Cage car weight limit

Achilles

Achilles

Member
Just curious, what would it take to exceed the weight limit of a non-cdl UPS cage car? We had a huge shipment of hardback textbooks. Each box ranged from 30 to 50 lbs with between 600-875 pcs. One driver said the vehicle looked overloaded, and it was more difficult to drive. I could only do about 45-50mph on the freeway and took quite a bit of space to slow down. Was I even close to max weight and how would I know? Is it the pre-loads responsibility to not exceed weight limits? Just curious, was I a little concerned over nothing?
 
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clean hairy

Well-Known Member
Achilles said:
Just curious, what would it take to exceed the weight limit of a non-cdl UPS cage car? We had a huge shipment of hardback textbooks. Each box ranged from 30 to 50 lbs with between 600-875 pcs. One driver said the vehicle looked overloaded, and it was more difficult to drive. I could only do about 45-50mph on the freeway and took quite a bit of space to slow down. Was I even close to max weight and how would I know? Is it the pre-loads responsibility to not exceed weight limits? Just curious, was I a little concerned over nothing?
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Helps Drivers avoid speeding tickets!
 
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Grey

Well-Known Member
An older driver the other day told me that anything over 50 lbs wasn't allowed in package cars back in the day. Being young sucks.
 
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PT Car Washer

Well-Known Member
Grey Matter said:
An older driver the other day told me that anything over 50 lbs wasn't allowed in package cars back in the day. Being young sucks.
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When I started on the preload the max weight limit was 50 lbs. Before that the weight limit was 35 lbs. UPS is a small package delivery company not a fright company. Anything over 50 lbs should go to UPS Freight.
 
FrigidFTSup

FrigidFTSup

Resident Suit
Even at the bottom of the weight range you're talking 18,000 pounds. You sure you have the numbers right? That's a ton of weight for anything that doesn't have air brakes.
 
Oak

Oak

Well-Known Member
FrigidPTSup said:
Even at the bottom of the weight range you're talking 18,000 pounds. You sure you have the numbers right? That's a ton of weight for anything that doesn't have air brakes.
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30,000 GVWR is pretty common without air brakes. Many 2 ton trucks have a 30,000 rear axle and have hydraulic brakes. Chevrolet Kodiak, GMC Topkick, for example.

That said, I doubt very many package cars have a GVWR of 18,000. I'm actually surprised with a DOT number there isn't a GVWR posted on the cars.
 
FrigidFTSup

FrigidFTSup

Resident Suit
Oak said:
30,000 GVWR is pretty common without air brakes. Many 2 ton trucks have a 30,000 rear axle and have hydraulic brakes. Chevrolet Kodiak, GMC Topkick, for example.

That said, I doubt very many package cars have a GVWR of 18,000. I'm actually surprised with a DOT number there isn't a GVWR posted on the cars.
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Interesting. I thought 18,000 GVWR was the base for the most part. Another thing I learned today!

But I do agree, 18,000 seems a little much for any package car.
 
soberups

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Oak said:
30,000 GVWR is pretty common without air brakes. Many 2 ton trucks have a 30,000 rear axle and have hydraulic brakes. Chevrolet Kodiak, GMC Topkick, for example.

That said, I doubt very many package cars have a GVWR of 18,000. I'm actually surprised with a DOT number there isn't a GVWR posted on the cars.
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There is. On mine there is a metal tag affixed to the driver side door pillar. Most package cars have a GVWR of about 15,000 lbs, subtract 10,000lbs from that to account for the weight of the car itself plus driver and fuel, so you are left with about 5,000 pounds of cargo that can safely be loaded into the car.
 
soberups

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
To the OP; if we take the low end of the figures you posted (600 pieces@30 lbs each) that comes to 18,000 lbs which is over 3 times the weight that can legally be loaded into a package car.
 
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PT Car Washer

Well-Known Member
soberups said:
There is. On mine there is a metal tag affixed to the driver side door pillar. Most package cars have a GVWR of about 15,000 lbs, subtract 10,000lbs from that to account for the weight of the car itself plus driver and fuel, so you are left with about 5,000 pounds of cargo that can safely be loaded into the car.
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The vehicle GVWR is also on the vehicle registration.
 
Achilles

Achilles

Member
So what we call a cage car is a 24footer. It looks like its GVWR is 24k ( i will check the registration today) So lets say it was loaded with 650 pcs at 40lbs a piece thats puts it at 26,000 lbs. So it was overloaded ? And if it was what type of responsibility do I have as a driver? I have no way of knowing the weights of the boxes until they are un-loaded. Whats scary is that they were going to load another 200 into the 24 footer until I asked about how much weight it can handle. They had no idea so they put the rest in a p-1
 
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