Interesting thread.
OP, send me your order number. Happy to comp/refund the shipping on the rail.
Worth noting, if you order the rail at the same time as the press, our shipping calculator will charge you approximately $0.10 extra for the rail, as it is meant to calculate by weight/volume, so it would "put the tiny little rail in the box" when it comes to charging you, we spend the money of our own volition to ship items separate, no cost difference to you. I could be wrong, but it sounds like you tried to order as an add-on separate purchase.
At this time, we are assembling and packaging presses in their own area and process. When you order a press, it comes to shipping in a pre-sealed (stapled, you'll see when you get it) box that only includes the press. I have made the decision, so be mad at me but if you get mad at our team we will have other issues, that those boxes do not get opened for anything. Period. This means that the person in our shop that does final QC and staples the box is responsible for what you open. I understand some disagreement with this, but this is the decision we have made and will stand by. It is worth noting that this has resulted in thousands of presses being shipped all over the planet, and - with the exception of one that was clearly opened and stolen when passing through Turkey - there have been no instances of damage to presses in the process. Boxes have been beaten up or mistreated by shippers, but we spend more to package and protect these presses than most other companies spend to fully manufacture their presses.
To answer here, our assembly and shipping (along with manufacturing, QC, all of it) happens in the same building. We control our processes. This inconvenience to OP is one that we have built controls around. Again, an inconvenience, and everything we do isn't perfect all the time in every situation, but we have invested a great deal to keep things under one roof whenever possible.