To fill in a few more details of explanation....
The timing of all of this was awful.
Alex had a trip planned to go out of the country.
A full week before he was to leave, I mailed the package.. thinking a week was plenty of time (I NO LONGER think that).
Pkg got stuck in Jacksonville distribution site.
Well, I did not want to post to the world that Alex was out of the country (that's how some robberies happen... when people make it known their house is empty!).
(some of you may have been wondering.... if the pkg made it home... then why so long to have it picked up).
So the post office was holding his mail until he got back.
So the last I heard.... he picked up the package from the post office on Monday .... but was not feeling well from his trip.
So when he is up to it, I'll hear back.
And to be honest, I'm probably the one who's most on pins and needles waiting to hear.
He said the box had a dent- I assume that was the outer box..... so it got tossed around.
Getting tossed is a HUGE problem for mailing a Shay.
Overland used a VERY soft foam for this release. It makes getting the loco in and out of the box easier, but it is HORRIBLE on shipping.
This is a warning to everyone to give thought about shipping delicate locomotives.
What happens is....
The box gets tossed (or even thrown) and lands on the edge.... let's say the nose edge. The momentum of the Shay (Newton's Law) causes the Shay to keep moving. The foam at the nose compresses.... and at some point, the foot-boards on the pilot dig into the foam..... but the Shay may still have momentum. THIS is where the front pilot or something worse may BEND because something has to give.
And what I just described is EXPONENTIALLY worse if the Shay shell is not bolted firmly in place because now the frame at the nose has no extra support.
I know because that is exactly what happened to one of my customers years ago. He mailed me a Shay for repair, the shell was not screwed in place, there was no extra protection in the OMI box.... and when something had to give.... the frame bent on both sides and broke on one side. And he foolishly did not add any extra insurance. He ended up selling the Shay for parts. It was a complete disaster.
So on the Shay, what I do is:
1. all parts are screwed/fixed in place
2. wrap the loco itself in something like Saran wrap.
3. I then cut a piece of cardboard the width of the Shay and has a length that just barely fits into the OMI box.
4. I then wrap the loco to the cardboard strip.... and then set all of it in the foam (the cardboard lay on top touching the inside edges of the box).
That way, if the box gets slammed and Newton's Law is in effect, then the cardboard can absorb a good bit of the shock and the force is distributed to the whole loco wrapped up ... instead of all of the force being focused and concentrated in the nose.
Rule: Never ship an OMI Shay in the original soft foam without extra protection.
We may find out today if my extra process worked since this will be the first time I know that it will have been tested.
BTW- I had yet another Shay shipped to me once.... and I looked with horror as I opened the box to see that the shell was not screwed in place.
But somehow (miraculously) that Shay survived unscathed.
