Passenger Trains > Question: Mail by Rail

Were there speed restrictions on passenger trains dropping off or catching mail on the fly?

I have to add a true story.  The late Rogers Christal took lots of movie film in the 1960s.
One of the funniest was a scene with a near head-on shot of a Katy passenger train approaching a place
south of Dallas where the mail was thrown off.  So you see the train getting closer and closer.
Finally a mail bag is ejected and clobbers his camera set up on a tripod.  
He could not have planned that ending!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/20 19:01 by PVSfan.

NO SLOW DOWN.  I WORKED MAIL TRAIN NEWTON KANSAS TO LAJUNTA COLORADO IN 1967 WITH A RPO CAR.

The mail workers had a HOOK to pick up mail at St John Kansas and they throw off the mail.... We were going 100 mph..

I remember riding No. 52, the SP's San Joaquin Daylight in 1961 in the San Joaquin valley at track speed, about 70 MPH, when I noticed this piece of one of the head end cars come loose.
A metal rod was sticking straight out, I thought it would eventually hit a passing train or a signal.
Bang! it had hooked a mail bag and simultaneously another bag was falling down clear of the tracks.
Quite an introduction of how the RPO worked for small towns.
No time for a photo but I can still see it in my mind.
Just one of the fun parts of open vestibule door riding.

NiceHandTick Wrote:
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> NO SLOW DOWN.  I WORKED MAIL TRAIN NEWTON KANSAS
> TO LAJUNTA COLORADO IN 1967 WITH A RPO CAR.
>
>  We were going 100 mph..
Good old 7&8 Santa Fe...all the way! Oh how the USPS has fallen...

          The movie 'In Cold Blood' was filmed ( a lot ) in Garden City and Holcomb, Ks and includes a shot of the eastbound Santa Fe train train picking up mail on the fly at Holcomb. They also threw their mail off there and it did the same: slid across the ground and whacked the camera and man who was laying on the ground to get the shot. 

Back in the late forties, when I was a wee lad I remember seeing the mail bag thrown not far enough and it was sucked under the train.  Don't know the train number but it was the afternoon southbound passenger train through Youngsville, NC, at speed.  The PostMaster had all nearby picking up pieces of mail.
john

Some old heads on the Southern told me they would slow to 60 or less if they were on schedule.  I never recall seeing anything official on it, but back then some things went unprinted cause it was better that way.

Picking up mail on the fly could be analogous to picking up train orders on the fly, but multiplied by 100.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

The Wabash station in Missouri City, MO had a sign saying "Danger... Mail Bags Dispatched at High Speed"

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