Who owned the RPO cars in the late transition era or earlier for that matter — RR that they are lettered to or the U.S. Post Office? Who decided which routes they ran on and when? Were the ‘sorters and sackers’ company employees or Post Office workers?
Inquiring minds want to know. May have follow-up.
far as i can tell the cars were railroad owned but built to post office standards.
the post office decided what service was needed on a particular route and compensated the railroads by figuring the volume of the cars used and the miles. i don’t think weight was part of the equation. mail quantity is usually stated in cubic feet.
all the emplyoees in an rpo were postal service but pouched mail in other cars was sometimes handled by railroad workers.
grizlump
Railrod owned and lettered with sub-lettering railway post office.
Route - USPO
When - Railroad and USPO.
USPO
RPOs were owned by the RR company, but made to very strict US Mail standards. Depending on the route, the PO contract may call for a 15’, 30’ or 60’ RPO. No other lengths were allowed. 15 & 30 were sections in a combine (RPO/baggage or RPO/baggage/coach). 60’ were usually a car to themselves, but some roads had 70’+ long combines.
The PO decided on which route got RPO and which size. The route may not match that of a train, shorter being the usual option. Regular mainline trains would only have 1 RPO, but there could be several trains on that route, each with a RPO. Even the ritziest passenger train had a RPO. Mail trains could have 2 or 3 RPO, with a ‘baggage’ car on one or both ends of each RPO – unsorted mail in 1 car, feeding thru the RPO to the other car carrying the sorted bags.
The employees were Postal employees, well trained and well tested for the route they worked. They were also well armed to repell boarders.
As a side note, most “baggage” cars did not carry the passenger’s luggage. They were storage mail cars (presorted bags of mail in a SEALED car from point A to point B) or express cars, with pre UPS/FedEx LTL, operated by the railroad or REA, sometimes with a messenger inside.
Phil
Actually, the postal workers were employed by the Railway Mail Service, an adjunct of the US Postal service. Yes, they were all armed, to repel Jesse James and his gang.
I was employed by the RMS for 2 holiday seasons, sorting the mail in a huge basement in New Haven, because there was more mail than the on train crew could process. We had rows and rows of sorting cases. The incoming mail was dumped out of the sacks into large baskets which were towed along the floor to each station. The clerk then filled each sorter’s basket with the mail, which was in string tied small bundles. Then we “cased” the mail by destination and tied it into bumdles by destination. Then the clerk would come by and ask for the the mail for Pock wah nock bridge and we tossed it into his basket. It was then sacked and taken to the New Haven Union station where it was put on the next train to that destination. We moved a lot of mail, I can tell you.
We weren’t armed though.
I don’t know that I would call a .38 revolver “well armed”, but yes right up to the last day RMS employees who road the rails were armed. Personally I would have much prefered a 1911A .45 had I been in their shoes.
Sheldon
My Dad’s first job with the Post Office in 1943 was being a mail handler, taking mail from the Minneapolis downtown PO to the nearby Great Northern and Milwaukee Road stations. As such, he was required to carry a sidearm, and old Spanish-American war pistol he described as being more like a small cannon. One concern my Dad always had was if something came up, the RPO clerks all generally had the shakes pretty bad from their years on the trains, and Dad didn’t want them to start shaking their guns around and shooting wildly.
My grandfather’s first job was to deliver the mail sacks to another town so they could be caught by a Santa Fe RPO if the local PO couldn’t get the mail sorted in time. He did this in 1942-43 while he was in high school. He was allowed to skip class to do this because he was supporting the war effort. He was one of 5 kids in town who had a car and would drive 75 MPH in a Model A Ford to get the mail to the other town in time. I once rode in a Model A doing 55 MPH and can’t imagine going any faster.
My great grandfather was a rural carrier. He was armed with a single shot, breakover, shot gun, not for protection, but to hunt down the evening’s dinner. He usually had one of his kids in the rumble seat go retrieve whatever he got. I still have that gun and it performs flawlessly to this day.
Actually, one of the forgotten and truly interesting players in the RPO business was the Pacific Electric Interurban, in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The PE had numerous mail contracts and connections with steam road RPO service. Some of the RPO’s actually had a mail slot in the side of the car, so you could walk up and drop a letter in, like it was a giant red rolling mailbox !! (best to do that when it wasn’t moving though)
Their main facility was at ground level, under the elevated terminal tracks at the 6th and Main PE headquarters building in downtown Los Angeles. RPO service went in all compass directions from there.
The last RPO contract they had was between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, at the base of the Cajon Pass. This was a six day a week service, with a 55ft. RPO and a matching 55ft. mail handling car Monday thru Friday, and a solitary RPO on Saturdays.
I’m guessing the motormen on those trains could be heard saying: Loco’s? We don’t need no stinkin’ locos !! This was the last Interurban RPO service in America, terminating in May of 1950.
For UP, SP, and AT&SF modelers with a LA terminus, you could have long haul RPO transfers between the PE and those roads at either Los Angeles Union Station or the old SP terminal. How cool is that?
Does anyone know of any incident with one of these cars arriving unsealed or open… and,if so, what happened?
Reason I ask is that I had a mail train pass me one night with a door wide open. I sent a “Stop and Examine” but the dope next along the line phoned me with a load of abuse instead of doing his job right. The train stopped at the next station and all hell broke loose. The police spent the rest of the night searching the track. The dope got disciplined - should have been sacked.
Thanks
[:P]