Be Cool! Join the Boston Burningtruck Tribe!
Welcome to the 2008 Boston Burningtruck project! Our mission is simple - to provide round trip transportation for artwork, projects, bikes, and supplies from Boston to Black Rock City! This is a community driven, not for profit project, where our goal is to get your stuff to the playa and back on time and in one piece, and break even.
2008 Boston Village
The Boston Container Camp will reside in The Hive the Boston village. Information and dialog about this village can be found in the Boston Village planning mailing list. Please do not contact us regarding village details.
New for 2008
The biggest changes for this year will be more structured volunteer management, mainly for load-in on the playa, and a requirement for a "ticket" from the DMV that shows that your art car is approved for on-playa inspection. Please see the container guide for details.
Volunteers
This year all of you are volunteers! Plan on arriving early on loading and unloading days and making a day of it! Furthermore, please take loading and unloading into account when making your travel arrangements. See my full rant in the fabulous container guide.
Share Types
Full Share ($390) A Full Share entitles you to 100 cubic feet of space. Buy a bunch and ship what you want as long as it is packed as described in the container guide.
Bicycle Share ($125) A Bicycle Share entitles you to ship one bicycle in the container. Your packed bike must not occupy more than 20 cubic feet and must be packed as described in the container guide. This is strictly for a bike.
Bicycle and One Box ($185) Bicycle and One Box entitles you to ship one bicycle(20 cubic feet) and one box no larger than 12 cubic feet. Both the Bike and Box must be packed as described in the container guide. This is strictly for a bike and one small box.
Payment must be received within 1 week. Reservations will automatically be dropped so others who might pay on time can have a chance to sign up.
Finances and Fuel
Just to be clear, we don't make any profit off of this. Shipping by rail is expensive when you are not moving 1000's of containers. On top of shipping costs, there is an additional 46% fuel surcharge(as of 7/1) added onto our inter-modal base rate. See the CSX web page for information on past, present, and predicted rates. Note that the over the road(truck) fuel surcharge is nearly double this.
Here are the historical fuel surcharges:
| 2003 | 4% |
| 2004 | 7% |
| 2005 | 15.5% |
| 2006 | 22% |
| 2007 | 22.5% |
| 2008 | 46% |
2008 Schedule
| Container arrives at loading dock | Friday, August 8Th |
| Loading in Boston |
Saturday, August 9th(Shelf construction only) Sunday, August 10Th |
| Container pickup and rail transfer | Monday, August 11Th |
| Container in transit (~10 days) | Monday, August 11Th - Wednesday, August 20rd |
| Delivery to Black Rock City | Friday, August 22nd(tentative) |
| Burning Man | Monday, August 25 - Monday, September 1 |
| Container loading on the Playa | Saturday,Sunday,Monday, 8/30,8/31,9/1 |
| Pickup in Black Rock City | Tuesday, September 2Th |
| Container arrives in Boston | Saturday, September 13Th |
| Unloading in Boston | Saturday, September 13Th(Unload, Clean-out and shelf storage) After party TBA |