A couple of years ago, I ordered a set of subway cars from Trainworld in New York. I live in the Boston Burbs, and I placed the order shortly before dinner time on Wednesday. The package was at my door that Friday, standard UPS ground shipping.
I thought that was awfully good, and probably an anomaly. But, I ordered a BLI Hudson about 5 PM on Tuesday, and it showed up at my door the very next day!
I’m going to put an LHS in one of the buildings on my layout, and for that, I just may name it Trainworld.
That is great service for sure. My orders normally take five business days with UPS ground, but it sounds like they have a direct line to the Boston area. It is amazing they are shipping the same day, but larger orders might take more time to pack and ship.
Did you read the Post recently about Internet trains?? No express line there.
That’s great . . . but UPS ground is overnight for many areas. So what it really means is, Trainworld shipped the next day in the first case, the same in the next one. That’s also good, but not necessarily unusual.
I’m in central Florida. I used to buy frequently from a shop in the Miami area that would ship the same or next day, and that was overnight for UPS ground, about 250 miles. Unfortunately, that shop decided to specialize in model ships and quit selling train stuff. So now I’m usually looking at 3 to 5 days.
I usually have computer parts flown in from the coast via Newegg by air.
I use the regular post office priority and it is pretty good. Sometimes a package comes back from BLI or some such pretty quickly.
I had a lens purchased on Ebay that came from China somewhere, that took roughly 3 months to arrive. Slow boat indeed. The tiny cardboard box was stamped to death.
I learned to stay away from FedEx here in Arkansas, the Conway distribution never took the time to learn where my home is and all of my packages wind up on the “Problem” rack on thier dock. I usually have to drive there and get it myself.
That’s important. I was tracking something on the Web, and it said something weird like, “Can’t locate address.” I called, and they said, “Oh, that guy is a sub. Earl will be back tomorrow, and he’ll deliver it.” Sho’ 'nuff, Earl did his job and I had it the next day.
I usually get things on the third day after they were shipped. I don’t like UPS because they deliver packages to the wrong house. Our address is 42109 the address they always go to is 42190.
Exactly. That is why I deliberately avoid Fed-ex. I aint paying gasoline on top of 40 dollars shipping to get a package. With our gas budget, I rather use that fund to travel to one of the LHS’s down in Little Rock instead. Much more enjoyable.
I had an issue like that Fed Ex delivered my CPU for a computer I am building (updating) and they left it at a neighbors house. Luckily that neighbor dropped it off but I COuldnt get to the door to thank them. I am expecting something sent from Aluminite for casting cars through FedEx I hope they can read the address. I have the same issue with UPS and USPS but thats starting to clear up.
Back in the 70’s I used to order from Squadron Mail Order in Michigan (later TX) by trading my mom my paper route money for a check and mailing it off. I would have them ship it to my dad’s office because they shipped UPS and they wouldn’t leave it at an unattended house. Invariably, if I mailed it, say, Tuesday, the package would come home with dad on the following Tuesday.
Fast forward 25 years. . . I still ordered from Squadron, but in the 21st century I either called with my credit card or ordered it online. At one point I noticed that despite giving them my order instantaneously rather than taking two or three days to reach them by mail, it took ten to twelve days to get my order! Go figger. . .
I recently ordered some trains. According to FedEx’s website, the order has been sitting in San Pablo, CA since Saturday. I am about to call them to see what is going on.
I moved last summer, and the road I now live on (this is like the sub-sub-suburbs) has a unique numbering system. The numbers are going along, going up, then it skips a couple of numbers, then it drops back down and picks up the skipped numbers, and then it goes on back in a normal fashion. I live of course in the first skipped numbered house. Woe betide the USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Pizza delivery, and EVERYTHING, including the Sherriff’s office serving subpoenas, if the regular person for that area is off for any reason. 2" reflective numbers on the mailbox and 3" black on white numbers on the house right below the light not withstanding. Fortunately, all the neighbors are well aware of the situation and whenever we see someone going back and forth looking lost we usually stop and get them on the road to a solution, and we have gotten good at real local package delivery.
I bought a P2K 2-8-8-2 and it had not shown up when it should have. The neighbors across the street were on vacation, so I walked over up their drive a ways and looked carefully around. There was my package on their side porch stoop. At least it was in a plastic bag so the rain hadn’t hurt anything, and I did get it.
I spent a couple of summers working for the Post Office. There were a couple of “who cares?” types there, but by and large everyone really did try to do a good job, and they were a nice bunch of guys to work with. (Very few non-guys did that job back then.)
I wasn’t a regular, of course, so I was bounced from route to route each day. Most of the time, it was pretty easy, but there were always a few houses that either had no numbers on them, or had them so small or hidden that no one on the street could see them. For the USPS, it’s not so bad because they are generally going to be there every day, and they know the number sequence. But for UPS or Fed-Ex, they probably don’t know your neighborhood all that well, so having an easy-to-read house number is important.
Well my wish of FedEx getting their heads out of their butts and learning to read didn’t happen. My order from Alumilite was delivered to the wrong house not even on my street probably not even in the right city knowing these morons. I think with ever shipment if not delivered correctly we should get $50.00. When will these companys hire people who can read english?
I live in the bay area and we had a problem with usps not delivering packages (they used a special truck) and they would not leave a tag to say they had been there or anything so now the regular cariers deliver most packages after having to go up the latter at the local post office, almost had to go beyond the local postmaster to fix.
That can be a tough call. In too many places, too many people regard anything that’s not nailed down as “available” for the taking. So, while you would like USPS, UPS or FedEx to leave your package, you definitely don’t want them to leave it where it might get stolen, or in other environments, where it might be damaged by the weather before you get home to retrieve it. Having it delivered to your place of business might be an option, but some companies (mine included) have an explicit policy against that, because they don’t want to be in the business of being a personal post office for 1200 people.
When I ordered those subway trains way back at the top of the thread, I deliberately did NOT order early in the week because we were going out of town (skiing) for the weekend. They delivered the package on Friday, and I was really surprised to find it when we finally got home on Sunday night. By the way, Trainworld also wraps their packages well. My BLI Hudson, ironically, was shipped in an MTH carton.
I see it’s about 50/50 for UPS/FEDEX. I REFUSE to use UPS for the same reasons (packages to next door’s house). For me, it’s either Fedex, or Uncle Sam’s Postal Service.
However, for some strange reason, my street does NOT show up on any map known to humankind. Anyone here feel free to search for Rosebud Lane in ZIP 30680. It’s not there. No such road. Yet, here I live. The Postal carrier can find it. Forget UPS and Fedex. They use Mapquest (or similar) software to find their deliveries, and if’n the map don’t find it, well, the package has the wrong address (in their opinion). I understand in my area the 911 mapping service (county) is responsible for fixing this and drawing up the maps. These are what is used for software maps, and is apparently the cause for my street being “non-existant”.
One thing that many people forget to do when ordering via mail/internet, is to use their FULL zip code. This can cause delays and mistakes as well if you only use the first 5 digits…use the full code, ie " xxxxx-xxxx "