UPS - ready for roll out

1. New long box Freightliner based UPS package car awaits delivery in the dealer's yard.

2. There are no identifying manufacturer's marks on the chassis or box, but those straps may be a a giveaway to the knowledgeable (Grumman Olsen?). This is a short box type.

3. Pullman brown is supposed to be easy to keep clean, but daily washes may be a necessity in our area.

As mentioned in these posts some months ago, UPS is finally making its presence felt directly in Atlantic Canada - the last parts of the continent where UPS trucks were unknown. Starting this month, UPS will sever its ties with Purolator and start to pick up and deliver in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador (the latter province was added after the initial announcement).

The long standing UPS tradition of removing all manufacturer's identifying marks from vehicles resulted in some curiosity about what we would expect to see on the roads starting this month.

There will be eight depots in Atlantic Canada, and it appears that all the vehicles will be built on a Freightliner chassis. There are long and short box versions apparently.

Called "package cars" by UPS, they are a plain jane step van, with fibre glass nose and teardrop headlights, painted in UPS Pullman brown (meant not to show the dirt). That may not work so well here where some dusty looking new deliveries are sitting in the Freightliner dealer's yard in Burnside.

Founded in 1907, UPS came to Canada in 1975, starting in Toronto, and has since become a publicly traded behemoth with aircraft and a freight division. They swallowed up Overnite Transportation and just last month announced an offer to take over TNT Express.

They are here to stay!

Meanwhile Purolator's hybrid delivery vans will still be around, but their business will be cut back. Prior to Purolator it was Day & Ross's Sameday Delivery that had the UPS contract.

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