1745? Are you in the middle of nowhere? Our drop dead time is either 2030 or 2100.
Out west here...our RTB is roughly 1800 and our CTV leaves before 1900. 1+ hour to the ramp.
A couple P1 stops wouldn't make much of a difference.
My Express route is covered by one Ground driver. I generally do 20-25 10:30 commits in my area, 80-90 P2 stops, and about 20 pups daily.
It's certainly not
impossible for Ground to absorb my Express stuff, but it would make more sense for Ground to start taking our Express Saver stuff first,
then the 2-day freight,
then the SO stuff before they EVER started dealing with 10:30 P1s. It would be a slow transition to make sure the kinks get worked out. Add in extra sorting capacity for the current Ground terminals and it's definitely a bit more complicated than "my driver can handle a few more stops/packages".