USE USPS PERIOD
My fans can't be heard. Since it wasn't under warranty, I believe you could have taken it to your local service station, thus avoiding shipping damage. I have a local guy who does all our repairs that aren't under warranty & is super good. He fixed an brand new Allegheny for me that Lionel couldn't fix because they didn't have the part, so he made the part & you can't even tell were the part was.
Looks like Lazrus brought a thread back from the dead...........
If you want your trains shipped with care, deliver them yourself. I've had bad luck with FedEx and won't ship with them again. All the major carriers have been named here; we've all used them and have had varying degrees of damaged goods. Bottom line: factory packaging is not sufficient to protect our trains from the careless way in which the shippers handle them. I've learned that the hard way, so now when I ship a train, I put it in the original box and shipper, and then put that box in another larger box and surround it with bubble wrap or packing peanuts. It's more expensive to do it this way, but it reduces the risk of damage and pretty much eliminates the hassle factor of trying to collect on the insurance in the event of damage.
I'm as big a critic of Big Orange as anyone.....but attempting to blame them for the alleged abuse from the three major carriers is far from fair.
I'm not buying anything new from Big Orange as my VL Challenger, VL Daylight, and recent Legacy Santa Fe 5011 all had to go back to the Fac-tree. But they all came back in one piece and in good working order.
And no....I'm not driving down to North Carolina to have them perform a warranty repair. But I was able to do that when they were in Ohio. 
