I ordered an item from Amazon. It’s coming from Spokane, WA via UPS. Here’s the tracking, so far:
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In Transit |
01/08/2021 6:31 A.M. |
Hodgkins, IL, United States |
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I suppose it is an indication of how backward the rails remain, at least in this aspect of logistics, compared to other transportation modes.
When traveling by rail, the item is in a container and not out where the package label can be scanned to know where it is. They are not going to open the container every few cities just to scan all the packages to report the progress.
However, I have noted of late that sometimes it seems the tracking information is a bold face lie. I have watched the tracking info show the movement by truck from city to city all the way to “Out for Delivery” and then when it doesn’t get delivered, the tracking info changes to an apology and a statement that it will be delivered the next day. Of course, when it doesn’t show up then, it changes to claim it will be delivered soon. The next day, all the tracking info I have been reading is gone! Replaced with the package at the origin again, or maybe at some intermediate point again. Then it repeats the city by city track, but with different dates and times than before.
I think the tracking info, when it does not get a scan confirmation, reports where the package is assumed to be, based on known routes and times. If the package actually is on the floor under some conveyor belt back at the origin, that is just too bad… the package is supposed to be at XXX city, so that is what is reported. It is not until it is noticed that it didn’t get deliverd, that someone goes looking for it. When it is found, the original tracking LIE is deleted, and it starts all over again as a new shipment to be tracked.
I have also watched packages travel all over the U.S., from origin to several towns/burgs/wide-spots-in-the-road in random states (not even near a direct route between origin and the proper destination) where only the General Store/Gas Station/Cafe happens to also be the area’s shipping company representitive. The clerk/mechanic/waitress there scans the package, discovers it was on the wrong truck, and ships it out on the next truck that happens to stop there, sending it to a major hub
USPS, perhaps purposely, says it only tracks packages by the last scanned location. To me that is far better than an ‘estimated’ location that may or may not be physically accurate. Sometimes that location can be a pretty ungodly whopper, however. I had a package that for weeks showed it had been delivered … to a PO box in North Carolina. That is likely getting some tracking metadata confused. A couple of other packages went through a couple of known ‘trouble spot’ hubs and simply dropped off the radar for a few days; a couple of them were actually received and picked up before the ‘next’ tracking entry showed them as delivered. I don’t attribute much of this to incompetence, just volume with a limited number of actual people in the facilities.
I recently found several parcels derelict in the back of a U-Haul rental truck parked at the back of the FedEx Ground employee parking facility. About the only explanation is that they rented the vehicle for ‘Christmas rush’ capacity, the driver ran out of time or hours, and just drove back and parked it with a couple of packages still lying there undelivered.
Makes it difficult to trust the information sometimes. At least it’t not as bad as at Brown’s Ferry … at least, not yet! [:O]
That may be your experience. I’ve never encountered anything like that from various vendors using a UPS, FedEx, USPS. DLH etc.
Been told that UPS hired over 100k employees for the rush. Most recent deliveries have been in personal cars.
The USPS and UPS were running UHAUL Vans and Trucks as well.
A USPS person mentioned that they had not had a day off in weeks and they were 2 weeks behind.
I have had a similar positive experience as CharlieH.
What were you doing rummaging around in a trailer on Fedex property?
Parked next to it (box van) while my son was getting his orientation with Federal Express, and noticed boxes through the open back door.
USPS got kneecapped in preperation for the Election with the loss of both manpower and machienry. There have been reports of truck drivers waiting hours and sometime days to deliver their trailers to the ‘security’ of a US Mail facility.
UPS, FedEx and DHL all got swampped with the online shopping binge for Christmas.
What I find funny, and ironic, is all the people yelling to abolish the USPS “because UPS can do it better”. If they only realized how much stuff is shipped long distance by UPS but the “final mile” delivery is via USPS.
Seems like pretty simple logic to track the container and relate the package to the container location.
Maybe that is a service for higher rate packages.
From the UPS and/or FedEx viewpoint the contaier leaves their facility and goes to the railroad - the railroad transports it to its destination and then it is drayed to the UPS of FedEx facility and the entire contentes get checked into that facility and that check in is reported. It is handled at the facility and departed in some manner - the next stop on the overall route - the delivery truck to the consumer destination - those departures get reported. Deliver drive leaves it on your door step and that gets reported.
While UPS and FedEx track their containers while they are in the hands of other carriers - those handlings are not reported to their customers.
For whatever the reason, I seem to get FedEx deliveries from both Baltimore and Hagerstown - stuff from the South or NorthEast comes through Baltimore; stuff from the West comes through Hagerstown for final delivery.
Both UPS and FDX have huge facilities right outside of Toledo.
Ttrraaffiicc? Is that you?[:-,]
What can you say? They’re busy. I kinda like getting all those late Christmas cards. I got one Monday that was postmarked December 12th- from a town 90 miles away.
I don’t mind waiting. I remember the “good ole days” of getting a paper catalog in the mail, writing out the order on the order sheet, writing out a check, mailing it, and then waiting, and waiting and waiting. Then, after you’d forgotten all about it, it was delivered.
My son-in-law sells medical supplies to doctors offices and clinics - he says there have been some real concerns about getting stuff where it’s supposed to be.
When a package is placed on a truck, they don’t report on every city the truck passes through, only the ones where the truck is emptied and the package is physically handled to put on another truck to proceed further to its destination. Why should they report on where the container is when traveling on a train?
Why, because UPS does not update their tracking information? UPS knows exactly where their containers are that are traveling by train. If UPS decides not to put that information to its customers, how does that make rails “backward”.
I have been a customer of Amazon since 2000. And L.L.Bean forever. Or so it seems. My grandfather opened an account with L.L. Bean in 1913, the year after they opened. We have been with them ever since.
When I place an order with Amazon or L.L.Bean, or any of the other online vendors that I use, they give me a date when my stuff will arrive. Amazon and L.L.Bean have never missed. And I place at least four to six orders a year with them.
What happens to the packages between the time they leave Amazon and L.L.Bean? I don’t know. What is important is whether it hits the front porch when they say it will.