Nostalgia & History > Last Run of RPO, SP Train #75, 9/30/1967

Final run of RPO on SP Train #75, the westbound Lark at Burlingame,California.
September 30, 1967.

Regards, Jim Evans

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IIRC the SP had just purchased those RPOs.

I recently donated the "grip" (and a career of contents) of the Senior Postal Clerk on that run, the late Lawrence H. Greiving, to the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum, where it will be put on permanent exhibit.

http://slorrm.com/

Thank you for sharing these images, Jim. Would you mind if I sent copies to his nephew?

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/15 23:17 by ATSF100WEST.

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ATSF100WEST Wrote:
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> I recently donated the "grip" (and a career of
> contents) of the Senior Postal Clerk on that run,
> the late Lawrence H. Greiving, to the San Luis
> Obispo Railroad Museum, where it will be put on
> permanent exhibit.
>
> http://slorrm.com/
>
> Thank you for sharing these images, Jim. Would you
> mind if I sent copies to his nephew?
>
> Bob
>
> ATSF100WEST......Out


Another great Nostalgia Board post. Jim thanks for the photos. Bob thanks for preserving and sharing the memorabilia.

Bob

A number of roads had relatively new RPO's besides the SP , the UP, AT&SF, and the KCS which had its RPO's rebuilt by Darby Corp in Kansas City just a little over a year before the Post Office canceled the mail contracts. What a waste.

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> IIRC the SP had just purchased those RPOs.


About 5 years old

mopacrr Wrote:
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> A number of roads had relatively new RPO's besides
> the SP , the UP, AT&SF, and the KCS which had its
> RPO's rebuilt by Darby Corp in Kansas City just a
> little over a year before the Post Office canceled
> the mail contracts. What a waste.

Yes. In the early 1960s, railroads were in general agreement that the Pullman business (and the feature cars to support it) was doomed. However, coach traffic and head-end business appeared to have some legs, especially in the West. Even some of the more pessimistic roads thought that head-end heavy passenger trains with a few rider coaches would survive indefinitely. Nonetheless, about 1965 everything took a major dump and then in 1967, the U.S. Mail was pulled.

Bob

Anyone have a date when the GN dropped their RPOs ? Thank you........Swede.........Albany,Or.

Some of SP's new RPOs were barely three years old. The loss of the mail contracts was the final nail in the coffin for passenger trains across the country, operating at huge losses but offset to some degree by postal contracts. The Post Office said essentially "we aren't in the business of saving passenger trains" and by the Fall of 1967, the RPOs were terminated.

Having RPOs pick up and drop mail sacks on the fly, and sort enroute, allowed many rural towns to have same-day First Class mail service. It's never been the same since.

All those nearly-new RPOs caught out at the end of the mail contracts were a consequence of the railroads not wanting to invest in new head end equipment decades before. Finally, the cars were worn out, and since they were a solid source of revenue, their purchase could be justified even as passenger service was being cut back to the bones; only one daily or tri-weekly train surviving per major trunk route was the post-RPO effect for many railroads.

We're seeing a similar scenario play out with Amtrak's new baggage cars, I think: investment in dedicated baggage cars was not made early on, and now the old cars and converted cars are wearing out. New baggage cars may not be the optimum use of equipment funds, all things being equal, but the old equipment forces the hand. Cars like SP 5032 here were unsuited for any kind of simple repurposing or conversion to express service because of the narrow doors, or so the word went. And we've always given tax advantages to losses. Those cars ended up in a seemingly endless dead line at Bayshore in South San Francisco, and were cut up. To my knowledge, none of the 1964 batch of SP Pullman-Standard Baggage Postal cars as seen here survived. Anyone know otherwise?

Thanks for the post, Jim Evans!

~ BZ

All scrapped in 1970



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/15 14:31 by WAF.