   #copyright

Railway post office

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Railway transport

   Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad #1926, a heavyweight RPO
   preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum.
   Enlarge
   Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad #1926, a heavyweight RPO
   preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum.

   In the United States a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as
   RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service
   as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO
   was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and
   was off-limits to the passengers on the train.

   Many American railroads (the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
   being just one) earned substantial revenues through contracts with the
   Post Office to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains. In fact,
   a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial
   losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the
   mail.

History

   The first-ever sorting of mail en route occurred in the United Kingdom
   with the introduction of the Travelling Post Office in 1838. In the
   United States it was introduced on July 28, 1862 using converted
   baggage cars on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (which also
   delivered the first letter to the Pony Express). Purpose built RPO cars
   entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was
   initiated. Its purpose was to separate mail for connection with a
   westbound stage departing soon after the train's arrival at St. Joseph.
   This service lasted approximately one year. The first permanent Railway
   Post Office route was established on August 28, 1864 between Chicago,
   Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. This service is distinguished from the
   1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post
   office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the
   route's end-points.
   Virginia and Truckee Railroad #13, a "shorty" RPO photographed at Reno,
   Nevada on August 3, 1935.
   Enlarge
   Virginia and Truckee Railroad #13, a "shorty" RPO photographed at Reno,
   Nevada on August 3, 1935.

   By the 1880s, railway post office routes were operating on the vast
   majority of passenger trains in the United States. A complex network of
   interconnected routes allowed mail to be transported and delivered in a
   remarkably short time. Railway mail clerks were subjected to stringent
   training and ongoing testing of details regarding their handling of the
   mail. On a given RPO route, each clerk was expected to know not only
   the post offices and rail junctions along the route, but also specific
   local delivery details within each of the larger cities served by the
   route. Periodic testing demanded both accuracy and speed in sorting
   mail, and a clerk scoring only 96% accuracy would likely receive a
   warning from the Railway Mail Service division superintendent.

   In the United States, RPO cars (also known as mail cars or postal cars)
   were equipped and staffed to handle most back-end postal processing
   functions. First class mail, magazines and newspapers were all sorted,
   cancelled when necessary, and dispatched to post offices in towns along
   the route. Registered mail was also handled, and the foreman in charge
   was required to carry a regulation pistol while on duty to discourage
   theft of the mail.

   The interior of an RPO on display at the National Railroad Museum in
   Green Bay, Wisconsin.

   An interior view of Great Northern Railway #42, a restored RPO on
   display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

   A close-up view of the mail hook on CB&Q #1926.

   A view of the mail hook on GN #42, along with a track-side mail crane
   complete with mail bag.

   An interesting feature of most RPO cars was a hook that could be used
   to snatch a leather or canvas pouch of outgoing mail hanging on a
   track-side mail crane at smaller towns where the train did not stop.
   With the train often operating at 70 miles per hour or faster, a postal
   clerk would have a pouch of mail ready to be dispatched as the train
   passed the station. In a coordinated movement, the catcher arm was
   swung out to catch the hanging mail pouch while the clerk stood in the
   open doorway. As the inbound pouch slammed into the catcher arm, the
   clerk kicked the outbound mail pouch out of the car, making certain to
   kick it far enough that it was not sucked back under the speeding
   train. An employee of the local post office would retrieve the pouch
   and deliver it to the post office.
   Union Pacific Railroad #2242, a smooth-sided baggage-RPO car, passes
   through Denver, Colorado on June 5, 1949.
   Enlarge
   Union Pacific Railroad #2242, a smooth-sided baggage-RPO car, passes
   through Denver, Colorado on June 5, 1949.

   Most RPO cars had a mail slot on the side of the car, so that mail
   could actually be deposited in the car, much like using the corner mail
   box, while the train was stopped at a station. Those desiring the
   fastest delivery would bring their letters to the train station for
   dispatch on the RPO, knowing that overnight delivery would be virtually
   assured. The mail handled in this manner received a cancellation just
   as if it had been mailed at a local post office, with the cancel giving
   the train number, endpoint cities of the RPO route, the date, and RMS
   Railway Mail Service or PTS Postal Transportation Service between the
   killer bars. Collecting such cancellations is a pastime of many
   philatelists and postal history researchers. The Railway Mail Service
   organization within the Post Office Department existed between 1864 and
   September 30, 1948. It was renamed the Postal Transportation Service on
   October 1, 1948 and existed until 1960. After 1960, the management of
   railway post office routes as well as Highway Post Office routes, Air
   Mail Facility, Terminal Railway Post Office, and Transfer Office, were
   shifted to the Bureau of Transportation.
   Unique R.P.O. postal cancellation applied to mail handled in the
   railway post office car of Nashville & Memphis train No. 5.
   Enlarge
   Unique R.P.O. postal cancellation applied to mail handled in the
   railway post office car of Nashville & Memphis train No. 5.

   After 1948, the railway post office network began its decline although
   it remained principal intercity mail transportation and distribution
   function within the Post Office Department. There were 794 RPO lines
   operating over 161,000 miles of railroad in that year. Only 262 RPO
   routes were still operating by January 1, 1962. In 1942, the United
   States Postal Service (USPS) began experimenting with a highway version
   of the RPO to serve the same purposes along routes where passenger
   train service was not available. These highway post office (HPO)
   vehicles were initially intended to supplement RPO service, but in the
   1950s and 1960s, HPO's often replaced railway post office cars after
   passenger train service was discontinued. When the post office made a
   controversial policy change to process mail in large regional
   "sectional centers," the remaining railway post office routes along
   with all highway post office routes were phased out of service. In
   September of 1967 the USPS cancelled all "rail by mail" contracts,
   electing to move all First Class mail via air and other classes by road
   (truck) transport. This announcement had a devastating effect on
   passenger train revenues; the Santa Fe, for example, lost $35 million
   US in annual business.

   After 113 years of railway post office operation, the last surviving
   railway post office running on rails between New York and Washington,
   D.C. was discontinued on June 30, 1977. Ironically, the last route with
   a railway post office title was actually a boat run that lasted a year
   longer. This Boat Railway Post Office was the Lake Winnipesaukee RPO
   operating between The Weirs, New Hampshire, and Bear Island, New
   Hampshire, on Lake Winnipesaukee. The final date it operated with a
   postmark was September 30, 1978.

Preservation

   Many RPO cars have been preserved in railroad museums across North
   America; some of the cars are kept in operational condition. In 1933,
   Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad rebuilt one of its baggage cars
   into a replica of the first RPOs that were used on the Hannibal and St.
   Joseph in 1862. The railroad displayed the car in several cities along
   the railroad; it now resides at the Patee House Museum in St. Joseph,
   Missouri.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_post_office"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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