At 5:15 a.m. on a chilly spring morning, rain comes down in cold sheets as Jeff Filsinger begins the third hour of his shift as Richmond preload manager at a massive United Parcel Service distribution center in eastern Chesterfield. Inside a cavernous warehouse crisscrossed by conveyor belts, approximately 175 workers are sorting and loading dozens of “package cars,” the company’s trademark, dark brown UPS delivery trucks.
Thousands of packages of every shape and size – by law no heavier than 150 pounds – have come in overnight on tractor-trailers. An unending flow courses through various sorting stations. Some go to delivery vehicles aboard small, train-like utility carts that weave between the trucks and workers, while other goods move on belts. All go on the iconic brown trucks. All told, as many as 350,000 packages circulate through the facility every day. At 8:45 a.m., a steady parade of delivery trucks will leave the distribution center on Coach Road, turn onto Willis Road and proceed to Interstate 95. It’s a near-flawless routine six days every week.