The United States Post Office Department [1787(?)-1968(?)] was a service branch of the Federal government. Congress appropriated an annual budget to operate the mail service, and all stamps, service charges, and postage machine revenues remitted directly to the United States Treasury. In deference to the Railway Express Agency and United Parcel Service competitors, Congress did require that the U.S.P.O.D. Parcel Post operation be “self-supporting,” i.e., it was not supposed to rely on any subsidies from other classes of mail service in order to undermine REA, UPS, and whoever else was out there.
Recognizing the ever growing volume of mail, the U.S.P.O.D. started the Zip Code system in 1961 or 1962 with the longer term purpose of establishing regional sorting centers, what we call Sectional Center Facilities or Processing & Distribution Centers today. I’m guessing the U.S.P.O.D. figured that there would be a limit as to how much mail a Railway Post Office crew could process on a moving train, so the SCF/P&DC concept became more attractive.
40-years ago this month the U.S.P.O.D. cancelled the bulk of the lucative RAILWAYPOSTOFFICE contracts. After the slaughter, about two dozen contracts remained. A certain amount of less renumerative closed pouch mail continued to be carried on passenger trains, and a lot of additional mail began moving in high speed piggyback service as well.
The sudden loss of the R.P.O. contracts triggered an avalanche of passenger train-off applications with the Interstate Commerce Commission. “Newsweek” and "Ti
During the third week of April 1971 I played hooky from college for two days, riding the EmpireBuilder from Chicago to Minneapolis and the MorningHiawatha back. Both were outstanding trains!
When the combined Builder and North Coast Limited pulled into Saint Paul Union Station during the westbound leg of my trip, I saw a switch crew separate these two trains; but, I was genuinely surprised to see them also add an R.P.O. to each one as well. Apparently the R.P.O.s were a regular feature of these trains and lasted all the way up to the inception of Amtrak.
When, alas, the R.P.O.s were retired, I wrote Burlington Northern and inquired as to what the United States Postal Service was paying them for the use of those cars. BN replied, “$1.00 per car per mile.” That probably was pretty good money in those days, and enough revenue to help minimize the losses the railway nevertheless suffered from operating these two trains.
Thanks Sam! I just added a book to my list to bug my librarian about![:D]
I think you also found the answer to Ed(MP173)'s question about what happened to railroad revenues in 1968. The industry took a $600 million hit in their revenues!
My notes were scribbled. The 240,000 permanently lost bags were by airlines worldwide in 2005, of a total 30 million lost bags. But it was 10,000 a day in the U.S.
Then I’ll be the one who clarifies that these articles are in bags, as in LUGGAGE, and NOT bags of mail.
Fwiw, Postal Inspectors would be all over any airline that lost even one bag of mail in a day, especially since much of it via jet these days is Express and/or Priority Mail.
Both of which are trackable to the last person who handled them.
The 240k number is also misleading, as that is worldwide, not just US airlines.
I – as does USA Today, the source – never said these were bags of mail. No intention to mislead.
However, my local post office does a pretty good job of losing my mail once in awhile – except for bills. [(-D]
But when we mass mail one of our publications, it usually takes a copy I mail to my home 10 days to two weeks to get delivered – from a post office seven miles away where we d
There was a lot going on back then. Fed Ex and UPS were just starting to make a dent in the parcel post market, costing the Post Office revenue. As noted, railroads were in many cases trying to cut back passenger trains, and I’m sure in some cases the connections were being lost for RPO and mail storage car routes.
As far as campaign donations, in effect there were NO laws - you took as much as you could from anyone who would give it to you, there was no requirement to publish who gave you money either. So if you were say on the House Agriculture committee, you probably got pretty large donations from major grain companies, to help ensure they had “access” when a bill dealing with their company came up. The Post Office was quite partisan too, traditionally a new president appointed his campaign director as Postmaster General, and all jobs down to the local Postmaster were political appointees.
BTW on a side note - my Dad was a Letter Carrier, worked for the Post Office 1943-1974 (including spending 1944-46 in the Army overseas). The end of the RPO’s probably cost him a shot at becoming a supervisor at a station. The RPO clerks were Post Office employees, when they lost their RPO jobs they transferred to regular post office jobs. Because their pay and job rating was so high, about the lowest job they could take was as a carrier or clerk supervisor, so very few supervisor jobs were available for promotion during the last years of my Dad’s career.
Air terminal to air terminal time versus train terminal to train terminal time, and which vehicle gets to KC first, are irrelevant. The real question is, which will be sorted and ready for the delivering postman/postwoman/postperson more quickly, mail sorted enroute on an RPO car or mail which goes thru a regional sorting center then is flown to destination? Wasn’t aware of it then (I was 10), but from comments on the board mail service in many places deteriorated after the RPO’s were eliminated. THAT’s what is important, the total service provided.
I – as does USA Today, the source – never said these were bags of mail. No intention to mislead.
However, my local post office does a pretty good job of losing my mail once in awhile – except for bills. [(-D]
But when we mass mail one of our publications, it usually takes a copy I mail to my home 10 days to two weeks to get delivered – from a post office sev
Whoa. I simple made a cynical comment (totally out of character for me) that first class mail was being entrusted with a carrier that loses 10,000 pieces of “entrusted items” a day. Anyone who read my original words and does not work for the postal service – which would be 99 percent of the members here – understood what I was trying to say.
So I assume your semantics read “bags” as “bags of mail” because you work for or worked for the postal service.
I used the word “bags” as did USA Today because it is a short version of “baggage” – which does not necessarily include mail. That’s why airports have a “bag drop” and a “baggage area” with “baggage carousels.” Airlines do not employ the term “luggage” – except for “luggage racks” which are for carry-ons.
You don’t have to defend the postal service. It is what it is.
If (when) a train arrives hour(s) later than a jet, it’s very relevant.
Mail gets sorted according to it’s class; higher the class, higher up the chain it gets sorted/delivered. Whether sorted by hand as was mostly the case then, or machine which is mostly the case now, if the mail arrives to the “sorter” faster (i.e., via jet), it gets handled faster.
In terms of mail service deteriorating after RPO’s, that was a long time ago. Many things have changed since then.
The only thing that is relevant is whether the mail gets delivered faster using RPO’s or planes. If a plane gets the (unsorted) mail to the destination city faster, so what? The mail still has to spend hours going thru the sorting facility. The mail on an RPO was already sorted, or sorted to the destination city level, when it arrived. You are talking as though the RPO’s were hauling unsorted mail that was still unsorted when it arrived at the destination city, which wasn’t the case. The
The only thing that is relevant is whether the mail gets delivered faster using RPO’s or planes. If a plane gets the (unsorted) mail to the destination city faster, so what? The mail still has to spend hours going thru the sorting facility. The mail on an RPO was already sorted, or sorted to the destination city level, when it arrived. You are talking as though the RPO’s were hauling unsorted mail that was still unsorted when it arrived at the destination city, which wasn’t
What I’m getting from this discussion so far, is: The post office changed, the railroad didn’t. Zip codes, and a different way to handle mail distribution changed mail freight patterns. The railroads were depending on the post office business to offset losses on passenger trains, all the while trying to eliminate the passenger trains.
Did this come up all of a sudden? Why wasn’t there an uproar, over lost jobs, and lost business? If the post office tried to change something today that resulted in 1000’s of jobs accross the country, wouldn’t the politicians be all over that, insisting that there turf be protected?
466lex — your timing of your reflections points toward the “final feather” or “tipping point” for causing the train-offs — the 707 and DC-8.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, air travel was a real exception and expensive, but with the advent of the turbin powered passenger aircraft and its attendant speed, that price became well worth the paying.
They needed but one thing and that was air cargo to finish off the income stream, and they got that with the mail contracts. It was not the ZIP codes that finished the hauling of the mails by the railroads, it was the long distance storage mail traffic that went to the airlines. Combine the exit of the RPO’s, the Hub-and-Spoke centralized sorting and distribution, and the removal of the storage mail to air service, and there was nothing left to support the passenger train.
Adding insult to this injury, the ICC played all sorts of games in their train-off petitions and the states (several, individual, and in concert) “required” that the passenger train remain but would not spend a penny to support their requirement. After all, didn’t all of those railroads have all that money that they were supposed to have ripped off from the population when the railroads had a transportation monopoly?
Politics and greed. Still see it today – because it has never gone away!