WA Train Derailment - Australia Post

[harley_babes_hoard]

WA train derailment

07 December 2015

A train derailment in Western Australia has resulted in rail services being unable to reach Perth. Letters and parcels sent to Perth from the eastern States from Tuesday 1 December have been impacted, as have letters and parcels sent from Perth to the eastern states from Thursday 3 December.

We have worked hard over the weekend to transfer as many parcels as possible to trucks and this work will continue this week as we explore all opportunities to minimise the impact for customers.

Express Post items will be sent by air and delivered on time however, customers should expect delivery delays for other items sent to or from Perth and the Eastern States.

At this stage, we are advised that rail services are expected to resume Thursday 10 December.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

[justajunk]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

Interesting that AP haven't considered putting the mail on planes instead of trucks.

'Through rain, snow, sleet and hail....' Unless it's cheaper to wait for spring.

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Maybe I am wrong about this, but don't Australia Post need a dangerous goods declaration before carting any package by air??

But yes, it is frustrating that the delay is predicted to be so long. And that they took so long after the event to inform us. 

[davewil1964]

And any parcel has a dangerous goods declaration, except in the very occasional instance where a poster is honest.

I'd warrant 90+% of parcels have a signed DGD, and letters don't need them. So no reason not to put them on a plane and actually provide the service they are paid for - timely delivery.

[justajunk]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

no reason not to put them on a plane and actually provide the service they are paid for - timely delivery.

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Amen to that at least. Imagine how much of a delay there would be next year if there was a train derailment. Non-priority letters could end up taking two weeks rather than two days to get from capital city to capital city. 

[justajunk]

I just finished re-messaging all my customers, telling them to expect delays. How exhausting! I guess at least this only happens once in a blue moon...

[*tippy*toes*]

Thanks for the info. I posted an item on the 4th to WA, so just sent the buyer a message saying there might be a delay. I suppose posting on the 4th, it's an each way bet whether hers would be involved or not.

What do you think the chances are of eBay removing any associated defects due to potential late deliveries? I did say to my buyer that in the event it does arrive later than the estimate, to take into consideration the circumstances if she chooses to leave feedback. I even went so far as to say to either tick yes for the feedback question, or not answer it at all.

[saarzi]

Has anyone told EBay?   Long shot, but I think I remember from ages ago, they auto remove postage defects for everyone involved if theyare told about things like that...

[harley_babes_hoard]

Pretty sure you are right saarzi remember reading that as well that if there were problems like that or bushfires, floods etc eBay would remove defects for postage delays.

[justajunk]

An update:

(as of Wednesday evening)

Today I had six buyers leave feedback for items that I posted from Perth to eastern state (Qld, Tas, Vic and NSW) metro areas on Sunday.

Postage from capital city to capital city usually takes two days. These items took three days to arrive. That means that the total delay in postage time has (for me) been one day. Pretty remarkable considering how serious it sounded like things were.

Hope this might put some of my eastern state fellow eBayer sellers' minds at rest. 

[harley_babes_hoard]

yeah but if you only sent them on sunday then yours didn't get caught up in the mess.

[lyndal1838]

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@justajunk wrote:

An update:

(as of Wednesday evening)

Today I had six buyers leave feedback for items that I posted from Perth to eastern state (Qld, Tas, Vic and NSW) metro areas on Sunday.

Postage from capital city to capital city usually takes two days. These items took three days to arrive. That means that the total delay in postage time has (for me) been one day. Pretty remarkable considering how serious it sounded like things were.

Hope this might put some of my eastern state fellow eBayer sellers' minds at rest. 

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Your items would have been put directly on to trucks and bypassed the derailment completely.  An extra days delay in delivery times sounds about right for road freight as opposed to rail freight.