Las Vegas to San Francisco Bay Area freight

What leaves Las Vegas for the Bay Area

Las Vegas consumes far more freight than it produces, which makes outbound loads scarce and worth planning. What does go northwest to the Bay Area falls into a few groups. Convention and trade show material is the distinctive one: Bay Area technology companies exhibit at the big January electronics show and at dozens of other conventions through the year, and their booths, demonstration equipment and crates go home in vans and on flatbeds the week the show closes. The large distribution centers of North Las Vegas redistribute goods to California. Hotel renovations put furniture, fixtures and equipment on the road. And a few manufacturers in Henderson and North Las Vegas ship product west.

Our network puts trucks into Las Vegas from across California, Los Angeles above all, and those trucks are the ones we load for the Bay Area, where our carrier base reloads easily, so this lane runs with the same ease as the Los Angeles side of our Nevada business. One dispatcher books it, confirms the move out window with the hall or the dock, tracks the truck over Tehachapi and up the valley, and calls ahead to the receiver.

Interstate 15 to Barstow, Tehachapi, then up the valley

The truck leaves Las Vegas southwest on Interstate 15, past Primm and over the state line, down the long Mountain Pass grade to Baker, through the Mojave Desert to Barstow, where California inspects westbound trucks at the Yermo agricultural station. At Barstow it turns onto State Route 58 through the town of Mojave and over Tehachapi Pass, about 4,000 feet, beneath the wind farms, and comes down into Bakersfield.

From Bakersfield there are two ways north. State Route 99 runs up the middle of the San Joaquin Valley through Delano, Tulare, Visalia, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Turlock and Modesto, then west on State Route 120 or State Route 132 to meet Interstate 580, which climbs over the Altamont Pass and drops down to the East Bay. Interstate 5 up the empty west side of the valley is about the same length with less traffic and fewer services. San Jose deliveries take Interstate 580 and Interstate 680 south; San Francisco deliveries cross the Bay Bridge at the very end.

Desert heat, a windy pass and valley fog

Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Barstow runs above 110 degrees from June into September, and the descent from Mountain Pass toward Baker is hard on brakes in any weather. Weekend traffic to and from Southern California clogs the interstate on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Tehachapi Pass closes for snow a few times each winter between December and March and its wind is strong enough to tip an empty trailer on a bad day.

In the valley the season is fog: from November into February tule fog on State Route 99 and Interstate 5 cuts visibility to a few car lengths in the early morning and has caused multi vehicle pileups. From August into October the harvest puts slow farm equipment on the 99. The Altamont Pass at the end blows hard most afternoons.

Next day

A drive of about ten and a half hours, which a single driver can legally do in a day only when nothing goes wrong, so we book this lane as next day delivery: load in Las Vegas, run to Bakersfield or beyond, deliver in the Bay Area the next morning. A team can deliver overnight for show freight on a deadline. Both ends are on Pacific time.

Trailers for show crates, hotel goods and machines

Trade show freight sets the equipment for much of this lane. Exhibit crates, road cases and demonstration machines come in odd shapes and are often top heavy, so they travel best in a 53 foot air ride van with E track and straps, loaded in the order the Bay Area receiver wants to take them off. Exhibits heading back to a company warehouse rather than on to the next show often fill only part of a trailer, and when two move out schedules line up, a carrier can carry both in one van.

Bigger pieces ride on flatbeds: industrial machines and tools from the construction and equipment expositions, generators, signs and structural steel coming out of casino renovations. Furniture, fixtures and kitchen equipment from those renovations, sometimes sold off in bulk, go in vans. On an open deck the hardest part of the trip is wind, since Tehachapi Pass and the Altamont Pass both throw strong gusts at a tarped load, and drivers recheck their straps at Bakersfield before the long run up the valley. Anything broader than 8 feet 6 inches needs permits from Nevada and California; the Caltrans permit names the state highways the load may use, and Bay Area city streets need permits of their own.

The delivery address can decide the truck. A 53 foot trailer fits the warehouse docks along Interstate 880 in the East Bay, but plenty of addresses in San Francisco and the older parts of Oakland cannot take one, so the carrier either moves the freight to a box truck at an East Bay dock or brings a shorter trailer from Las Vegas, and we settle which before the truck is dispatched.

Quoting the lane

Name the delivery city, because Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco are different deliveries at different prices, and say whether it is a dock, a convention hall, a yard or a curb. For trade show freight, give the move out window and the booth or crate dimensions. If a range is showing above the form, it is today’s figure for this lane from our own loads and fuel costs, dated so you know it is current; the quote is the number we book.

Each end has its own page: truckload shipping in Las Vegas, freight shipping in Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco. The eastbound trip is San Francisco Bay Area to Las Vegas freight.