If you live in the Southeast, be wary when ordering shipments to come via USPS

Virtually everything that the post office ships to me comes through an Atlanta hub, or goes through even two Atlanta distribution centers. As a result, postal shipment coming to me with tracking, show that packages spend three days getting through Atlanta alone.

Now, in the last two weeks, things are taking considerably longer. I’m also seeing mis-shipped status on shipments, and thing get sent to Atlanta a SECOND time to get ironed out.

I’ve got one order from an Atlanta suburb retailer, that hasn’t arrived after nearly three weeks. Tracking status hasn’t updated since last week. Yeah, the last update was “departed” from an Atlanta regional distribution center.

So, I looked into it. Per Atlanta-area news outlets, the US Postal Service has decided to close a center in Duluth, GA. Significant numbers of Atlanta postal workers are electing not to show up in protest/ “solidarity,” and things are being slowed greatly.

I’m not going to launch into my op-ed on the politics of it (boy, do I have opinions).

I’m just posting to say that anyone looking to order anything, who knows or expects that your shipments often go through Atlanta, consider an alternative to shipping via the post office if you can, if actually getting your stuff is the primary goal.

 

Thanks for the warning. I live in Florida so probably a lot of shipments via USPS would go through Atlanta.

 

Think that is bad, I shipped out a Priority Package from Ft Gregg-Abbott, just south of Richmond, VA and it sat there for a week before taking the 30min drive to the distro center, The USPS needs a wash out.
Wish there was something that could be done. I have family working in the USPS and they say there are issues everywhere

 

That's been all over the news here in Atlanta. USPS opened a new million square foot sorting center a month or so back and it has indeed created a black hole. Lots of mail comes into town via rail and if it's riding CSX, in or out of town, it's guaranteed to go through there. If it comes in via NS, it's 50/50. I have some N scale in transit to me now. It's close enough to come OTR so hopefully it won't get sucked into that place. I bet the decals I ordered will go there. Boooooooo

 

Thanks for the heads up. This is unfortunate as I have mostly good better luck with the USPS than any other, but I am on the west coast. Over the years anything coming out of the southeast region via USPS seems to take a few days longer. That said, I have seen a package show arriving at Riverside, Ca, then going to San Bernardino, Ontario, then back to Riverside, but at my local post office. I've had similar experienced with a package from the southeast drifting in the area.

Hopefully it all gets sorted quickly.

 

That's interesting... I've gotten lots of US mail shipments from all over the country, and often tracked it, even from the southeast. I can't remember the last time any of it was shipped by rail. It always goes by truck.

Are the US mail's rail shipments via containers, or what? Rail and mail used to make a lot of sense when sorting was done on the train.

 

Just using tracking, it is hard to tell if the truck your mail is on goes intermodal or not. There is/was a Fairburn facility here that was exclusively for trailers coming off the rail so if the tracking showed Fairburn, that was the tell tell that it went rail

 

Its not just a problem in Atlanta. Here in Houston they did a system "upgrade" and added another center. The result was November thru January
nothing was moving, just stacking up and the local USPS officials were covering it up and pretending nothing was wrong. The congress officials
got worried about the upcoming elections and primaries with the mail in ballots and and leaned on the local USPS leadership and things have finally started moving again.

 

The Fairburn facility sent some boxcars I bought from EBay on one of the strangest journeys I’ve had yet. They were shipped from California with no status updates for four days after they departed California. In four days, the tracking said Fairburn, GA. After three more days, Augusta. That’s usually the next stop, because I live a while due south of Augusta. Great, right? No, next location in tracking is Edgefield, SC, sent due north. Never had a package routed to Edgefield before. Status says “mis-shipped.” Nooo, really?

Edgefield doesn’t return it to Augusta, noooooo. Sends it to Atlanta. Gets to Atlanta, where they break the record, taking only two days to get through Atlanta, then Augusta again, and finally to me.

 

Think that's bad, I had a package coming from Arkansas to Montana, tracking showed it first went to Los Angelas, then Seattle, then it sat in Guam for almost a week before going to Denver, and then to 3 facilities in Montana before arriving at my door.

 

Thats not too bad have had them set in the KC hub for up to 4 days and that was a priority package.
rich

 

Well, like I said, twenty days and waiting.

 

I'm in California but have noticed recently that some items I have ordered seem to get stuck in Atlanta for a couple of days. I've always thought Jacksonville was the worst as I've had a couple of shipments stuck there for weeks but all eventually got to their destination.

 

I'm, in McLean VA, (Northern VA).
I am waiting for a new White Cane with a special tip.
It comes in a 5 foot tube. Imagine how that gets treated. Meanwhile I have to walk much more slowly with an old style cane.

Well, I'm glad I am not ordering any model RR stuff and my backup cane functions.
I ain't stayin home.

 

The Baltimore facility seems to delay everything for me. And it was even worse sending something. I sent in some documents to a PO box in Baltimore, did so via certified mail. It got from the local post office to the distribution center on the same day. It then sat in the distribution center for 9 days! I had to open a missing mail search. After doing that it MAGICALLY got found and delivered in the next 24 hours.

 

Remember the Big Boys like the Postal Service as much as SSA. Just wait.

 

President Kennedy took the mail away from the railroads and gave it to the airlines (long distance stuff) and to trucking companies. Ideally that was for anything that could reach its destination the next day or two. The mail service was what was keeping the RR's in the passenger business and when that contract expired so did passenger service and the creation of Amtrak followed.

Back in the day when I had a real job working for an insurance company. I say a real job because it sure wasn't fun. Anyway, we used to send weekly checks to a town in the next county in Pennsylvania. Most of the time the checks would arrive on time but every so often we would get a call asking where the check was. The company said that we had to wait ten days before we could reissue the check which we usually did. About two weeks later our original check was returned with several post office stampings on it from places in Tennessee and Kentucky. Every time the address was correct as these were printed by computer. The P.O. had no answer.

 

When I returned from Viet Nam April 1972 my uncle was the postmaster. He came to a church to chat. Before we left he asked if I intended to work at the Post Office. I shrugged and he replied. "Don't, It's terrible."

 

Fedex isn't any better! Ordered a printer part from Illinois to Omaha took 11 days.