Best Small Shipment Vendors? (moving company, ABF, truck rental, truck)

[rockyhillgal]

We're planning a cross country move, whereby the significant majority of our items will be in storage for a good period of time during our transition to permanent housing.

What vendors are the best for a small shipment, consisting of our clothes and other items that we'll need in the short term that won't fit in our car? In a previous, similar move, I used UPS, but found it to be expensive.

[GMarcan920]

When we moved without furniture we used a palletized move: we packed out boxes (about 25 of them), then the moving company arrived, weighed each box, put them on a pallet and shrink wrapped it all and shipped the pallet. Worked out great! I would Google 'palletized moving companies'

[midwestmom]

rockyhillgal - I was interested in the same thing, the closest I found was google for freight companies, but the only one I found that included residential had really bad reviews (lost shipments, awful cust. serv) I really liked ABF and their rates are reasonable for the service, I'm not sure my things would justify the $1,400 dooor to door pod. I could save by going to terminal but I'd need to find a truck rental at both ends to get to/from the terminals.

GMarcan - Do you remember what moving company you used?

[rockyhillgal]

We ended up using Amtrak Express Shipping (Amtrak - Plan - Planning & Booking - Baggage & Shipping - Amtrak Express Shipping), to ship boxes whose weight totaled approximately 600 pounds. The rate per pound decreases progressively, depending on how much your shipment weighs. However the rates were VERY reasonable in comparison to the competition. (After a certain point, it cost .56 per pound to ship from NC to CA.)

One thing to be aware of before showing up with your boxes at your local Amtrak station is that shipping is an add-on to Amtrak's core mission of transporting people. So, if you arrive just prior to a passenger train's arrival, staff might not be able to help you. Also, you must be very careful not to exceed the 50 pd. limit for each box, because staff must load and unload the boxes oftentimes without forklifts, etc.