Best bet is to go the Local of whatever union the shipper's employees are members. Whenever they get though b!tching about their employer they can sell you the lost items out of their trunks.
One of my friends from high school works as a broker for a freight company around here. So he gets told about shipments just sitting around that no one wants. About a month ago he was able to buy a trailer that Gander Mountain didn't have room for with $25k in fishing/hunting equipment for $4k as long as he found a way to bring the trailer back to the company from Virginia.
