Subject: Shipping Costs

From: "Steven O. Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 20:01:00 GMT

I just shipped a mill from California to Colorado, and thought it would
be useful to share the info gleaned.

Describing the shipment as 1850 pounds on one pallet, I got the
following quotes:

	Northwest	$850 + $30 for home delivery
	Yellow Freight	$750 + $30 for home delivery
	Broker #1	$500 door to door
	Broker #2	$500 door to door

Both Yellow and Northwest include the silly "YES" discount.

Brokers fill part empty trucks. You might have to wait an extra week
depending on traffic in your part of the world, but you can get a pretty
good discount as a result.

Find a broker under "Trucking-Motor Freight" in the Yellow pages of the
nearest large city (I looked in Denver). 

Broker #1 above is:
AAA Transportation
(303)693-4110
(800)548-9984
They serve 50 states.

A caution from Broker #2--he says that most companies will not insure
used machine tools. This can be a consideration, as shipping by broker
might mean an extra transfer between trucks.

-- 
Steven O. Smith
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked](Dave Ficken)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 22:29:57 GMT

>Both Yellow and Northwest include the silly "YES" discount.  

A note about Yellow. Their drivers are generally first rate. I use them
routinely to ship machinery to customers in the US. I have also had
customers use brokers. Sometimes, the broker uses a reputable company
to pick up the freight, other times, it is whatever fly-by-night is
around and cheap. Some of the guys these brokers have sent are
downright scary. One guy backed right into the building and took out a
chunk. Others halfway destroyed the idiot proof crate I made just
moving it to the front of the truck. Most brokers will not pay for
damage to used Machinery. A customer of mine is still in litigation
over a machine he bought from plaza 18 months ago. During one of the
transfers, they drove the forks right through the apron. Sometimes
saving a few bucks is penny wise and pound foolish, though I admit it
is mighty tempting.
 It would be intersting to get a follow up report on this shipment when
it arrives! 
Regards,
Dave Ficken
Meridian Machinery

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From: [email-masked] (Edward Haas)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 19:12:02 -0700

Dave Ficken ([email-masked]) wrote:
: >Describing the shipment as 1850 pounds on one pallet, I got the
: 	Northwest	$850 + $30 for home delivery
: >	Yellow Freight	$750 + $30 for home delivery
: A note about Yellow. Their drivers are generally first rate. I use them
	(SNIP)
	Yellow dropped a Rider-Ericsson Stirling engine of mine, on the 
way to the Owls Head Auction. It sold for $4k less than I paid for it, 
thanks to their little boo-boo with a forklift. I got stuck with jury 
duty and "life in general" and wound up dealing on the phone with some 
weasel that refused to cough up on the insured (by them) value 
difference. A time press and an obnoxious couple of phonecalls and I had 
to settle for a pittance. I will NEVER use Yellow again!!!
 
-- 
	"Steamboat Ed" Haas	:	Ed's First Corollary to Murphy's Law: 	
	COMING EVENTUALLY	:	ALL odds are 50-50...
	http://www.west.net/~steamer  	
		---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

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From: jack yates <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:04:57 -0700

Steven O. Smith wrote:
> Here's the follow up report:
> 
> I shipped a Van Norman #12 Universal Mill from Pasadena, CA to Loveland,
> CO via broker. $500 for 1850 pounds/one pallet. I talked to a broker in
> Denver, but I ended up going with the broker who handles all of our
> personell moves at work.
> 
> Our broker at work cautioned me about no insurance on used machines. He
> also had a driver available who he had worked with for years and was
> reliable. What do you expect him to say, but it was a better
> recommendation than the guy picked out of the phone book.
> 
> The machine arrived in excellent shape, on a North American Van Lines
> truck. It worked out very well.

....The other side of the broker's job that shippers don't often see. is 
finding "backhauls" for empty trucks; we might suppose that the driver or 
owner-operator of the truck that delivered your machine had delivered a 
load in Pasadena and wanted to avoid deadheading to his wife and family 
in, say, St. Joseph, Missouri...a $500 load to Lovejoy CO paid for the 
fuel home...the alternative being to lay over and wait for his company to 
find him a load going toward home.  Most owner-operators use brokers to 
this purpose....The down-side may be that an individual owner-operator 
not leased to a major company (such as North American, which I believe is 
owned by the Norfolk-Southern Railroad) does not have the company 
reputation to uphold, thus a shipment may not be handled as 
carefully..and most shop machinery is bulky and top heavy...

				Jack

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From: "Steven O. Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:32:33 GMT

-- 
Steven O. Smith
[email-masked]