I happened accross a neat find at a rummage sale. For $5.00, I got a 1942 Post Route Map of South Dakota, that shows all post offices, and all rail lines in the state at the time! Looking at the hand-written notes on the map it appears to have been owned by someone who worked for the post office, and perhaps traveled some of the train routes. Perhaps he (or she?) worked on a Railway Post Office car? What’s very apparent, is, that in 1942, the post office and the railroads were very much tied together.
An old, distant relative worked his whole life on an RPO route. For most people it’s hard to believe that mail was picked up, sorted, and pitched off of moving trains.
We have a relic from our old house that makes one think about railroads and the Post Office. A letter, postmarked on the front, at Wilkinsburg , PA at 11:00 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1903; was postmarked on the back at Sioux Falls, S.D., at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 7,1903.
A google map shows the distance to be approximately 1039 miles, with a drive time of 17 hours, 42 minutes. 103 years ago, the letter did the same route in about 56 1/2 hours. I would bet real money, that a letter sent on the same route today would take more than 56 1/2 hours.[sigh]. It would also cost more than 2 cents for a stamp.
What happened between the Railroads, and the Post Office?
Yeah, but that was before UPS et al made the Postal Service irrelevent for business mail. Now it’s the Railroads and UPS who are such good friends, albeit not to the degree as the old RPO’s.
I’ve dealt with UPS as an individual shipping irregularly. I’m glad the Post Office is still handling small packages, and at better rates than UPS.
In the 70s & 80s we used to give the USPO our containers to use instead of trailers to move the mail WB to cities we wanted to reposition containers to like Chicago/Houston/ Dallas/LAX & the PNW. Now I believe like Fedex they are using 2 man crews transcon. [:o)]
Automobiles and trucks were invented and roads were steadily improved so the railroad was no longer the only viable option for shipment of mail.
Yep you see them all the time now on our interstate highway system. [:)]
Airplanes occured, the time to load, ship and deliver mail was drastically cut by air travel compaired to rail service.
If you look at the last 60 years in any detail, you’ll see it was not a sudden change, it occured slowely over time and by the mid to late 70’s rail mail was all but extinct and air mail was the dominant means of getting mail accross the country.
The USPS still relies on a fleet of Airplanes from hubs, large semi-trucks from the hubs to regional sorting facilities and smaller delivery trucks from the regional sorting facilities to local district post officies. Travel any US highway and you’ll see the 18 wheelers with USPS on the side, travel any large city roads and you’ll see the 6-wheeler trucks with USPS on the sides.
In essence, the USPS developed and adapted to changing technology and the rail car just ended up not being fast enough to ensure overnight and 2 day deliveries.
Another short lived experiment by the Post office was the HPO (Highway Post Office). They were busses set up very much like an RPO car, to allow sorting of mail enroute. This is documented on a video by the Railway Mail Service Library.
The USPS is still quite good, all things considered… But yes, those were the days. Kind of makes you wonder if all we have today really can be considered ‘progress’.
Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Featuring the TrainTenna Railroad Scanner Antennas -
I have a pair of books that are nearly 100 years old now–correspondence school texts that listed mail interchange points for every railroad mail route in the country. You actually had to know how to route a letter from Point A to Point B.
It was during the 1960s that most of the remaining RPO routes were gradually knocked out by air-mail service, which promised faster delivery times almost anywhere. What really happened, though, is that times became a little more equal: second-day delivery anywhere, if you’re lucky. But I know that before the trains quit handling the mail, Chicago to western Michigan was overnight using PM/C&O. In my home town, mail received at the PO by the close of business would be at the depot by 9:00 p.m. Northbound would leave shortly thereafter, and southbound by midnight. The incoming mail would be delivered on the train that arrived sometime after 5:00 a.m., and delivered that day. And this was before ZIP codes, central distribution centers, and all of the other things that were supposed to improve service.
USPS is faster than UPS on a 1st class package versus a ground shipment, on a distance over 1000 miles. I ordered 2 perscriptions from Phoenix, Az. on a Friday. They were delivered on the following Monday, 3 days. UPS ground (truck and piggy back) is 5 days coast to coast, sometimes 6 days. Depending on their railroad connections.
I do believe that USPS will use air planes when space is available to ship 1st class mail.
I am an ex UPS driver.
The tractor trailers you see on the highways are usually contractor’s…trucking companies set up to handle specific runs.
If you look on the fronts and rears of the trailers, you will often see the three digit alpha codes for the run of the trailer, similar to the airport codes. The trailers are normally 12’6" in height rather than 13’6" for a couple of reasons. First many of the older post offices have clearance issues and second, the trailers generally dont need the added 12 inches in height for loading purposes.
ed
Was the relationship between railroads and the Post Office intertwined enough that a quicker departure of the mail from trains would have brought us Amtrak sooner?
I don’t know about “progress” but definately a different way of doing the work. In the RPO’s and HPO’s, the mail was sorted, by hand, enroute. Today automated sorting machines do the work at central sorting centers. What is put on trucks and trains nowadays is sorted and bagged mail, not much different than any other cargo. Load it and haul it from point A to point B.
The Post Office and the Pony Express used to be such good friends too. But times change and everyone has to evolve to stay relevant much like USPS has done over the years.
Yep that is correct when I was in LA recently on I15 I saw a LAX/SLC trailer[:)]
Passenger trains were more dependent on mail contracts than any of us care to admit. As mentioned above, the change away from RPO’s and bulk mail on passenger trains was more evolutionary than sudden. Mail continues to move by rail except that it’s probably just one of several shippers on an intermodal train.
It was mentioned above that mail sorting on RPO’s and HYPO’s was done manually. This is quite true and there was still a lot of manual sorting done in regular post offices into the late 1960’s. The ZIP code was the beginning of the mechanization of mail sorting, which made mobile Post Offices (RPO’s and HYPO’s) obsolescent. Let’s not get too romantic, the railroads were just contractors to move the mail, although prior to WW1, it was a contract that had some prestige attached.
Mail-hauling contracts, especially for RPO’s, were lucrative enough to minimize the loss of operating specific passenger trains, and many have argued that the mail kept many trains running beyond any real economic justification. Discontinuing passenger trains in the pre-Amtrak era was often a public relations and political nightmare, so as long as the mail covered much of the passenger loss, most railroads took the easy way out and allowed trains carrying few passengers to keep running.
The way the sorting centers have been set up the possibility of mail moving by train has been severely diminished.
Now first class mail traveling between major city centers is hauled in sealed containers by one of the USPS’ biggest competitor’s FedEx. An easy example, a letter mailed in Canton, Ohio to Chicago which has rail service (although only freight) will go to Cleveland and be put with others on a FedEx flight which takes it to Memphis in the middle of the night. Then the Chicago container(s) is loaded on another FedEx flight to Chicago and turned back to the USPS for delivery. Why? Cheaper!
When I was a child you paid a premium for air mail service and a fairly hefty premium. As I recall it was double in cost. As airline frequency increased so did the availability of cargo space for mail on flights. i would expect that the airlines did extensive research into what was succesful on trains and emulated it. I’d bet the farm they arranged with the post office to supply air mail at the same price the trains were charging. Net gain in dleivery time for the post office. But the post office is so inefficient ( here in Chicago I get the PRR historical magazine two weeks after they get in Australia) that business started using other services like teletype, fax, Fedex, Airborne, etc. E-mail has proved to be the ultimate tool with documents scanned, files sent and instant communications. the gross inefficiency in the postal service - as in nearly every other federal program - forced customers to find alternatives. I think it is safe to say that even if the airlines had not taken the business technological improvements and alternate solutions would have caused the demise of train usage any way. In the early 60’s I would ride the Dueuense on the PRR. It would pull into Lancaster easetbound with typically 30-40 cars of head end mail. Many PRR trains were similarly loaded with head end cars headed to Philly or New York. In every major city I know of on the PRR the main post office was right next to the PRR station.
I have a question for everyone about USPS. Is USPS partially funded by the government? If so, how does UPS, FedEx, DHL, feel about it?
Does anyone know if Canada Post government funded too?