This was one of the best issues yet.
For those who might be interested, the book “The Romance and Folklore of North American Railroads” edited by Bill Yenne gives an account of the Chicago-Omaha mail trains from the point of view of the engineer in the 1890s.
Ya it was a great issue. I love the CNW and GN. Around 1969 I rode GN’s Badger from the Twin Cities to Duluth Superior, so nice to see that article about it. Plus my dad worked for the USPS - US Post Office, his first job in 1943 was picking up mail at the GN and Milwaukee stations in downtown Minneapolis. Later we bowled on a team in the Mpls Post Office League with a guy who was an RPO clerk for years. Unfortunately the RPO clerks that stayed in the post office after the RPO’s were nixed were so high up in the pay scale that they had to be made supervisors at local post offices, which probably did a lot to keep my dad from getting promoted in that time.