Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Alex Brand – Stephens.
Alexander Brand – Stephens
Let me start with a question on the costs on your line haul PT. I didn't expect to see sequentially that get worse since your tonnage was still growing. Is there something that accounts for that going back up as a percentage of revenue?
Rodney L. Bell
Are you taking the total PT?
Alexander Brand – Stephens
Just the line haul PT from Q2 to Q3. It had done such a good job in Q2 and I just want to make sure that I understand that there's anything unusual that drove it back up a bit in Q3?
Bruce Campbell
It was a pay cut. We implemented a driver pay increase in the quarter, Alex, in Q3 which resulted in dollars about a quarter million, about $250,000 annualized. It will be closer to five per quarter.
Alexander Brand – Stephens
That would explain it. I know it would be a guess at best but if you pulled out Pinch and Blackhawk do you have any idea what your tonnage would look like? What that sort of core, what I guess is it's shrinking now, what that would look like?
Bruce Campbell
Alex, we talked about that before; it's a bit of a blur. We thought in Q1 we were up a point or two. With the decline intuitively and looking at some other data we feel like we're down organically, if you will, 4 or 5%.
Alexander Brand – Stephens
As your tonnage progressed through the quarter I assume that you had that surprising quarter where July was the better month and September was unusually weak. Can you quantify what that looked like sort of as we progressed through the quarter and sort of what the trend line looks like for October?
Bruce Campbell
I think perhaps you have overstated it a bit and maybe that's the result of the environment we live in. July was okay, August was okay and September was okay. What wasn't okay was we never got any kind of pop like we typically would expect to receive at the end of the quarter. We did receive some but not much.
I mean I read the same things you do and people talk about July was great. I thought July was okay. I thought August was okay and again I thought September was okay. We are just missing the pop.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
