office we used as the destination for our parcels.
Page 44
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
According to Race, who regularly dispatches boxes of seafoods to hotels and wholesalers around the UK, sending consignments quickly can be a nightmare.
The village is 70km from the nearest town, Fort William, but the route bends incessantly and is single-track for about half its length. The A830 is the only single-track trunk road in Britain," says Race. "Artics have to go round bends on the wrong side of the road and it's full of caravans in summer."
Mallaig is connected by the famous West Highland railway line to Fort William and Glasgow.
We had told carriers that we did not want parcels to arrive before Friday morning, but when we got to Race's office we found the packages from City Link and Datapost there ahead of us. The Datapost parcel had turned up at 13:45hrs on Thursday. It had a Datapost sticker which gave addresses of sender and destination; the local post mistress had delivered it personally saying it looked urgent.
The City Link package had arrived at 14:00hrs. It had City Link and Red Star stickers. The Red Star label said it had been dropped at Exeter station by City Link and had reached Glasgow Queen Street station at 08:10hrs on Thursday. It was stamped "Fort William 11:43". It had been driven from there by car to Race's depot Because we asked all the carriers specifically for a 48-hour rather than 24 hour service, we have recorded the Datapost and City Link deliveries as being first thing Friday morning.
The third delivery, and the first on Friday, was by Red Star at 11:50hrs. Again, though Mallaig has a station, it had come by car from Fort William. The Red Star agent there was Ben Taxis. Its driver asked us to sign for the parcel, which was excellently labelled: Red Star's presentation earned it a bonus point.
The Interlink parcel arrived five minutes later in a Leyland Daf Roadrunner from, the Fort William depot of freight carrier Aberdeen Express. Interlink's Scottish agent was actually North Parcels, said the driver, but it had passed the consignment to Aberdeen Express, which goes to Mallaig daily. Race uses the firm to send small packages south.
Race phoned us on the following Tues
day to say the Fedex parcel had turned up, again with Aberdeen Express, four days late. A sticker on it said "two-day delivery guaranteed". Parceline's arrived at 15:55hrs the next day, Tuesday, via North of Scotland haulage firm Connal Highland.
CONCLUSIONS
Deciding a winner was not easy. City Link was the first to arrive, with Datapost. Interlink was cheapest at 210.35 and turned up later that same morning. Datapost scored well on delivery, but lost marks on its pickup and telephone manner. Red Star was also quick but, as we went to press, had not sent us a bill. Federal Express and Parceline are out of contention because they delivered so late. TNT fared worst by failing to turn up.
City Link, however, has the edge. Its service was impeccable and its price reasonable. Interlink is the runner-up and third place goes to Datapost.