Like -Who gets to be Bishop.
John Armstrong
----- Original Message -----
From: JGG KahnSr
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 1:56 PM
Subject: RE: {S-Scale List} Mail Storage?
My first congregation was in Burlington IA, and two of the older men there
were retired rail postal clerks, presumably having worked the CB&Q mainline
trains.
I remember their mentioning having to carry .38 calibre revolvers (issued, I
believe) to protect the mails. Although I think there is a special interest
group for
rail postal buffs, it seemed more a subgroup within philately. So far as I
know, the only full treatment of RPO's is something titled "Mail by Rail" from
the 1950's.
If I remember what I've heard/read operations such as Bob remembered usually
had bagged or pouched mail, dropped off at each station to be picked up by
the postmaster, who also brought pouches of unsorted outbound to be sorted
later by a full RPO or at a more central sorting center, no real sorting en
route
for the branch.
And, to state the obvious, until modern times (1960's or so) the local
postmaster was still a political appointee, patronage for supporting the
successful presidential
candidate (and the campaign manager usually was postmaster general in the
cabinet). When the government was much smaller throughout most of US history,
the
postmastership was one of the few patronage appointments available to the
Federal government.
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
My Stepfather was a postmaster in the small town I grew up in. Also an aunt
was a postal clerk--like I said a small town! Anyway the town was served by
the Milwaukee road with two daily trains pulling the unique branchline
combines. So the baggage section held both REA, sorted/bagged mail and
miscellaneous LCL items (cream cans mostly). The clerk was charged with
carrying a side arm to protect the mail! Apparently he also carried a
half-pint flask with him, so I don't know if it would have done any good. The
mail contract was the only thing keeping the line operating with two trains.
Sometime in the late 50's the mail system was changed so one train per day
handled everything. Unfortunately the train and it's schedule kept getting
worse, so the mail patrons complained, so it wasn't long before the mail went
to trucks from a drop-off point from Mobridge, South Dakota. Occasionally the
contract driver, who had a pickup truck with a homemade covered topper, would
have to leave much of it behind because of space. Again folks complained that
they didn't get their SS checks or the package from Sears. So when the
Olympian Hiawatha was cut back to Aberdeen, South Dakota things became more
reliable for a long time except during the Christmas season. The line had a
working RPO for much of the time plus some pre-sorted bags of mail in boxcars.
However the third-class stuff in the boxcars wouldn't be shipped until the car
was full. I don't know if that was a RR thing or a PO thing.
I've been looking into finding out more information but it's pretty scarce
for these far-flung locations. Step-father had to juggle the needs of the
patrons with practical part of all this. I do know that to ship a letter to a
small town about 15 miles away (on the SOO Line) the mail would have to go to
some junction town in Minnesota and come back. It was a 20 minute ride or
about 4 days via mail.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 2/24/12 5:20 PM, Ed wrote:
> "Mail Storage" meant mail that was shipped from one location to another
without being "worked" en-route. The opposite of the RPO car where mail is
sorted, picked-up and dropped off en-route. Many "baggage cars" were also used
in "mail storage" service on passenger trains.
> Pieter E. Roos
Gents...
Taking this RPO/storage/baggage topic a bit further.......One common
question is: "Where in the train should the RPO be positioned -- ahead of the
baggage cars or behind the baggage cars?"
The answer, I believe, depends on whether the RPO is a "working" car or
merely a "storage/transport" car. If the RPO has men inside actively sorting
the mail, it is then a working car and belongs ahead of the baggage car(s)
closer to the engine. If the RPO does not have any sorting activity taking
place inside, then it is a storage/transport car and can be (should be?) behind
the baggage cars closer to the passenger cars. Or, it might be the vice versa.
The details escape me, but the general idea is firmly entrenched in a mushy
brain.
Cheers....Ed L.
www.sscale.org
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