I've shipped a significant number of tubas and euphoniums through my business TubaStudio.com In my experience the best methods of shipping a tuba are through AMTRAK, Greyhound or a trucking company. This advice is all based on personal experience and will vary from person to person.
AMTRAK has been the absolute most reliable. They will put the instrument on a wooden pallet by hand and then the entire load on the pallet gets wrapped in heavy duty plastic so that it doesn't shift while in transit.
I've used Greyhound on a number of occasions for both shipping and receiving. For the most part I've had great success with them. However, there are a couple of things that can happen with them...
1. If you want it to arrive on the scheduled date at the scheduled time the bus is supposed to arrive at your recipient's station you need to add PRIORITY shipping to it. That means if there are crowded buses with a lot of luggage it won't get bumped to the next bus, and the next bus, and the next bus.. etc. Priority shipping is a bit more expensive but it's the way to circumvent the bump process.
2. Again, I've had some great experiences with Greyhound BUT there is also some serious incompetence at various stations. I had a problem last year with a tuba being shipped to me in a very large washing machine box. The tuba wasn't shipped via priority shipping, the tuba wasn't arriving when it was supposed to and no one would answer the phone at the Boston South Station terminal. I called Greyhound directly and they told me that this is an ongoing problem with the Boston and New York terminals. They are so busy there at times, and understaffed, that the employees have a tendency to stop answering the phone. When I did finally get someone on the phone they couldn't properly track it, but they gave me the stations that it would have gone through so that I could call each of them to see if it was sitting there. I called all of them and it wasn't at any of them. I kept trying the Boston terminal and they'd keep telling me (when I could get them on the phone) that it hadn't arrived and they couldn't put in a formal request to track it until it was "missing" for 30 days. At about day 28 I went down to the Boston terminal (after just getting off the phone with the same employee I dealt with before having him tell me "I told you we'll call you when it comes in.") When I arrived the cage surrounding their work area was locked while the person was down at the buses. There is a hallway that goes around this cage. I went around the back where I could see into a window to their back room and there was a HUGE box sitting there. When the employee (a different one from the one I spoke to on the phone) got back he checked the computer and nothing came up. I told him I had seen a very large box in his back room, and asked if he minded taking a look at it. He did. It was the tuba. It had arrived almost three weeks prior and no one had checked it in! He told me that there were some real lazy people working there. So this can also be a problem.
AMTRAK is my preferred shipping method. Nothing is perfect, but they've been the best and you can insure your shipment for a lot more than Greyhound will allow. AMTRAK let's you insure up to $10,000 and Greyhound sometimes only allows a maximum of $300! The Boston station allows $1,000. Greyhound varies per station. I've never had a horn arrive damaged when shipping through AMTRAK, Greyhound, or a trucking company. I've received horns damaged through FedEx, UPS, and DHL. These companies move things around by conveyor belts and items fall off.
I have also had tubas and euphoniums shipped through FedEx, UPS, and DHL arrive successfully without a problem. If you don't have an AMTRAK or Greyhound station near you a highly recommend a trucking company. As long as the instrument is always packed properly this is the next best alternative.
The key is packing the instrument properly. The cost of packing materials compared to the value of the instrument is minimal. It would be better to use a bit more packing material and pack it properly than dealing with a damaged instrument.
Not everyone has an AMTRAK near them, which means that I have to use other methods when this is the case. Greyhound is pretty common, but sometimes there are no Greyhound stations in nearby. The trucking company is your best bet in this case. Actually some businesses prefer the trucking company method first.
Here's my ranking and experience...
AMTRAK = Never a problem - never a damaged instrument.
Greyhound = Some problems - never a damaged instrument.
Trucking Companies = Never a problem - never a damaged instrument.
FedEx, UPS and DHL = Some problems - have received damaged instruments from all three.
GOOD LUCK!
