Where are all the trailers?????

How many of those 50 trailers at a time that he used to get represented excess capacity to the industry at that time? Could be that everybody that had trailers that were worthy of scrapping has already unloaded them.

Also, a lot of old trailers used to be used for storage purposes, but these days a guy is more likely to get an old sea container for that purpose. I'd bet that the trailers he was getting back then would've otherwise spent some years as storage trailers someplace, but they went to the scrapyard early because containers are filling the storage role now. Maybe that kind of created a bubble in the supply of scrap trailers, which has now deflated...

Thanks Ditchdigger. That takes away some of my frustration. Thank you all you guys for your suggestions.