TubeNet

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It depends on when you send it. If you sent it later last week then you have a problem. It was Memorial Day Weekend and ridership is way up for holidays. A case that big will have been bumped for the luggage of the folks riding the bus. It could be sitting at any station between you and the buyer waiting to be put under the bus again. Holidays are the only real problem you need to worry about when using Greyhound. I had a helicon take almost three weeks to get to me from New York over the Christmas holidays a couple years ago.

Man, I had a nightmare of a time shipping a tuba through Greyhound last year. I've always used Amtrak with great success (and worth the extra drive to the nearest station IMHO) but the seller decided to send it via Greyhound at the last minute because of a scheduling snafu. Long story short.....I probably lost a year or two of my life from the stress involved with NO ONE answering the phones and a laughable (at best) tracking system on Greyhound's part.

Never again.

Luckily, it arrived......very late, but in good condition. Unfortunately, I didn't end up buying the instrument and the owner and I arranged for its safe return via Amtrak. Neither us imagined it would have been so painfully difficult.

I hope you experience is successful.

I've used Greyhound on a number of occasions both shipping and receiving. For the most part I've had great success with them. However, there are a couple of things that can happen with them...

1. If you want it to arrive on the scheduled date at the scheduled time the bus is supposed to arrive at your recipient's station you need to add PRIORITY shipping to it. That means if there are crowded buses with a lot of luggage it won't get bumped to the next bus, and the next bus, and the next bus .. etc. A previous poster mentioned that this could happen. Priority shipping is a bit more expensive but it's the way to circumvent the bump process.

2. Again, I've had some great experiences with Greyhound BUT there is also some serious incompetence at various stations. I had a problem last year with a tuba being shipping to me in a very large washing machine box. The tuba wasn't shipped via priority shipping, the tuba wasn't arriving when it was supposed to and no one would answer the phone at the Boston South Station terminal. I called Greyhound directly and they told me that this is an ongoing problem with the Boston and New York terminals. They are so busy there at times, and understaffed, that the employees have a tendency to stop answering the phone. When I did finally get someone on the phone they couldn't properly track it, but they gave me the stations that it would have gone through so that I could call each of them to see if it was sitting there. I called all of them and it wasn't at any of them. I kept trying the Boston terminal and they'd keep telling me that it hadn't arrived and they couldn't put in a formal request to track it until it was "missing" for 30 days. At about day 28 I went down to the Boston terminal (after just getting off the phone with the same employee I dealt with before having him tell me "I told you we'll call you when it comes in). The employee had locked up the cage surrounding their work area while they went down to the buses. There is a hallway going around this cage. I went around the back where I could see into a window into their back room and there was a HUGE box sitting there. When the employee got back he checked the computer and nothing came up. I told him I had seen a very large box in his back room, and asked if he minded taking a look at it. He did. It was the tuba. It had arrived almost three weeks prior and no one checked it in - so it wasn't in their computer! So this can also be a problem.

I agree with Josh - AMTRAK is my preferred shipping method. Nothing is perfect, but they've been the best and you can insure them for a lot more than Greyhound. AMTRAK up to $10K and Greyhound sometimes only a maximum of $300. Greyhound varies per station.

I've never had a horn arrive damaged when shipping through AMTRAK or Greyhound. I've received horns damaged through FedEx, UPS and DHL. My vote is on AMTRAK, Greyhound, or a trucking company.

Don't stress yet. It's probably getting bumped.

Mike Milnarik

Greyhound is my preferred method of shipping tubas. But... there are a few 'quirks'.

- Freight moves on a space-available basis. One previous poster mentioned that 'priority' shipment will speed things along but I honestly don't think the extra bucks helps much. What priority shipment does is make for more of a paper trail.
- Routes are not necessarily point-to-point. One might think that a trip from Tennessee might be a straight line. I can say that in most cases, it isn't. I've had stuff going from Evansville, Indiana to Tennessee routed through St. Louis, Chicago, and Columbus (Ohio).
- Even though freight has to be taken to and picked up from a terminal, it's ALWAYS good to included several labels inside and out of the recipients FULL home address and a phone number where they can be reached.
- ALWAYS include your return address and phone number inside and out.
- IF something goes haywire... Greyhound Freight goes straight to Dallas where an attempt is made to identify it.
- Patience is a virtue. Freight can take several days longer that the schedules indicate.
- Not all Greyhound terminals are really company stores. Greyhound uses many 'contract' stores that have limited hours. I know of one that is actually a McDonald's. Passengers can get on or off there but freight just passes by if the place happens to be closed. At that point, the freight might ride the entire loop again until someone re-routes it.

There are more stories. But... with all of it's faults.... I still find it less of a problem that any of the 'mainstream' shippers like FEDEX or UPS.

A simple explanation probably has to do with when you shipped the tuba and where you shipped from-and-to.
...Memorial Day - someone already covered it.
...If the origin or the destination is in a small town, it will take longer.

------

I have had great luck with Greyhound but I worry about (as happened to the elephant) someone stealing the tuba at some point. So:

Never ship an instrument with Greyhound without having seperate insurance.

The Greyhound insurance is almost worthless. Trying to collect is like the greyhounds chasing a mechanical bunny around a track: endless.

My instruments are insured through my homeowners policy, and while I was inbetween homes, my renter's policy. The extra cost was around $150 annually and worth the peace of mind.

The Rudy I just got from Custom Music, was shipped by UPS Freight,
They used a B&S PT-4 Box strapped to a pallet, plus the box was labeled Music Instrument, "top only",
so nothing was piled on top of it, arrived in great condition, only moved by forklift or pallet truck.
I had a 70lb pro video tape deck sent that way, arrived just fine, same type of deck well packed in a box
and sent by FedEX, arrived trashed, they bent the body of the deck, the circuit boards were all warped.
Never again!

Any of the shipping services are capable of losing, crushing, and then laughing about a tuba. Amtrak, Greyhound, UPS, Fedex, the airlines, trucking companies, 20-Mule Team Borax, the Pony Express...any of them.

There is no way to pack a tuba that is 100% safe. None.

Now, anyone who believes the above two statements can adopt a realistic risk-management approach if they aren't willing to drive it there themselves (which is also risky). Separately insuring the instrument is a must--the insurance provided by shipping companies is not worth the paper it's written on, and certainly not worthy of the dollars it might extract from my pocket. Mostly, it just complicates the paperwork.

You can encase the instrument in a reinforced concrete box that weights 6 tons, and the instrument will still be vulnerable. So, pack it the way the manufacturers do--in a double-walled corrugated box filled with polystyrene peanuts. Put the tuba in a plastic bag to keep the peanuts from getting jammed into the tubing. Put the peanuts in plastic grocery bags to make it easier to pack and unpack. You can then strap it down to a pallet, but only trucking companies will take it that way. I put my B&S F tuba in a box intended for a PT-1, so there was room to spare, but it still would not have survived being hit by a car or dropped off a loading dock.

When I shipped a tuba to Texas recently, it took an extra week to get there. Much nervousness, but it eventually got there and free of damage.

Wade's experience is even more exceptional than the experience of frequent shippers who have never had a problem. Don't extrapolate and become paralyzed with fear. But manage the risk.

Rick "who had separate insurance on that F tuba going to Texas" Denney

the elephant wrote:..... Some kind employee of "The Dog" took my tuba off a bus and left it on the platform for a nice "bump" back onto the next bus. It was coming to me in the hard case, clearly marked as a musical instrument. Someone picked it up and took it home, never to be seen again.....

A very good reason why I NEVER mark "fragile - musical instrument" on the outside of boxes and NEVER ship in only a case. I even put cases inside a carton even if it's just to conceal the contents.

I have been known to put "FRAGILE - GLASS" on the outside of cartons. "CAUTION - LIVE ANIMALS" might work, too!

I have had a bit of problem with FedEx, but have not shipped a horn...yet. I am going to be selling my 2 year old Miraphone 186 BBb 4v and if it eventually sells to anyone within 1000 miles, I am going to drive it, myself (Prius). I sold a horn about 4 years ago and met the buyer half way. No muss, no fuss, and I enjoyed the trip!

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I have had a couple good/lucky experiences.

One was with a West Coast shipping company. One was a Packed-by-UPS instrument. Both times the tuba was wrapped in plastic to keep packing materials out of the instrument. Lots of packing peanuts or re-used MW airbags. Double boxed in heavy duty corrogated boxes and that was screwed to a wooden base both times. Both delivered by UPS. Both arrived with no new attributes!!!

Not so good.
Holton 345 shipped in the original plywood "coffin case" filled with bags pf packing peanuts. Arrived with the bell "starred" and flattened and a large dent in the top branch from the mouthpiece compartment in the corner of the case. Obviously dropped straight on the bell end of the case, possibly more than once. Got squat and a long hassle from UPS.

Old tall-style King 1241 in two very large boxes with lots of packing peanuts. Arrived with the lead pipe jammed into the first valve casing. The valve was non-functional. It must have been dropped on it's side or compressed in the truck by shifting load. The bell survived ok (it was showing its age and difficult to detect if anything new had occured in transit.)

Hope you got the right small town and the right person!!!!

the elephant wrote: I have NEVER, save once, received a tuba via an individual that has not arrived in an unplayable condition due to the body getting whanged and the valves binding up. Only once has a horn arrived in an undamaged condition. Once.

Maybe it depends on the individual

I've shipped tubas from FL to AK and only had 1 arrive at its destination damaged (bell was creased--easily repaired)--VERY lucky. Some horns are so big you really have no choice but to use a freight company if you want it to arrive undamaged. Lets face it, we play instruments that are not designed to be thrown around by shipping companies.

JJ