain count checked against the piece weights, and the steel tarps physically on that truck, confirmed before it is dispatched to your gate rather than discovered under the crane.
The equipment range is the second reason. A network of 465 plus vetted carriers across all 50 states, running a 98% on-time record, means one account can put a mill direct coil on a flatbed, a racked coil that no longer clears on a step deck, a long joint of line pipe on a stretch under permit and an overweight box of pipe on a chassis off the ramp, instead of forcing every order onto whatever equipment was set up for last month's shipment. Securement follows FMCSA standards. When a piece runs over legal dimension, permits, escorts and route planning are part of the job rather than a reason to say no. One dedicated specialist stays on the account, and support is 24/7 for the truck sitting at a scale house at ten at night.
The third reason is geography. Northeastern Mexico is a steel and pipe corridor, and product crosses in both directions through South Texas. The crossings, the customs brokers, the maneuvering yards and the carriers on the Mexican side are weekly business here, which matters on cargo where the paperwork is unusually specific: heat numbers and mill test reports have to stay attached to the material, and imported steel carries its country of melt and pour into the entry. Weight rules are not identical on the two sides of the line either, so the load gets built for the stricter leg instead of being restacked at the border. A crossing planned inside the delivery schedule beats a crossing discovered inside it.
There is also an internal team here that handles cargo other than vehicles and machinery, with experience in refrigerated freight, food and hazardous materials. On a metals program that shows up on the lanes around the steel: pickling acid, coating chemicals and solvents move under regulated paperwork, so those loads are quoted by people who already work that freight instead of by someone reading the shipping papers for the first time.
Metals Freight Requirements at a Glance
What a mill, a service center or a pipe yard expects before the truck is loaded, and why each one decides whether the load moves.
| Weight and axle distribution | 80,000 pound interstate gross, 20,000 on a single axle, 34,000 on a tandem group, bridge formula spacing, plus state rules like a kingpin to rear axle limit |
|---|---|
| Coil securement | Metal coils are their own commodity class in the federal securement rules once the coil or group reaches 5,000 pounds |
| Tiedown capacity | Aggregate working load limit of at least half the article weight, with chain on steel and edge protection where a tiedown crosses a corner |
| Re-securement | Inspection and re-tension inside the first fifty miles, then at set intervals through the trip |
| Tarping | Steel tarps specified at booking for coil, plate, structural and any coated or surface critical product |
| Documentation | Bill of lading with piece weights and counts, heat numbers and mill test reports kept with the material, certified scale ticket on scrap, country of melt and pour on imported steel |
| Length and height | Flatbed decks forty eight or fifty three feet, the thirteen foot six inch height most lanes are built around, rear overhang flagged and marked |
| Pipe handling | Thread protectors on both ends, dunnage between rows, bottom row blocked into the stake pockets, chocks or cradle against rolling |
| Loading and unloading | Overhead crane or coil lifter at mills and service centers, posted crane hours, site PPE for the driver, and jobsite delivery where there is no dock at all |
How a Metals Load Gets Coordinated
Send the piece list, not just the tonnage
Weight and dimensions per coil, bundle or lift, the coil eye orientation you load in, whether the product is surface critical, the tarp requirement, and the pickup and delivery facilities. A total tonnage number is not enough to build a legal load plan from.
The load plan is built to the axles
Positions assigned so the tandems, the drives and the steer all sit inside their limits, not just the gross. Trailer chosen from the piece: flatbed for standard coil and structural, step deck for height, stretch for length, RGN for what neither of those can take, container and drayage for import and export moves.
Carrier assigned and verified the day of dispatch
Authority, cargo insurance and equipment checked against this load, including the coil package, the chain and working load limit against the piece weights, and steel tarps on board. Mill site rules, crane hours and driver PPE are confirmed with the driver before the truck is at the gate.
Tracked through the scales to the unload
Status through transit, re-securement handled at the required intervals, condition documented at pickup and at delivery, and signed paperwork with weight tickets and mill certs returned with the POD, which is the evidence a rust or handling claim is argued from.
The Trailer Is Chosen by Piece Weight, Shape and Height
Flatbed is the default for metals and it covers most coil, plate, structural and pipe, but only when it arrives with a coil package: rack or cradle, timbers, chocks, chain and steel tarps. Step deck earns its place on height, dropping the deck so a tall bundle, a coil standing in a rack or a load tarped over a high stack still clears the thirteen foot six inch height most lanes are built around. Stretch and extendable trailers carry joints and beams that run past deck length, under permit and with the route checked ahead of the truck. RGN takes the pieces that have to load off the rear or that no deck height solves. Container and drayage capacity covers import and export steel, where a twenty foot box of coil or pipe hits the road weight limit long before it is full, so the chassis type and the overweight corridor out of the port or the ramp get planned before the box is pulled. And when a piece is genuinely over width or over height it stops being a flatbed conversation and becomes an oversized move, the same way a multi piece fabricated shipment on an erection schedule becomes project cargo. The piece decides the trailer, and the trailer decides everything after it.
What We Confirm With You, Not Here
These depend on your facilities and your product, and they get answered on the first call instead of promised on a web page:
- Mill and service center site rules: crane hours, driver PPE requirements, check in procedure and how long loading actually takes
- Whether your product is surface critical and what wrapping, dunnage and tarp specification it ships under
- Coil eye orientation you load in, and whether your equipment can load a cradle or requires a coil trailer well
- Unloading capability at the receiver or the jobsite, including who supplies and operates the lifting equipment
- Scale ticket and weigh procedure on scrap lanes, and which certified scales your buyer accepts
- Cargo coverage limits appropriate for high value non-ferrous and copper loads
- Container weight limits, chassis type and the overweight corridor at your port or rail ramp
- Broker of record, customs handling and the carrier arrangement on the Mexican side of a cross border lane
- Whether mill test reports have to be in the receiver's hands before the truck is released
- Whether recurring mill to service center lanes are set up as a program rather than quoted load by load
Services a Metals Program Runs On
This is the sector. These are the modes it moves in, one page each.
Flatbed Transport
The default deck for coil, plate, structural and pipe.
Step Deck Transport
Lower deck for tall bundles and racked coil under the height ceiling.
RGN Transport
For pieces that load off the rear or beat a step deck on height.
Oversized Loads
The over width or over height piece, with permits, escorts and route planning.
FTL Truckload
One shipper, one receiver, a deck that weighs out on its own.
Container Shipping
Import and export coil and pipe in boxes that weigh out before they fill.
Drayage & Port Services
Heavy boxes off the port or the rail ramp, planned for the weight.
Project Cargo
Fabricated structural that lands in erection sequence, not as one truckload.
Team Driver Transport
Copper and non-ferrous kept moving instead of parked in an open lot.
Urgent Transport
When a mill outage or a stalled fabrication line is waiting on steel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you move a single coil, or does it have to be a full deck?
A single coil is often already a truckload. Once one piece runs into the tens of thousands of pounds, the deck weighs out with one or two coils on it, so a load that looks half empty is a full truck by law. What we need to price and plan it is the coil weight, the outside and inside diameter, the width, the eye orientation you want it loaded in, and whether it has to be tarped.
How is a coil secured, and does the eye orientation change anything?
It changes everything. Metal coils get their own section of the federal securement rules once the coil or the group weighs 5,000 pounds or more, and the required arrangement depends on whether the eye is lengthwise, crosswise or vertical. Eyes lengthwise take tiedowns through the eye arranged to restrain forward and rearward movement, with blocking where the rule calls for it. Eyes vertical take tiedowns criss-crossed through the eye plus a tiedown over the top. In every orientation the coil sits in a rack, a purpose built cradle or timbers and chocks positioned so rolling is not physically possible, and the driver inspects and re-tensions inside the first fifty miles once the load beds into the dunnage. Tell us the orientation at booking, because a truck rigged for eyes crosswise is not automatically rigged for eyes vertical.
Do you tarp steel, and why does it matter if the product is going to be processed anyway?
Yes, and it matters because water damage on steel is permanent, not cosmetic. Moisture that reaches between the wraps of a coil stains inward, galvanized picks up wet storage stain when moisture sits against zinc with no airflow, and a receiver buying material for an exposed or coated application downgrades or rejects it rather than reworking it. Tell us at booking that the load tarps, and steel tarps and the time to install them are part of the assignment instead of an argument at the mill gate.
Our pipe is longer than a fifty three foot trailer. What are the options?
Short overhang past the deck is legal in most states with the projection flagged and marked, and there is a limit to how far that goes. Beyond it the joint moves on a stretch or extendable trailer under permit, with the route checked ahead of the truck for turns, bridges and restrictions. Send us the actual joint length, the outside diameter, the joint count and the weight, and the answer comes back as a specific trailer and permit plan for those states, not a maybe.
Can you deliver rebar or structural steel to a jobsite that has no forklift?
Yes, but the unloading method is decided before dispatch, not at the gate. A jobsite delivery means confirming what lifting equipment is on site and who operates it, whether the ground supports a truck with a loaded deck, whether the site can take a fifty three foot trailer at all, and what the delivery window is against the crew's schedule. Bundles of rebar and mesh also need to come off in the order the crew places them, so load sequence is planned in reverse from the unload.
What paperwork travels with a metals load?
More than most freight. The bill of lading carries piece counts and piece weights, heat numbers and mill test reports stay attached to the material so the product keeps its traceability, scrap moves against a certified scale ticket at both ends, and imported steel carries the country of melt and pour into its entry paperwork. Metal that loses its identification does not lose its value on the road, it loses it at the receiver, where a bundle nobody can trace to a heat cannot be used on a certified job.
We import coil and pipe from Mexico. Can you handle the crossing?
Yes, and it is home territory. Northeastern Mexico is a steel and pipe corridor and the South Texas crossings are weekly business here, including the customs brokers, the maneuvering yards and the carriers on the Mexican side. The two things that decide a metals crossing are the paperwork staying with the material and the weight plan working on both sides of the line, because axle and gross rules are not identical, so the load is built for the leg that is strictest rather than restacked at the border.
Who is responsible if the load comes up overweight on an axle?
The citation lands on the driver and the carrier, which is exactly why the prevention is upstream of both. Weight distribution is planned from the piece list before the crane picks the first coil, positions are assigned rather than left to the loader, and the trailer tandems are set for the route including states with their own kingpin to rear axle limits. Give us weight per piece instead of total tonnage and this is a non-event. Without piece weights nobody can build a legal load plan, they can only hope.
Do you handle scrap and non-ferrous, or only prime mill product?
Both, and they run differently. Scrap is a weight and ticket business: prepared grades load to a target weight, the load is weighed on a certified scale at both ends, and the buyer's ticket is what settles the transaction, so the scale your receiver accepts gets confirmed before the truck rolls. Copper and aluminum are a security question instead, because they resell by weight with no serial number to trace. Those loads get a recorded seal, no unsecured stop in the first hours out of the shipper, and cargo coverage limits reviewed against the value sitting on the deck.
Last reviewed: August 2026 · Reviewed by the Dobie Transport logistics team
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