Nostalgia & History > Interior Photos of Milwaukee Road RR Post Office Cars

These photographs and captions are from the Minnesota Historical Society's Online Collection.

1. and 2. Mail car, possibly on the Milwaukee Railroad from Minneapolis to Chicago.
Dates Creation: Approximately 1900
Accession Numbers: AV1980.32.3 and AV1980.32.1

3. Railway mail car on Milwaukee Road, St. Paul to Aberdeen.
Dates Content: Approximately 1895
Accession Number: AV1986.41.1


Enjoy these RPO photos,
Marty Bernard



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/14 20:12 by MartyBernard.

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Thanks Marty for sharing these shots. As a rural carrier with the USPS, I can appreciate the work these mail sorters do while rolling along down the line.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Thanks for the RPO photos as a former RPO clerk in the 1950s it always a joy to see one of them, that was the "Cadillac" of the mail service before they came out with zip codes in 1965.

Dick Holmstad

Very, very nice!

Rural mail carrier here too. Those gents were still carrying pistols I think in those days. Was this photo altered? The guy on the right sure looks like he is packing but the gun is airbrushed out.

I was a helper on a truck that took mail from a new suburban facility NW of Chicago to Glenview for connection to 57 and 1 on the Milwaukee as late as 68, these trains lasted a little longer contrary to common thoughts and the driver always had a side arm. We had registered mail which was always handed off, from the register clerk in their enclosure to the truck driver to the RPO clerk. It was carried in the CAB with us and never out of sight.

Bob Jordan

Prior to the standardization of cars, the postal cars had some wild configurations. The ones that seem strangest (to me) are the ones where the mail apartment is on one side (not end) of the car, with a full passageway between the wall of the apartment and the side wall of the car.

In the FWIW department, the Pullman Library has literally hundreds of floor plans for Mail / Postal cars and many for the sorting boxes. Also interesting are the Postal Storage / Baggage / Express cars with the company mail boxes - not many people realize that the baggage cars had a portion of the wall with these boxes. Also, when Pullman had parts to send to another shop or railroad, they typically went out in baggage cars (this was especially true of those railroads connecting in Chicago (or with cars in Chicago). For instance, the D&RGW received new stainless sheathing for their AMC-designed coaches from the 1952 C&O order - those sheets cost less than the Walthers HO model (at the time) and were forwarded to Burnham in a CB&Q baggage car. Larger items (trucks and such) were sent as regular freight.

I believe there are photos from glass plates of Postal cars from the late 1800s and early 1900s as well....I know of at least one set, and I think that oen was a CM&StP car.