The Wall Street Journal just posted a story about the USPS will slow 1st-class package delivery. In the story was the following line (my underlining): “The slower delivery speeds will allow the Postal Service to use more trains and trucks to transport parcels instead of an air network, which it says is more costly and has reliability issues.”
Who knows, maybe next we’ll see a return of mail contracts and the RPO’s!
Alot of so called “air mail” goes by truck anyway… I know… I’ve hauled it.
“Airmail” hasn’t been a thing in decades.
DeJoy must go, 3rd class bulk rate
Actual translation: a return to the days when cheap trailers were stenciled with city pairs and towed haphazardly down the interstates for lowest bid… and impending discovery by the USPS of the current meaning of terms like “PSR” and “metering”.
I admit it would be cool to see a return of MHCs for mail handling in Amtrak trains. But I doubt you will, and for many of the same reasons they disappeared initially.
The trditional railroad structure for handling mail is long gone. If any USPS mail handling would take place by rail it would be additional containers or Trailers on the freights hauling UPS or FEDX
I ordered some jeans on-line on Monday. They’ll be here today. They aren’t coming via USPS.
(I have trouble finding jeans that fit - the stores seem to think that if your waist size goes up your legs get shorter…)
With some of the stuff I have ordered in the recent past - while UPS or FedEx was the long haul carrier of record - USPS was the final mile carrier.
I have seen that happening more recently as well.
Final ten feet here - I have a post office box. UPS delivers packages to our little PO on a regular basis.
I live about a quarter mile from the PO, and Brown goes by the house on a daily basis.
Not on passenger planes anyway.
In a prior life, I used to get to the air freight building at 0400 dark to recieve 3-4k lbs of USMail. I had to transfer it from their rolling carts into a baggage cart, haul them out to the plane, throw them (gently) up into the bin, climb in and stack it tight (it was a DC9, the cargo bin is approx 30" tall) in the first flight out. My knees don’t miss it.
You misunderstood my post. Much mail still might move by both passenger and cargo planes, you just don’t have to pay a premium for it. Remember the old envelopes with the red and blue stripes around the edges that had “Air Mail” emblazoned on them?
Used to fly a DC-9 night coach into Atlanta. At Nashville ground crew would load all the baggage into the lower cargo compartments and then all the green mail possible. Rest of green mail would then be loaded on truck to Atlanta. Mail sorting facility at airport was just NE of airport boundry across I-75. Our load made it there abut 7 - 8 hours earlier than the truck’s load.
Sometimes around Christmas we would fly extra section with all mail below and mail stacked on covers over seats. No passengers.
I feel your pain. After trying to find shirts that would fit my long arms, my wife asked me how many baboons were climbing around in my family tree.
I’ve been away from the airlines over a decade, but around 9/11 (I think) they embargoed passenger planes from hauling mail in case bad guys got a bad idea. I don’t know if it has been lifted.
I know about the airmail envelopes. They were made with lighter paper so they could put more of them on the stick and canvas planes of the time. The USPS even started their own airmail airline back in the early 90s. Hubbed in Indy. It was short-lived and now rely on contractors for air transport. To keep it RR themed, that hub was in sight of the ex Pennsy Indy
I also remember that Air Mail stamps sold at a 2 to 3 cent premium over regular stamps. The premium meant that the envelope was guaranteed to go by the fastest means available.
My last year working for the airlines was 2005 and we still handled mail. It was junk mail, lots of Pro
Worked the 3rd trick Agent-Operator position at Salem, IL in 1966-67. Job was on for three basic functions - Check the Interchange between the B&O and the M&I (Missouri & Illinois - the period when per diem was a accurate statement of fact), handle US Mail on the RPO’s for trains 12 and 11 - the Eastbound and Wesbound Metropolitan Specials.
The normal mail exchange was just a couple of sealed bags on and off each train - except for once a month - A hunting magazine was published from some small town in the Salem area - they would send out their magazine monthly via US Mail. I would show up at the 10:30 PM start time of the job and check the freight room - sorting the bagged mail that the USPS would leave there for train dispatchment.
On the magazine shipping day there would be several hundred ‘slugs’ of magazines (small 70 pound bags) to be sorted by destinations printed on their attached tags into the pile that would be catching #12 that was scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Midnight and #11 that was scheduled for a 6 AM arrival with my job scheduled to work 10:30PM to 6:30AM - if #11 was late I could earn up to a hour and a half overtime to protect the mail for #11 - the daylight Agent-Operator stared duty at 8:00 AM and could handle the mail if #11 was that late or later. When the magazines were being shipped, they would fill both available baggage carts for each train.
My O.G. for Aug. 1966 shows that #'s 3 & 4 had already been discontinued and #11 @ Salem 6:28 AM & #12, 1:11 AM. Trains 11 & 12 made stops at almost all stations but it did still have a 10-6 sleeper Cincinnati-St.Louis. Back in the fifties when my future wife lived in Quincy OH, I would go to the Winton Place station. and put letters on the mail slot of the RPO car on B&O’s #58, she would get it the next day. (trucked from Sidney OH.). Winton Place was a very great place to watch trains as trains of B&O, PRR, NYC, N&W all stopped there enroute to Cincinnati Union Station. If I recall correctly, it had 3 agents on duty for two shifts. because they had trains arriving both inbound and outbound five minutes apart during the rush. In the AM, suburban Post Office trucks would fill the parking lot and as the overnight trains from Chicago (PRR), Detroit (B&O & NYC), Cleveland (NYC), Pittsburg (PRR), Norfolk (N&W), arrived, their RPO clerks would kick out about sacks to about 10 designated spots for the various trucks thus avoiding the delays of the Cincinnati P O.