OT-Snail Mail so inefficient (USPS)

Anybody ever track packages that you have ordered? Tracked one package that started out 150miles away, then 250 miles away, then 150 miles in another state, before it was on its way. It's no wondered USPS labeled as snail mail.

I'm not making excuses for the postal service! I hauled your mail for quite awhile. The mail system changed alot, to become efficent for the majority of letters sent. that doesn't mean everyone! But they operate like an airline does with hubs. most of the hubs are set up to move mail, east to west. Depending on where the part originates and where it's going, it may have to go away from you, to then come back.

Its not just USPS
They all do the same thing. I track every order I make.

When it comes to shipping stuff across the US, USPS is a lot more consistent with their priority packages than the private carriers could ever hope to be. Our business ships a lot of cheese by mail- USPS for us is the most efficient, cost effective system.

Granted, these are small packages, but they will get to the coasts in less time than UPS or FedEx.

I agree, I buy a LOT on Ebay and the post office priority mail has searved to not only cause the other carriers to step up the pace but also to lower rates. Packages from coast to coast rarely over 3 days and anything on my sidea of the miss-ippy is two. Net day is not uncommon if ordeed in the AM. Tracking is about 90% reliable rest of the time it is t even close. We have even been getting Sunday packages from them over the last 30 days or do as they work overtime to keep schedules.

In building up my model train layouts, and other models and non related things, I bought a couple hundred things and USPS handled them very expediciously. ebay was usually the fastest response to a purchase, even with some products being free shipping..."Boat Mail" one would think (slowest form). If you are unaware, ebay has a feedback system whereby sellers are rated by customers and punctuality is one of the rating stars. Get lousy grades and you get kicked off as a seller! Neat!

I am really impressed with the fact that USPS has teemed with FedEx for a cooperative delivery system which is fast and inexpensive. It makes a lot of sense to me especially for rural deliveries of small parcels.

Another plus is I get to meet my mail carrier and chat. Another is the mail carrier brings the "you have to sign for it to get it" parcel to your door rather than you having to go to the post office to sign and pick it up.

Another plus is this added revenue for the postal service which surely adds to their financial solvency ambitions.

So from my camp: 3 cheers for the USPS!!!!!!!!

tomNE hit it on the head imho. Dad was postmaster here in Clarkrange for 20 years during the 60s and 70s. I don't remember the year but I remember when the opened the "package center" hub in Memphis. After its opening, a package from Clarkrange,[100 miles east of Nashville] was hauled through Nashville to Memphis [over 100 miles west of Nashville] processed, and shipped back to Nashville. This often took a day longer. There was also an increase in damage. Dad thought it was due to the machinery they used. At that time packages from Knoxville[80 miles east] to Clarkrange also went through Memphis. Dad said he thought at least part of this was to generate numbers to justify building the package center. I don't know what the situation is today but I still have better luck overall with the Postal Service than the others. Still, it seems more efficient to get a part from YT on the west coast than medicine by priority mail from Knoxville. Sometimes I will get the YT package quicker and this is using the post office for both!

(quoted from post at 06:51:21 12/24/16) In building up my model train layouts, and other models and non related things, I bought a couple hundred things and USPS handled them very expediciously. ebay was usually the fastest response to a purchase, even with some products being free shipping..."Boat Mail" one would think (slowest form). If you are unaware, ebay has a feedback system whereby sellers are rated by customers and punctuality is one of the rating stars. Get lousy grades and you get kicked off as a seller! Neat!

I am really impressed with the fact that USPS has teemed with FedEx for a cooperative delivery system which is fast and inexpensive. It makes a lot of sense to me especially for rural deliveries of small parcels.

Another plus is I get to meet my mail carrier and chat. Another is the mail carrier brings the "you have to sign for it to get it" parcel to your door rather than you having to go to the post office to sign and pick it up.

Another plus is this added revenue for the postal service which surely adds to their financial solvency ambitions.

So from my camp: 3 cheers for the USPS!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Any pictures? I'm thinking about building a layout. Looking for ideas.

Rick

The question is not how far the package travels, but how soon it gets to its destination. Do you really care if your package had to travel an extra thousand miles as long as it arrives on time? FedEx upset the whole parcel delivery industry forty-some years ago when it established a hub in Memphis where ALL shipments passed through. I think even a envelope going across the street had to go through Memphis, although I don't think that's still the case.

I can't complain about USPS parcel delivery. Letters were a big problem a few years ago, but seem to have improved as well.

Sent a package to my mother in NE Texas, 450 miles, via UPS. Shipped it through my work account. Estimated cost $9.20. Got the bill from work Wednesday, $17.28 with residential surcharge, out of area surcharge (not in city limits)and fuel surcharge. Sent one to Houston last week, supposed to cost $10.30, figure it will probably be double that. Be the last time I use UPS.

Best deal out there are the USPS flat rate boxes

If you can jam it in there and weigh less than 70 pounds...MUCH cheaper than UPS or Fed Ex

Hubs and spokes are the very best way to handle the volume. Can you imagine the nightmare spider web of routes if every package/letter went directly to the destination? Good grief.

Here in Kansas we often fly to Minneapolis or Denver to get to Arizona or Florida - the hubs and spokes keep our costs down.

I do have a few. Let me get through with this morning's "coffee shop" and breakfast and I'll post them.

I get, or ship boxes through USPS couple times each week. Much faster and cheaper than ANY other carrier. I get boxes from Texas to Michigan shipped on Friday on Monday morning for 13.65. How can you complain about that. You can not compare a John Deere from 1942 to a new model from today. The Post office isnt the same place they were years ago. Modern and worth using. Dont let one bad experience speak for the hole system.

i'm amazed at how fast some of it is....

Sorry, I have to disagree. My online orders that involve USPS have all been quickly delivered. That includes the orders that are partly shipped comm carrier & partly by USPS...and I assume the comm carriers wouldn't use them if their reps suffered from poor service.

(quoted from post at 14:57:13 12/24/16)

(quoted from post at 06:51:21 12/24/16) In building up my model train layouts, and other models and non related things, I bought a couple hundred things and USPS handled them very expediciously. ebay was usually the fastest response to a purchase, even with some products being free shipping..."Boat Mail" one would think (slowest form). If you are unaware, ebay has a feedback system whereby sellers are rated by customers and punctuality is one of the rating stars. Get lousy grades and you get kicked off as a seller! Neat!

I am really impressed with the fact that USPS has teemed with FedEx for a cooperative delivery system which is fast and inexpensive. It makes a lot of sense to me especially for rural deliveries of small parcels.

Another plus is I get to meet my mail carrier and chat. Another is the mail carrier brings the "you have to sign for it to get it" parcel to your door rather than you having to go to the post office to sign and pick it up.

Another plus is this added revenue for the postal service which surely adds to their financial solvency ambitions.

So from my camp: 3 cheers for the USPS!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Any pictures? I'm thinking about building a layout. Looking for ideas.

Rick

Click to expand...

Per your request:

The scale is N which is about 1/160 real life. Excepting the actual trains and tracks, 99% of everything else is constructed and then painted plastic or wooden kits from various sources, ebay being a contender along with numerous hobby supplier stores.

There are 2ea 4x8 sheets of plywood upon which the layouts are mounted. The themes are as follows:

1 and 2 are "Anywhere USA" depicting a city with things people do /need (before the days of the big box stores) and places they work, with USA, USAF and USN defense installations that are part of the landscape of many American cities. Servicing railroad is Santa Fe and in particular the Chief silver and red paint scheme.

3 and 4 are my tribute to Willy Nelson's version of "A train they call The City of New Orleans". The train was a day passenger train of the Illinois Central Railroad running between New Orleans and Chicago back when trains were paramount and as the sad part of the song goes, as trains were being replaced with "planes".

So I have "NOLA" on one end and "The Windy City" on the other with what one might to expect to see in and between the two cities. The second passenger train is the "Panama (from namesake Panama Canal...connection?????) Limited" which was the night train between the two cities.

The orange freight is the IC-Gulf, a late comer to IC railroading and the other is more SF Chief paint theme engines pulling general freight cars with which most of us grew up.

No doubt YT was thoroughly represented in the themes linking the two cities and surely most of you can relate to something contained therein. I wanted to get something in there for everybody.....including the junk piles (of which I am truly fond of mine...in real life).

A guy snailed a letter to me from Kansas to Washington state a couple weeks ago- took 8 days. I think the Pony Express was faster. A letter mailed to an address in the same town now takes 2 days, minimum, because it has to go to a "hub" first (60 miles away), then back the next.

The reason letters go to a central location is so that they can be processed by machine. The machines sort them and put them in delivery order in a matter of seconds, compared to the time and manpower it would take to manually sort everything the way they used to do it. The carriers can now take the trays of letters directly to the route the way they come in, rather than having to manually sort each piece.
It's been almost 8 years since I retired from there, but I believe they have machines now that can do large envelopes and perhaps even some packages that way.