Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe RR mail pickup in Oklahoma

I have a childhood memory (late 50s or early 60s) of a guy taking a big mail sack from the Post Office in Edmond, Oklahoma to the AT&SF depot, where he would hang it on a pole for an afternoon passenger train, perhaps the Texas Chief, to snare it. My memory was that this mail would fidn its way to point north on the Santa Fe route to Chicago. Was my memory accurate?

Carl Graves, Lawrence, Kansas  (grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma)

Absolutely. That's how the Railway Mail Service operated.

And a bag of mail from the train was kicked out of the door of the RPO at the same time the other bag was being snagged.

They didn't handle a while lot of  fragile stuff back then, did they?

I also recall the mailbag hanging near the station in Schererville, IN, along the PRR line from Logansport to Chicago. I would cross the tracks each day going to school (1953-1955). I believe that the bag was cinched in the middle so that it could be caught more easily and securely by a passing RPO car. 

The RPO service was quite remarkable. I recall a docent at the Orange Empire Museum who had been in RPO service. He explained that they would sort the mail by streets and house numbers and had to know the layout of cities. (This was in the era prior to zip codes.) Mail would also be sorted for handing off to other trains or stations along the way. It certainly made for an efficient and prompt operation. 

Mail picked up and kicked off was for the most part envelopes, not bulk packages that would seldom break..

Larger stations such as San Bernardino California,  had a standard collection box on both the west end and east end of the platform.
If one was in a hurry, you would go down and place your mail in the proper box and off it went.  In my business we had mail going to Flagstaff AZ, so we would go place in the eastbound box, where it would be picked up by the Super Chief or Mail train.saved a day.

If I had mail to Los Angeles, would drop if off late at night and would to to LA via UP mail train #5.

For those waiting on the platform, could also drop mail in the mail slot on the RPO itself !

All for the then standard 3 cent stamp.  No priorty required for those understanding the system.
 

When assigned at AT&SF Fullerton CA 1948, 1pm-9pm as general clerk,
I did hang the sack for wb #7..about 630pm.  This was an oange colored sack
that contained valuable 'goodies', that went to LA PO Terminal Annex, thence by helicopter
to LAX seven days a week..

Bob Drenk