Las Vegas to Seattle and Tacoma freight

A backhaul lane, and why that helps the shipper

Trucks arrive in Las Vegas full and leave it looking for anything. The city consumes freight from every direction and manufactures little, so a carrier that has delivered a load from the Northwest will take a load back toward Seattle or Tacoma at a price it would not accept the other way. For a Las Vegas shipper that is the useful fact about this lane: convention and exhibition material going home to Puget Sound companies after a show, goods redistributed from the North Las Vegas warehouses to Washington stores, hotel and casino furniture and equipment sold on after a renovation, and the occasional manufactured product from Henderson all ride north on trucks that need the work.

Our dispatch desk works both ends of this road, the Northwest on Interstate 5 and Nevada on the Las Vegas and Reno lanes, and carriers that have just delivered Northwest freight into Las Vegas are the first trucks we look to send back north. One dispatcher owns the load for the two days, with a check in at Tonopah and at Eugene and a call to the Puget Sound receiver the evening before delivery.

US 95 north, then over the Cascades to Interstate 5

The truck leaves Las Vegas northwest on US 95, past the turn for Death Valley at Beatty, through Tonopah and Hawthorne along Walker Lake, to Fallon and the Reno area. From Reno, US 395 runs north through Susanville and Alturas, State Route 139 crosses into Oregon toward Klamath Falls, US 97 heads north to Chemult and State Route 58 climbs over Willamette Pass, about 5,100 feet, and descends to Interstate 5 at Eugene. The last 290 miles are the interstate up the Willamette Valley through Albany, Salem and Woodburn, past the Tualatin interchange and Wilsonville into Portland, across the Columbia River bridge into Washington, and north through Longview, Centralia, Olympia, Tacoma and Fife to Seattle.

Between Las Vegas and Reno, US 95 is two lanes for most of its length, with stretches of 100 miles between fuel stops and no phone signal for long periods. It is fast and empty and the wind across the basins is strong. Deliveries in Tacoma or the Kent valley come first; Seattle proper and Everett add the worst traffic in Washington at the very end.

Desert wind, mountain snow, Puget Sound rain

From November into March Willamette Pass and the Oregon high desert close in winter storms, and the Nevada basins get snow and ice as well; carriers then stay on Interstate 80 to Sacramento and Interstate 5 the rest of the way, or go east through Idaho. Fog and ice on winter mornings in the Willamette Valley and on the Cowlitz County stretch of Interstate 5 slow the last day. Wildfire smoke sits over the high desert from July into October in a bad year.

The Northwest end is about congestion more than weather: Portland traffic from Wilsonville north every weekday, the Columbia River bridge, and the Tacoma to Seattle stretch of Interstate 5, which is slow most of the day. Puget Sound receivers tend to have narrow delivery windows and a truck arriving at 7 AM from the south should allow an hour for the last 30 miles.

Two days of driving

About 21 hours at the wheel, two legal driving days for one driver, so a Monday pickup in Las Vegas is a Wednesday morning delivery in Tacoma or Seattle; a team arrives Tuesday. Everything along the way is on Pacific time. In winter, allow for the chance that a pass closure adds a day.

Trailers for show crates, hotel goods and Henderson freight

Most northbound loads go in 53 foot dry vans. Exhibit freight going home after a convention is the fussiest part: crated displays, cased electronics and furniture that must reach a Puget Sound office or warehouse in the shape it left the show floor. For that work carriers bring straps and load bars to hold partial rows in place, many shippers ask for an air ride trailer, and the bill of lading lists the piece count as well as the pallets, so the receiver can check every crate against it. Goods redistributed from the Las Vegas warehouses are simpler, sealed palletized loads with the seal number written on the rate confirmation.

Flatbeds take the hotel and casino equipment sold on after a renovation, commercial kitchen lines, rooftop units and sign structures among it, along with machinery and fabricated products from Henderson. Open deck loads are tarped for the trip, since the second day ends in the rain of the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound, and an oversize piece needs a permit in Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington; the carrier applies for each one and our office tracks them. Wide loads on the two lane stretches of US 95 and US 395 usually move in daylight only, which can stretch the trip to a third day.

Because so many trucks leave Las Vegas looking for work, a shipper who can move the pickup by a day gives our dispatcher the widest choice of equipment, from an air ride van for a fragile display to a step deck for a tall machine, without paying to bring a truck in empty from somewhere else.

Pricing a northbound load

Tell us where in the Las Vegas valley the pickup is, the commodity, pallet count or dimensions, weight, pickup date and the Puget Sound delivery city and appointment. If you can give a window of a few days, we match the load with a carrier already in Las Vegas looking for a trip home, which is where the price advantage of this lane comes from. Where we have priced Las Vegas to Seattle and Tacoma, today’s range by trailer type sits above the quote form, dated and refreshed each morning from our own lane history and the day’s diesel; your quote is the firm number.

City pages: truckload shipping in Las Vegas, freight shipping in Seattle and Tacoma. The southbound trip is Seattle and Tacoma to Las Vegas freight.