Owning an extra back up tractor trailer

We used to have a back up semi. It was a pain in the butt. Unless you’re using it somewhat regularly it will deteriorate faster than the one you are using. Seemed every time we went to use it the battery would be weak, a tire would go flat, or some other little things would give us grief. We ended up putting a grain box on it and now it’s our main tandem truck. If our semi went down I think I’d rather rent one or hire a custom truck to fill in until ours was fixed. And they still need saftied every year even if they don’t move. If you do get a backup truck, switch them out every couple of weeks and use it and that might help it from deteriorating as quick.

If you rounded up another truck, would you also pair that up with another trailer as well ?. If you in fact did that, that could allow you to not only use it depending on the situation as per distance from your bins but depending on who you have around for drivers to haul directly to the elevator off the field and with hangups at the elevator not disrupt your harvesting progress. And if a unit goes down your back to what you have been using number of truck wise and no panic in trying to unhook a loaded trailer to hook up another truck. The negative is the funds to have another unit ... there's always a catch !. Oh and with a unit like that and would say both truck and trailer, never to put them on winter roads or at least choose which ones will get delegated to winter use vs rusting every truck and trailer on the place.

One additional expense is putting a wet kit on for the end dumps ,unless I can find a truck with one !

Sounds like you have a lot of trucking power, two end dumps and a tandem. Do you have three drivers? If you don't then another truck isn't much use unless something goes down. There will always be a breakdown that slows the operation down unless you have a whole duplicate line of equipment. A truck going down would possibly slow you down but not stop you. One thing I would look at is does that 1300 bushel cart fill the current trailers in one stop? If not up-sizing the cart will help harvest efficiency at ALL times. 

I do think there is merit for running cheaper used pieces and having excess capacity and backup units, as opposed to running crazy expensive new stuff. Personally I like to keep my stuff identical matched units so I can stock common parts and there is less risk of accidents and mistakes when stuff is the same. I have two identical semi's and trailers, in the dark you know where to step to hit the ladders and such. I used to have another older semi but it basically just got used on the water trailer and became more hassle than it was worth. I sold it and have not missed it, a semi can be a money pit for sure even if not used much. With my current trucks/trailers I am still over the capacity I absolutely need and in winter I park one to keep it clean, then use the other one the next winter, etc.