Chilling Consequences: How Freezing Conditions Affect Freight Transport


 The end of October through April is generally considered protect from freeze season for the freight industry.  Protecting freight from freezing temperatures is crucial for many companies, especially during these winter months.  Freezing temperatures can cause significant damage to certain types of cargo, such as perishable goods, electronics, and chemicals.  To ensure the safety and integrity of your freight, trucking companies offer various services to protect it from freezing.

One common method is using temperature-controlled trailers or reefer trucks.  These vehicles are equipped with advanced cooling and heating systems that maintain a consistent temperature throughout the journey.  They can be set to specific temperature ranges, ensuring that your cargo remains within the required conditions.

 

It's important to keep your freight protected for several reasons.  For example, pharmaceuticals have strict temperature requirements to maintain their quality and safety.  Fruits, vegetables, and dairy products can lose their flavor, texture, nutritional value, and quickly spoil when exposed to freezing temperatures.  Failure to meet these requirements can result in loss of value or even health risks. 

 

Freezing temperatures can also cause physical damage to cargo.  For example, when liquids freeze, they expand, which can cause containers to rupture or burst.  This not only leads to a loss of product but also poses a safety hazard if the contents are hazardous or flammable.  Freezing temperatures can affect the chemical properties of certain substances, altering their effectiveness or stability, and causing emulsions to separate, rendering them unusable.  It's important to properly package and insulate chemicals to prevent exposure to freezing temperatures during transportation.

Electronics can malfunction or become permanently damaged as well.  The extreme cold can cause the delicate components within electronic devices to contract and expand rapidly, leading to internal damage.  This can result in malfunctions, reduced performance, or even complete failure of the devices.  By ensuring proper protection, you can avoid costly repairs or replacements.

 

Lastly, maintaining the integrity of your freight helps to uphold your reputation as a reliable and trustworthy shipper and carrier.  Customers rely on you to deliver their goods in optimal condition, and failure to do so can lead to a loss of business and potential legal issues.

 

Here’s how Road Scholar Transport can help:

·         We do NOT use blankets to sustain temperature conditions.  Our trailers can be set as low as -22°F to as high as 89°F, providing protect from freezing, frozen, refrigerated, and heated service. 

·         Our reefers are imbedded with technology that tracks the temperature within and alerts our team in the event of a temperature fluctuation so that we can rectify the situation prior to the product losing its integrity.

·         Unlike many of our regional competitors who will not pick up protect from freezing shipments on a Friday because they do not want to be responsible for protecting it throughout the weekend, we have a protect from freezing policy that allows us to pick up and deliver five days a week. 

·         We provide expedited service for those shipments that need to be there FAST. 

·         We provide our customers with the tools to track their shipment live throughout the entire transportation process and can provide a complete record of the temperature within the trailer at any given time, even months after delivery.

 

To learn more, visit our temperature control page.

 

 

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