Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

USPS shipping to my location (Natchez, MS.) has been very poor lately. It took the Mamod Roadster 8 days to arrive from Indiana. It should have arrived in 3-4 days, but it spent 6 days in transit between Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS instead of the usual 1 day. An accessory for the Roadster took 13 days to arrive from Pennsylvania. Another non-steam package shipping from 100 miles away in neighboring Louisiana has been in shipment for 10 days and is now in limbo because it was "mis-sent" to the wrong city by the regional distribution center. Now, the Marklin engine I purchased, which was shipped from New York via USPS Ground Advantage (2-5 days) is in limbo. It was scheduled to arrive yesterday, but it is now listed as "In Transit to Next Facility, Arriving Late". I surely hope the Marklin isn't lost.

I find the current state of USPS to be troubling. We've had bills which arrived late or not at all, and we've sent payments which arrived late or not at all. As a result, we've been forced to move to electronic payments. Both my grandfather and an old family friend retired from the USPS during the time when punctuality and quality of service were the rule instead of the exception.

So, how has your USPS service been lately?

I currently have a package overdue that tracking listed as being in Elmira NJ for over ten days, then suddenly showed up in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is closer, but not at all local. Next it was shown as being in Santa Clarita, about 300 miles away, but at least part of my local system, as if I were to mail a letter to my next-door neighbor, it would leave town and get trucked to Santa Clarita, then sorted and shipped back here for delivery, thus traveling 600 or so miles to move a few dozen feet.

However, my package went from Santa Clarita back to Salt Lake City, for some unknown reason, but is now back in California, shown as received at Bakersfield, which is only a couple of hundred miles away, but on the wrong side of the mountains which have no passes open this time of year, so not a very good sign.

So far, it has been 16 days in transit since received by USPS. I'm just hoping that if & when it does eventually arrive, that it is still in usable condition!?!?

It seems to me that USPS has been severely compromised by WOKE policy and DEI hiring practices, if nothing else!

Coincidently, my long lost, stalled and misdirected package just arrived!

However, it looks to have been soaked and then wrapped in cellophane with an extra USPS label slapped on it saying:

"USPS  WE CARE    We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. We hope this incident didn't inconvenience you."

Yadda yadda yadda for two more paragraphs.

Other than appearing to have gotten wet, I don't see any other physical damage, so likely the products original box is toast, but the plastic of the item itself should be rather unaffected I would hope?!?!

Going to let the seller decide if I should open it to check, on the hope that it really is okay, or just return it unopened, so he can see it as received.

Here’s another funny one I experienced… Two engines, same seller, same post office in Florida, shipped to me just 3 weeks apart… Why did one go all the way to Montana?? 

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The dynamo that arrived crushed spent about 3 weeks moving from JFK where it was "handed off to the local courier" which must be the post office. JFK is only 110 miles from the Office of Steam. They didn't even bother with the "we care" notice. This is eBay's Global Shipping Program at it's finest...NOT (at least I hope not)

The second dynamo he sent me was shipped by Parcel Force which may be part of Royal Mail.
It arrived in perfect shape in 1 week from Liverpool. The damaged one took a month to arrive.

I sent most of the crushed one back to Jim so at least he can salvage the parts and assemble another one with new castings.

Gil

The finale to this episode of my tales of USPS woe, is that in the end everything is going to be okay, thanks at least in good measure to the care taken by the seller to provide truly excellent packing to protect it on its nearly three-week journey through HELL and beyond!

The item itself had some displaced parts, showing that it has been knocked around pretty good in transit, though nothing was actually broken amazingly. The water damage to the packaging, which USPS just wrapped over multiple times with stretch cellophane, likely as much to keep my package from dripping on others rather than to protect mine which had already been wetted, so also probably needed help to hold mine together.

Upon opening, the inner manufacturers' box felt a bit clammy, but not actually soggy, and has, since opening, dried nicely. The plastic item itself seemed wholly unaffected by the moisture, even though there are a few iron parts like fasteners and such that could have rusted but did not.

I'd say that both me and the seller got real lucky on this one, mostly due to the great job the seller did in packaging well enough to defeat repeated attempts by the shipping gorillas to lose, drowned and destroy this item!

Somebody say AMEN!!!    ;C)

Yep, I've used my P.O. Box to receive packages in the same way and for some of the same reasons. But now that little box is a couple of hundred dollars a year, so after about half a century "living" in that little space, I'm thinking it may well be time to give it up. My records show that it was ten bucks a year when I first moved in there!

However, my recent tale of woe would not have been aided in any way by having used my P.O. Box address, as all the problems occurred elsewhere. Today, with it snowing, if anything was to be delivered here, it might have been a good idea to have it delivered to the P.O. Box, had I known at time of ordering, that it would be snowing today?!?!

To go back a few years, decades actually, to another amazing tale of USPS that was eventually delivered to my P.O. Box, as that was really the only address I had at that time, I'll add this prime story.

Back before everything was digitized and put on-line, wall calendars used to be a thing. There was a hardware store (local chain) that started as a farm supply by name of Orchard Supply Hardware, that very much owed its existence to the railroad it was built alongside of, and so through the years they had known artists provide wonderful railroad art for their unique calendars. My family still lived in the local area where those stores were and accommodated my annual desire to obtain one of these wonderful calendars by mailing me one, usually just after Thanksgiving. Having been notified by my brother that the "train had left the station" I eagerly awaited the arrival of the new train art for my wall. It arrived in early July, more than halfway through the year it was supposed to cover, with tire tracks all over its brown paper bag wrapper a mere seven or eight months after shipment.

So, yes, the USPS has had its moments (or months) of lameness for a very long time now!!!

I’m awaiting delivery of a 1 gallon container of BBQ sauce, which seems to be on a regional USPS tour. I hope that along the way it picks up some of the best regional BBQ influences.

Just imagine, in the future all of the service enhancements may enable us to order a brand new steam engine and receive a vintage engine.