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[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I'm not a trucking expert, either. But, I do think that I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express a time or two.

Maybe what you had in mind was a cargo container, rather than a truck trailer. They sit perfectly on the standard-length semi trailer, and can easily be placed on the trailer and taken off. They're the same ones that you may see in a photograph stacked on cargo ships.

Some things don't need fast transportation and, generally, the slower the means of transportation the cheaper that it is. When I was in business school back in the Dark Ages, railroads were considered the second slowest means of shipment. They probably still are. Can anyone guess which one was first (no, this is not a joke this time. ha). If you said "ships" (barges really drag down the figures for ships) you would be correct.

Shipment by rail is inexpensive, and I think that railroads will stay relevant for a long, long time to come. I'm in good company, the billionaire investor Warren Buffett has a huge "position" in one of the railroads. Buffett very, very rarely invests in losers.

Well I was talking about truck trailers. Not cargo containers. They load the full trailers on flatbed railcars and the funny thing is the UPS trailers are nearly always in a row.
One train I saw had 5 car carriers, several boxcars, then at least 15 truck trailers from various companies, then about a half a mile of double stacked cargo containers. The trains that go through here are usually well over a mile long.

If you would like I can give you proof that UPS puts their trailers on trains.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/traffic_tra....html?mode=jqm
The bus originally landed on the UPS trailers.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Well I was talking about truck trailers. Not cargo containers. They load the full trailers on flatbed railcars and the funny thing is the UPS trailers are nearly always in a row.
One train I saw had 5 car carriers, several boxcars, then at least 15 truck trailers from various companies, then about a half a mile of double stacked cargo containers. The trains that go through here are usually well over a mile long.

If you would like I can give you proof that UPS puts their trailers on trains.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/traffic_tra....html?mode=jqm
The bus originally landed on the UPS trailers.

No proof required. I believe you. I think, deep in the recesses of my mind, I remember seeing just the situation that you described. But, I never commonly saw it.

You know, it just occurred to me that in my life the last few years I rarely have to cross a major RR crossing. Crossings for side tracks, yes, but major ones, no. I have little opportunity to watch trains moving.

[Cinisajoy]

Come visit and you will see plenty of trains. You might even get a chance or 3 to go over the top of railroad tracks.
The last place I lived was 6 houses, cross one little road and one 4 lane road to the railroad tracks.
Also lived right beside an international airport. Yes, we all immediately noticed the lack of planes. It was also very loud when the first one came in after those few days.

What is funny is I am now 2 miles from those same tracks and we hear more trains.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Come visit and you will see plenty of trains. You might even get a chance or 3 to go over the top of railroad tracks.
The last place I lived was 6 houses, cross one little road and one 4 lane road to the railroad tracks.
Also lived right beside an international airport. Yes, we all immediately noticed the lack of planes. It was also very loud when the first one came in after those few days.

What is funny is I am now 2 miles from those same tracks and we hear more trains.

I didn't say that I regretted not having to cross RR tracks. So, sorry, I'll refuse your invitation this time. Invite me for some Tex-Mex food, though, and I'll start packing my bags.

Oh, not all international airports are created equal. I've heard that even if just a charter plane to some foreign country takes off or lands at an airport, that's enough for the airport to call itself "international."

Sometime I'll tell you about camping at a KOA near the Amarillo (International?) Airport. I had no idea that the Amarillo airport could be so busy in the middle of the night, and I think that this was during the time when airlines had pared back on "red eye" flights, too.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I didn't say that I regretted not having to cross RR tracks. So, sorry, I'll refuse your invitation this time. Invite me for some Tex-Mex food, though, and I'll start packing my bags.

Oh, not all international airports are created equal. I've heard that even if just a charter plane to some foreign country takes off or lands at an airport, that's enough for the airport to call itself "international."

Sometime I'll tell you about camping at a KOA near the Amarillo (International?) Airport. I had no idea that the Amarillo airport could be so busy in the middle of the night, and I think that this was during the time when airlines had pared back on "red eye" flights, too.

Well now you don't get on the tracks. They are overpasses.
Oh and now that is an International Air and Space Port.
No, for an actual international airport, they have to have customs.
Ours was from when we had Braniff and American. I think our location too, since at the designation time, we were the only major airport within 300 miles.

On the Tex-mex come on over. Any day is good.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

<snip>
No, for an actual international airport, they have to have customs.
<snip>

I had wondered how customs would have worked with a single plane going to and from a foreign country from an airport that didn't have regularly scheduled international flights. However, I am 99% sure that I am correct. I'll research it, though. I know that there are airports which call themselves "Such-and-such International Airport" that do not currently have regularly scheduled international flights. And, frankly, some of them are so small and in out-of-the-way places that I can't believe that they ever had regular international service. Of course, we in the rest of Florida think that South Florida (Miami, et al.) is basically a foreign country. ha

Does anyone know authoritatively and definitively the answer to this question?

[Cinisajoy]

Note: we don't have actual international flights but there are a couple of custom agents there. Not sure if there are many charter planes out of Mexico. International big flights generally go through El Paso or DFW or Houston's big airport.
I think all you need is to have one customs agent on the payroll.
I think you are right too.
Being International just means a custom agent not regular International flights.
Oh and we also have a game warden.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

A second factor at work is that your UPS (for example) package(s) delivered on Saturday may have actually been delivered by the Postal Service. In the last decade or so, USPS has tried to be less set in its ways (as government agencies tend to be) and let other carriers handle packages that have to travel long distance (they get it done, for whatever reason, faster than the Postal Service), and receive packages from other carriers for them (the Postal Service) to do the actual delivery, etc.

Thinking about it, I don't believe I've had any UPS packages arrive on Saturday. I actually haven't had much from Amazon arrive on Saturday period, but all the ones I can think of were obviously USPS since they were stuck in the mailbox.

It's usually easy to tell here even without checking the label. USPS arrives before lunch, UPS is always in the afternoon. If it's raining, UPS puts it in a garbage bag and leaves it. USPS either dumps it on the front sidewalk in the rain, or doesn't deliver and leaves a slip in the mailbox. (Sadly the latter is pretty rare.) Had them leave a hardback book Amazon had shipped on the windshield of a car, in the rain. Somehow the book managed to not get wet, but the package was soaked.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Perhaps you've heard about Amazon's plan to deliver packages by drone (they actually may be testing this in certain test markets). In that case, you could, in the future, place your order on Sunday, and get it on Sunday!

Yeah, I still think it's a pipe dream for now, maybe in another 5-10 years. But I doubt I'll live to see it happen where I live. The town's just too small to make drone delivery cost-effective, and lots of hills and trees around. Not exactly great terrain for drone deliveries either.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Manabi

<snip>
Yeah, I still think it's a pipe dream for now, maybe in another 5-10 years. But I doubt I'll live to see it happen where I live. The town's just too small to make drone delivery cost-effective, and lots of hills and trees around. Not exactly great terrain for drone deliveries either.

Yeah, I agree. But, in densely-populated areas near a distribution center, I think that it's viable. I seriously doubt that people will ever be able to get such delivery at standard shipping rates, though.

Frankly, I think that the major hurdle will be getting laws and such put in place for the operation of drones. Otherwise, there will eventually be so many flying around that they will crash into each other. And, I'm afraid, with government operating reactively most of the time instead of proactively, that there is going to have to be some incident with an airplane and a drone (i.e., collision) before laws and rules and protocols and such will be put in place to regulate it all sufficiently. I hope that I'm wrong.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Thinking about it, I don't believe I've had any UPS packages arrive on Saturday. I actually haven't had much from Amazon arrive on Saturday period, but all the ones I can think of were obviously USPS since they were stuck in the mailbox.

It's usually easy to tell here even without checking the label. USPS arrives before lunch, UPS is always in the afternoon. If it's raining, UPS puts it in a garbage bag and leaves it. USPS either dumps it on the front sidewalk in the rain, or doesn't deliver and leaves a slip in the mailbox. (Sadly the latter is pretty rare.) Had them leave a hardback book Amazon had shipped on the windshield of a car, in the rain. Somehow the book managed to not get wet, but the package was soaked.


Yeah, I still think it's a pipe dream for now, maybe in another 5-10 years. But I doubt I'll live to see it happen where I live. The town's just too small to make drone delivery cost-effective, and lots of hills and trees around. Not exactly great terrain for drone deliveries either.

I have never had a Saturday delivery from ups either. I did have one in the rain the other day and they do put it in a plastic bag for me too. And like you usps just leaves it on the sidewalk in the rain. I had to have Amazon replace an order or two because of it.

My last two deliveries were by Amazon. Last night at 9:45 we were coming home from dinner and saw a car pull into the driveway and someone walking up to the front door with a flashlight. The second Amazon delivery was today around 2:00 pm. If you look at the tracking it shows up as AMZL US. I've seen Amazon vans in my neighborhood before, but the guy in his own car last night was a new one.

[BearMountainBooks]

We had a number of people using their own cars last year at Christmas. Vans, cars, SUVs. Sometimes they put an Amazon sign on the door (but those get stolen ALL THE TIME. I had one with my books made all in a pretty row. It lasted a month and other authors told me that was a record. Of course, I only drive the car twice a week!) Anyway, there were mostly unmarked personal cars delivering packages last year--we only knew they were from Amazon because the car would stop, open the back and every package inside had the Amazon logo/tape/etc all over it. They were out every single day of the week leaving packages on doorsteps.

[Apache]

The shipper has to check the box for Saturday delivery, otherwise it will be held over for delivery on Monday. Also, you can only have Next and 2nd day packages delivered on Saturday. The Saturday shipping option adds an extra $16.00 to the bill.
Apache

[GtrsRGr8]

I haven't ordered from Amazon in a couple of months (my Prime expired about a month and a half ago), and I do not remember specifically if I ever received an order from them on Saturday. But, if I am not mistaken the promise with Prime is "within 2 business (Monday-Friday) days." If a person orders on a Thursday, Amazon would not be obligated to have the package delivered until the next Monday.

However, I've been ordering a lot from Walmart for a couple of years and I can say that I frequently have received parts of orders on Saturday. These are cases like I referred to in an earlier post, where the distance carrier (UPS in most cases), probably on Friday night or early Saturday morning, hands a package off to USPS for local delivery on Saturday. I think that is great that they work together that way. On a package like the one above, that gets a package to a customer two days earlier than it would have if it was handled completely by UPS. Makes them look better, creates good will, and probably doesn't cost them much extra.

[Manabi]

I've gotten Amazon Prime deliveries on Saturday quite a lot, it's just never delivered by UPS or Fedex for that final stop. And Amazon does include Saturday in the two day guarantee, only Sunday is skipped.

UPS/Fedex & USPS don't work together out of altruism. It's a business arrangement, where UPS/Fedex does the long-haul part of the delivery and USPS does the last mile delivery. Both get paid, but less than either would for doing the entire thing. It works because the package is basically piggy-backing on shipping that would happen anyway. UPS/Fedex trucks/planes are heading between the distribution centers full of packages anyway, so adding a few more doesn't add to the costs much. USPS is going to be sending out people on the mail routes Monday through Saturday anyway, so a few more packages doesn't add to the costs. (Especially since UPS/Fedex takes it to the closest post office.)

It's a bit of a wash on package delivery time. If you live close to a distribution center (like I do), it usually adds a day to the delivery time. UPS will delivery to my local post office, often the same day it's shipped, and then I get to wait till the following morning before USPS brings it out. If you're further away, it may decrease the time. This isn't a major issue with Amazon, as they plan for the actual delivery date for each method and pick accordingly.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Manabi

I've gotten Amazon Prime deliveries on Saturday quite a lot, it's just never delivered by UPS or Fedex for that final stop. And Amazon does include Saturday in the two day guarantee, only Sunday is skipped.

UPS/Fedex & USPS don't work together out of altruism. It's a business arrangement, where UPS/Fedex does the long-haul part of the delivery and USPS does the last mile delivery. Both get paid, but less than either would for doing the entire thing. It works because the package is basically piggy-backing on shipping that would happen anyway. UPS/Fedex trucks/planes are heading between the distribution centers full of packages anyway, so adding a few more doesn't add to the costs much. USPS is going to be sending out people on the mail routes Monday through Saturday anyway, so a few more packages doesn't add to the costs. (Especially since UPS/Fedex takes it to the closest post office.)

It's a bit of a wash on package delivery time. If you live close to a distribution center (like I do), it usually adds a day to the delivery time. UPS will delivery to my local post office, often the same day it's shipped, and then I get to wait till the following morning before USPS brings it out. If you're further away, it may decrease the time. This isn't a major issue with Amazon, as they plan for the actual delivery date for each method and pick accordingly.

Isn't that UPS SurePost?