Curtain Side vs. Rolling Tarp (Conestoga): What’s the Difference?

Few trailer terms get mixed up as often as these two. “Curtain side,” “tautliner,” “curtain van,” “Conestoga,” “rolling tarp” — they get thrown around as if they all mean the same thing, and a lot of the time even the person using them isn’t sure which system they’re picturing. That confusion matters, because a curtain side and a rolling tarp are built on fundamentally different platforms, load in different ways, and suit different kinds of freight. Ordering the wrong one is an expensive way to learn the difference. 

Here’s how to tell them apart, and how to know which one your freight actually wants. 

The difference in one sentence 

Strip away the jargon and it comes down to what’s underneath the cover: 

A curtain side is a van with sliding fabric walls. A rolling tarp is a flatbed with a retractable cover. 

Hold onto that mental model and almost everything else falls into place. A curtain side starts life as an enclosed box — fixed roof, solid front, rear doors — and swaps the rigid side walls for tensioned curtains that slide open. A rolling tarp starts life as an open flatbed and adds a framed cover that retracts to expose the deck. One is an enclosed trailer you can open the sides of; the other is an open trailer you can cover. That single distinction drives everything that follows. 

What a curtain side is 

A curtain side — also called a tautliner — has a permanent, fixed roof carried by a solid front bulkhead and a rear frame, usually with swing doors at the back. Along each side, instead of aluminum or plywood walls, it runs a heavy coated-fabric curtain that slides on an overhead track and tensions tight with buckles or a ratchet system along the bottom rail. 

The result is a trailer that looks and seals much like a dry van when it’s closed but opens along its entire length forklift access from either side. Vertical internal posts and load rails give it structure and tie-down points. What you get is enclosed, weatherproof, reasonably secure freight protection combined with the side-loading speed of an open deck — which is why curtain sides are a favorite for palletized and unitized freight like beverages, building materials, and packaged goods that gets loaded and unloaded by forklift at both ends. 

What a rolling tarp is 

A rolling tarp system — widely called a Conestoga, after a brand name that’s become a catch-all for the type — is a flatbed or drop deck fitted with a sliding framed cover. Bows on rollers ride along the top rails, and the whole fabric cover compresses accordion-style to one end, exposing the deck completely. 

Because the platform underneath is a flatbed, a rolling tarp keeps a flatbed’s biggest advantage: when it’s open, the entire deck is accessible — top, sides, and rear. You can crane-load from directly overhead, forklift from the side, or drive equipment on, then pull the cover forward to weatherproof the load for transport. That makes it the go-to for freight that is oversized, irregularly shaped, top-loaded, or crane-set but still needs protection from the weather — steel, coils, machinery, and building products that a fixed-roof trailer simply couldn’t load. 

Head-to-head 

The two systems overlap in one goal — weather protection with better-than-van access — but they get there differently. Here’s how they compare on the things that decide a purchase: 

A few of those rows deserve more words. 

Access is the real dividing line. A curtain side gives you the sides and rear, but the fixed roof means you can never load from the top. A rolling tarp opens the whole deck. If your freight ever needs to come down from a crane or sit tall enough that it has to be set from above, that decides it — you need the rolling tarp, full stop. 

Security tilts the other way. Because a curtain side is a closed box with a fixed roof and rear doors, it feels and functions more like a sealed van, which many shippers prefer higher-value packaged goods. A rolling tarp, being a covered flatbed, is inherently more open. 

Loading speed favors the curtain side for pallets. For a dock running forklifts down both sides of a trailer full of palletized freight, a curtain side is hard to beat — the curtains slide and you’re loading. A rolling tarp can do the same from the sides, but the cover has to be retracted first. 

One thing they share: the cover is not your load restraint 

This trips up operators on both systems, so it’s worth stating plainly. On a curtain side and on a rolling tarp alike, the curtain or tarp is weather protection, not load securement. In standard U.S. applications, neither the side curtains nor the rolling cover is rated to restrain your cargo. You still have to secure the load properly with internal straps, posts, dunnage, or — on the flatbed deck of a rolling tarp — chains and straps that meet FMCSA cargo securement rules, exactly as you would on any flatbed. A tight-looking curtain is not a tied-down load. 

Which one fits your freight? 

Work backward from the cargo, not the trailer: 

Choose a curtain side if your freight is mostly palletized or unitized, loads and unloads by forklift from the side or a pallet jack from the rear, benefits from van-like enclosure and security, and never needs to be loaded from the top. Beverage distribution, building materials, packaged goods, and general palletized freight are the classic fits. 

Choose a rolling tarp if your freight is oversized, irregular, heavy, or must be crane-set or top-loaded and still needs weather protection — while keeping the option to run it like an open flatbed when you want. Steel, coils, machinery, lumber, and large building products are where it earns its keep. 

If your loads are consistently one or the other, the choice is usually obvious once you frame it this way. If you haul a genuine mix, the deciding question is almost always the same: do you ever need to load from the top? If yes, the rolling tarp’s full-deck access wins. If not, the curtain side’s speed, enclosure, and security make it a more efficient tool. 

Sorting out the names 

To close the loop on the terminology that started all this: 

• Curtain side and tautliner mean the same thing — the fixed-roof, sliding-curtain van. 
• Conestoga and rolling tarp (or roll tarp) mean the same thing — the flatbed with the retractable framed cover. “Conestoga” is a brand name that became a generic term, the way people say it regardless of who built the system. 
• Curtain van is the umbrella phrase that sometimes covers both, which is exactly why it causes confusion. When someone says, “curtain van,” it’s worth asking which platform they mean. 

Get the vocabulary straight and the buying conversation gets a lot shorter. 

Great Western Trailer builds and services curtain side and rolling tarp systems, so we can walk through the trade-offs against the freight you haul rather than steer you toward whatever’s on the lot. If you’re deciding between the two, spec’ing a new system, or adding one to existing equipment, our team can help you land on the right platform the first time. 

Explore curtain sides & roll tarp systems →