General
covered wagon
What does covered wagon mean?
A flatbed trailer with the freight strapped and tarped — usually lumber, steel coils, or machinery. The tarps billow and snap in the wind, giving the silhouette a hump that recalls the Conestoga wagons crossing the American plains. Tarping a load is its own miserable skill: 100lb tarps, climbing on stacked lumber, doing it in the rain at 2am.
"Covered wagon ahead of me lost a corner of his tarp in the wind."
Origin
Named for visual resemblance to the canvas-topped Conestoga wagons of 19th-century westward migration.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Covered wagon in trucking?
A Covered wagon is a flatbed trailer with its load tarped down.
How do you use Covered wagon in a sentence?
"He's running a covered wagon, so the freight's all strapped and tarped."
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