El Paso to Tucson freight

The first leg home from El Paso

El Paso is the end of the line for our trucks heading east: our own tractors carry Los Angeles freight out to El Paso, and a tractor that has delivered there wants freight pointing west for the drive home. Tucson is the first big market on the way, so this lane is largely our own equipment picking up El Paso freight for Arizona. Whenever an El Paso shipper has freight for Tucson, our dispatcher looks first for one of our own tractors finishing a delivery there, and when none sits open that day the freight is handed to a screened partner carrier, van or flatbed according to what the cargo calls for.

The freight reflects the border. El Paso is the port of entry for the factories of Ciudad Juárez, so what leaves it westbound is often manufactured goods and components that crossed from Mexico: wire harnesses, appliances, electronics, auto parts. Tucson takes some of it for its own aerospace and mining suppliers and passes the rest on toward Phoenix and California.

Interstate 10 across the boot heel

There is only one road. Interstate 10 leaves El Paso northwest along the Rio Grande, passes the Border Patrol checkpoint and the city of Las Cruces, and turns west across the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico: Deming, the Lordsburg playa, and the Arizona line at the Peloncillo Mountains. In Arizona the road runs through the Sulphur Springs Valley at Willcox, over Texas Canyon with its stacked boulders, past Benson and down the San Pedro Valley into Tucson from the east.

The miles are easy, mostly flat or gently rolling at around 4,000 feet, with services every 50 miles or so. Westbound trucks stop at the Arizona port of entry near San Simon. The whole trip is 318 miles from the El Paso warehouse district to Tucson.

Dust, wind and the clock

Southern New Mexico has one hazard that closes this interstate more often than snow does anywhere: blowing dust. The dry lake bed near Lordsburg and the open ground around Deming produce dust storms in spring and summer that cut visibility to nothing in seconds, and the state closes Interstate 10 when it happens, sometimes for hours. The New Mexico Department of Transportation posts warnings and a driver who sees a brown wall ahead pulls off and waits. Spring brings high wind across the whole desert, which matters for a tall tarped flatbed load.

The other complication is time. El Paso keeps Mountain Time with daylight saving; Arizona keeps Mountain Standard Time all year. In winter the two match. From March into November a truck leaving El Paso at 8 AM arrives in Tucson on a clock that reads an hour earlier, and a receiver in Tucson that closes at 4 PM closes at 5 PM El Paso time.

Same day delivery

Five and a half hours or so of driving time, so a load picked up in El Paso in the morning delivers in Tucson the same afternoon, and even a midday pickup can make a receiver that is open until evening. This is one of the few lanes we run where same day is the normal plan rather than the exception, and our dispatch records bear it out. A load that must deliver by appointment the next morning is held overnight in Tucson.

When a dust storm closes the road the delay is usually hours, not days, but a tight same day appointment can slip to the next morning.

Vans, flatbeds, and where the truck goes after Tucson

Most loads on this lane are dry vans of finished goods and components that have already cleared customs in El Paso: wire harnesses, appliances, electronics and auto parts on pallets. That freight is often valuable, so the trailer leaves the warehouse sealed, the seal is recorded on the bill of lading, and our drivers keep their stops to fuel and required breaks; tell us if a load needs a team, a tracking device or a particular kind of lock. Plants across the border ship on production schedules, so a release time can slip, and when it does our dispatcher calls the Tucson dock with the new arrival.

On the flatbeds go steel, pipe and building materials out of El Paso yards, and equipment and supplies for the copper mines and the construction trade around Tucson. An oversize load crosses three states in a few hundred miles, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and needs a permit from each, so give us time to arrange them. Spring winds across the Chihuahuan Desert are hard on a tarp, and drivers check straps and tarps at their stops along Interstate 10.

After Tucson the question is where the truck goes next. For our own tractors the answer is usually west, toward Phoenix and then home to Southern California, so a Tucson delivery fits neatly into a week that began with an eastbound load to El Paso. Loads from Tucson back to El Paso are few, and we have moved only a handful that way, which is why our own trucks rather than outside carriers take most of this lane: we are heading west regardless. A shipper with a repeating schedule of freight to Tucson can tell us the pattern, and we will plan our El Paso turnarounds around it.

Getting a quote from El Paso

Tell us the pickup address and whether the freight has already cleared customs and is sitting in an El Paso warehouse, which is the normal case; we do not carry bonded freight on this lane. Give the pallet count and weight for a van, or dimensions and weight for a flatbed, and the delivery appointment in Tucson. Above the form you will find the day’s price range for this lane whenever we have priced it, built each morning from what our trucks and carriers have moved here and what diesel costs; the quote is what you book.

Each end has its page: our El Paso page and freight shipping in Tucson. Our trucks get to El Paso by way of our eastbound lane from Los Angeles.