My Greyhound Experience

[Dan Schultz]

I shipped two tubas in the last few weeks. One went from Evansville to Tucson and took 14 days. One went from Evansville to New York City and took 3 days.

Go figure!?!? Both arrived in perfect shape.

[Ace]

To say up front, I have never had the experience of shipping by Greyhound. But, I have shipped a lot of tubas over the years, mainly using FedEx and UPS. Only one was damaged, maybe because I am a pretty good packer. A shipment I worried about was a mint antique Miraphone 186 CC with original case. A pro-player in Dallas called me and bought the horn within a few hours of my "for sale" announcement. He requested I ship it by a trusted trucker firm in Berkeley with a depot in Fort Worth on its cross country route. He said it was a nightmare (lots of traffic?) getting from his place in Dallas over to the Fort Worth location, but said it was worth it because of his confidence in the carrier. Aside from this, some of these Greyhound stories above would keep me awake at night.

Ace

[bisontuba]

Just had a horn sent to me from Arizona Monday afternoon via Greyhound...arrived in Buffalo this morning in perfect condition...all hail the dog!!!

[jimgray]

They are an operational joke by many measures, but I have found them to be very cheap and very reliable.

I just shipped my Fafner from Boston to Chicago. They said it might be 8 days or so, but were unwilling to go on record.
It was precisely 8 days.
It went first to Albuquerque.
Then Denver.
Etc.

But it got there for about $120, perfectly safe in it's MW aluminum case.

If you need trackability, forget about it. If you need to be able to call someone, forget about it.
But cheap and reliable works for me.

[groth]

They are an operational joke by many measures, but I have found them to be very cheap and very reliable.

I just shipped my Fafner from Boston to Chicago. They said it might be 8 days or so, but were unwilling to go on record.
It was precisely 8 days.
It went first to Albuquerque.
Then Denver.
Etc.

But it got there for about $120, perfectly safe in it's MW aluminum case.

If you need trackability, forget about it. If you need to be able to call someone, forget about it.
But cheap and reliable works for me.

Wow, you put a $15,000 horn on Greyhound with only $300 insurance and no tracking?

[bort]

Worst part about Greyhound for me is dealing with the stations...

In Minneapolis, I'm guessing it's fairly typical... But there are many homeless people sleeping there, people up to no good milling around in front of the station, and everywhere it smells like pee. And once you get in the station, it's hard to find anyone working there -- well, until I met and chatted up the guy who works at the back desk in the shipping/receiving area. He gave me the direct phone number, and things were super easy after that.

It's not much fun for people or tubas to ride the dog...

[EdFirth]

Just as an alternative. I had a tuba, in the case, shipped from Utah to Deland Florida. Too many lost horn stories for my comfort with Greyhound( they lost half of my 24J years ago), fear of it being dropped off a truck while loading/unloading, but then I came across a post from our own Rick Denny about Amtrak. They insured it for one dollar per hundred, the cost was surprisingly low, and it arrived in two days.Amtrak Express 1 800 377 6914. They are my go to from here on. Thanks Rick. Ed

[bisontuba]

Amtrak is also terrific but they do new size/weight limitations and not all stations will accept/send packages anymore....