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I don’t know how much they cost or what one needs to do to get an account with them, but they include tracking and deliver when they said they would. It did take two weeks from SD to DC Metro however.

par for the course.

If you try to save $20 - $50 (or perhaps a bit more) by driving to the terminal and picking it up yourself, you'll spend at least two hours in there (plus the r/t drive) and probably nearly get run over by forklifts dozens of times. I've done this, and those places (these days) are frantic nightmares.

I have had great luck with Arkansas Best Freight (ABF) but know that others have not. I agree with Joe. Having to pick the horn up at their freight depot (as they do not do residential drop-offs) is a suboptimal experience. For some extra money you can have it delivered to any location with a proper loading dock, so if you have a business where an 18 wheeler can back in you can have it shipped there.

I still greatly prefer to drive for many hours to pick up something in order to avoid having *anyone* other than the seller or myself touch the horn.

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I've no earthly idea. Who is "they"? ABF? I did not use that service from them but only heard about others using such a service, and ABF may or may not offer it. If "they" is trucking companies in general, they all do things like this their own way. All I know is that a "proper" loading dock is high enough that the truck can back up and a forklift can drive directly into the trailer, so however high that is.

I would use Google to find what you need to know, or perhaps you should call Wessex to see how they do this via FedEx, which is a front door delivery service. They have something set up with them, so you will not get their price, but you could get the same service level. I do not trust palletized services since I saw a tuba that had been destroyed by forklift tines.

The expense and fuss make it better to drive out to pick it up yourself. Shipping one tuba sucks. Always. If it means something to you then make the effort to get it yourself. No one else touches it.

I don't know how Yellow got the parcel from Taylor, but it was delivered to my door.

Well, he couldn't get the truck down our street. He called, I walked up the street to meet him and he pulled it down the road on a dolly to my front door. Yes, I tipped him.

I never said that common carriers don’t make residential deliveries, but they do charge for it, they do charge a good bit extra for it, and now they charge a lot extra for it.