I have wondered what alternate uses for RPO cars have any shortlines/tourist lines found for RPO cars? I know some have been turned into power cars, but have any been converted to say snack car, coffee shop car or some other specialty car for a tourist railroad?
Not sure if they would use them past the deadline for obsolete equipment. I know some have been used in work equipment and some were used for storage sheds after the trucks were pulled off. Our model railroad club uses a 1905 vintage converted horse car/ baggage car for our permanent HO scale layout.
Pete
As RPO service was dropped by the USPS back in the 60’s, some railroad converted the cars into baggage/express cars(Milwaukee Road). Others converted them to MOW service(mostly for storage). A lot of them were just scrapped.
The current FRA ‘rule’ states that interchange cars built before 1974 have a 40 year ‘life’ - they have to be completely re-built or scrapped. Cars built after 1974 have a 50 year life. Since most of this stuff was over 40 years old by now, they are banned from interchange service. Old cars that ‘stay’ on their own line are exempt, as are ‘tourist’ lines. They cannot be used for ‘railfan’ trips over a connecting common carrier unless they have been re-built
Jim
I want to say I did see a tourist line that had an RPO that was fitted with bike racks inside.
The US post office “officially” canceled all RPO contracts with the railroads in 1967, but they were actually phased out over time starting then. The last RPO route, New York City to Washington, DC ran for the last time in 1977.
Long before RPO service ended railroads used old heavyweight RPO’s for maintenance cars, storage cars, etc.
As for the current fate of any surviving ones, I have no info on that.
Sheldon
The Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad here in Pennsylvania, a tourist and working freight line, has a car which is a combination snack car and post office. Having rode on the line only once, I don’t know too much about it except that you can get cards, etc post marked during the ride. Here is a quote from their website:
Bring your address book. The OC&T RR operates the only working Railway Post Office in the United States. You can send a postcard or enjoy a snack during your ride. Maybe the postmaster will let you postmark your own card.
The “Friends of 261” has a baggage car that was converted to a snack / souvenir car. It has bars across the baggage doors so the doors can be open while the train is moving. I imagine you could do something similar with an RPO / Baggage combination car, like the old Athearn HO RPO car.
I remember seeing a photo in Trains magazine of an entire lineup of beautiful and new-looking streamlined/fluted side RPO cars that the Santa Fe just parked somewhere when the mail contracts were phased out. They were too short to do much of anything with. In years past they might have tried to convert them to other uses but by that time there were surplus passenger cars of all types so there was no reason to spend money on a conversion.
Dave Nelson
UP placed many of theirs into MoW service, usually as tool cars. The older ones were scrapped or given to museums (at least two “Harriman” RPOs in Nebraska). One car was revived from MoW service and was refurbished as the souvenier car for the UP steam program.