Freight/shipping company recommendations?

Brian, I've used a "blanket wrap" service via Allied's agent in British Columbia Canada (Tippet Richardson) to SF Bay Area (VIP Transport). After the systems were deinstalled TR went in, blanket wrapped the cabinets, boxed up all cables, manuals, tapes, etc. then shipped to Bay Area. I picked up at the bonded warehouse since I had to deal with customs, but they could also deliver. A couple notes - Tippet Richardson on the Canadian end was great in arranging everything, dealing with customs and getting stuff to CA in good condition. This option is pretty expensive, but at the time I had to move the equipment and had no other choice - we had just moved into a new house and had a new baby (in a 24-hour period, poor planning on our part ;-). I didn;t even think about asking for a few days to do a U-Haul run myself. The Allied agent on the receiving end, VIP Transport, was *completely* incompetent when it came to dealing with customs and I had to personally escort them through the process. I would never use Allied, at least in the SF Bay Area again. When you call around getting quotes the important thing is to ask for a quote on "blanket wrapping service" and avoid VIP Transport like the plague. At the Computer History Museum we use North American's high value services for any artifact shipping. The move the big heavy delicate stuff and do a fantastic job. The Museum moves a quantity and type of stuff that most of us will never have to personally deal with (e.g. Digital's historic computer collection) so North American I've also done the long-haul U-Haul thing which is OK. U-Hauls are not really designed to carry VAXes, disk,s tape drives, etc. and the ramps are often more trouble than they are worth. I'm sure others on the list have useful experiences they can share. Others I have gotten quotes from: www.freightcenter.com, Yellow (I've used them at work, don't know if they do packing). Feel free to email with questions/comments. Lee Courtney --- Brian Chase <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> wrote: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com