Montana lane
About 484 miles from the Tacoma terminals, a 2-day run. We run it with our own trucks and chassis — as a container all the way through, or transloaded at our Kent dock onto a domestic trailer when that costs you less.
If your import lands at the Port of Seattle or the Port of Tacoma and has to reach Missoula, Bozeman & Billings, MT, this is the lane. We pull the container off the terminal with our own trucks, run it I-90 east through Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, and deliver it — or we strip it at our Kent dock first and send the freight inland on a domestic trailer, whichever costs you less. Montana is a lane we actually run rather than one we advertise — 30 moves on the current book, into Belgrade, Choteau and Missoula among others.
The operational facts
About 484 miles from the Tacoma terminals and 484 miles from Seattle. These are our own dispatch figures, not a map estimate.
Two days out. Hours-of-service rules, not ambition, set that — a driver cannot legally run this distance and unload in one.
20', 40', 40' high-cube and 45' containers on our own chassis. Domestic 53' trailers when the freight transloads instead.
Yes — heavy boxes move on the right chassis and routing, with permits where the gross weight needs them. Send us the weight before you book.
Both. Live unload if your dock can take it; drop-and-hook if it cannot, so the driver is not sitting in your yard on detention.
Strip the container at our Kent dock and run the freight inland on a 53' domestic trailer — the box goes back the same day and stops charging per-diem.
Yard space in Kent and Tacoma for loaded or empty boxes when the consignee is not ready.
Placarded freight and in-bond moves both run on this lane — see hazmat and customs-bonded.
Belgrade, Butte, Helena, Great Falls and Kalispell.
This is the decision that sets the cost of an inland lane, and it is worth two minutes before you book.
Run the container through. One vehicle, one handling, nothing touches the cargo. The freight arrives exactly as it was packed overseas. You pay per-diem on the box for the whole round trip plus however long the consignee takes to unload, and you pay to move an empty container back.
Transload at our Kent dock. We devan the box near the port, the empty goes back to the terminal that day and stops charging, and the freight runs inland on a 53-foot domestic trailer — which holds more than a 40-foot container, so a long lane often needs fewer trucks. You pay for the handling, and the cargo gets touched once.
The break-even moves with distance, per-diem rate and how quickly your consignee unloads. At 484 miles the arithmetic usually favours transloading, because the container spends four to five days out of the terminal and the per-diem on that is real money. Send us the container count, the commodity and the delivery address and we will price both ways on the same quote instead of only the one that suits us.
Mostly agriculture and ranching supply, construction and building products, energy and mining equipment, and project cargo bound for the wind and power sites. If your freight comes through the Northwest Seaport Alliance terminals and ends up in Montana, we have probably run something like it.
Montana distances are not intuitive from a map. Missoula is 484 miles, Bozeman 689, Billings 826 — Billings is a three-day run, and Billings is closer to Denver than it is to Seattle. Anything past Missoula is almost always cheaper transloaded onto a domestic trailer at Kent than run as a container, and we will say so before you book it.
Four things, and you can send them in one line: the container number or the count and size, the terminal it is coming off, the delivery address, and whether the consignee can live unload or needs a drop. Gross weight too if the box is heavy. That is enough for a real number the same day — not a range, and not a number that grows once the accessorials show up.
It is priced by the lane and the accessorials, not by a published per-mile rate. What moves the number: the distance (484 miles from Tacoma), whether it is a live unload or a drop, how many days the chassis and container are out, whether the box is overweight or hazmat, and whether you want it run as a container or transloaded onto a domestic trailer. Send the four details above and you get a firm quote the same day, with every accessorial named up front.
Two days out, and realistically four to five days round trip once you count unloading and the run home. That is a federal hours-of-service limit rather than a scheduling choice: no driver can legally cover this distance and deliver in a single day. Anyone quoting you next-day on this lane is either planning to break the rules or planning to miss.
Usually yes. Washington allows more gross weight on the correct axle configuration than most importers expect, and a heavy container does not automatically have to be stripped at the port. Send us the gross weight with the booking and we will tell you whether it moves as-is, needs a permit, or is genuinely cheaper to transload.
On a two-day lane, transloading usually wins. The container is out of the terminal for four to five days round trip, and per-diem runs the whole time — and a 53-foot domestic trailer carries more than a 40-foot container, so several boxes often consolidate into fewer trucks. The exception is freight that must not be handled, or a single container where the transload labour costs more than the per-diem saved.
Yes, and it is part of the quote rather than a surprise afterwards. The empty goes back to a terminal that will actually accept that line's equipment — which is not always the terminal it came from, and is a large part of why per-diem gets away from people.
Yes — loaded or empty, in our own Kent and Tacoma yards. That is normally cheaper than leaving it at the terminal collecting demurrage.
Our trucks, our chassis, our drivers
No broker in the middle, no second carrier on the inland leg, and one person who can tell you where the box is.
Get a rate for this laneSend the container, the terminal and the delivery address. A dispatcher who runs this lane replies the same day.
Request a lane rate