Passenger Trains > A Railway Post Office question

The employees who sorted mail aboard railway post office cars were postal employees. But, were people who unloaded bags of mail and postal express from the trains also postal employees?

As a kid, I can remember seeing employees off loading mail sacks at Hoboken.

Posted from Android

I'd say It could be either.  I worked in a POD sectional center around Chicago and we would meet mail trains with a POD truck to load and unload.  I'd guess if it involved register mail it would a POD employee. In rural areas what I'd guess it was railroad or contract employees. At major terminals there were POD transfer stations with postal employees but I am not sure that it wasn't station employees who handled the loading but again if it was registered I would say a postal employee.

As a salient when I worked at the sectional center all the runs from Chicago were postal employees but runs to suburban offices were all contract.   Today if ou are up early enough you will see contract trucks arrive early AM, open the dock and unload.

Interesting question.

Bob Jordan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/20 16:06 by robj.

There are a lot of contract mail trucks on the highway in Florida.  US Mail is prominently displayed on the trailer

If it was loose mail or unsealed pouches then only POD employees could touch it or move it.  RR Employees would handle sealed pouches or palletised mail. 

interesting question......ORHF recentlhy received an inquiry asking about the Railway Mail Service...seems his grandfather worked 1905 to 1950s for the RMS including a stint with the American Expenditionary Postal Agency during WW 1 in France.....the RMS even had a baseball team here in Portland.  seems there is a lot of history here

An elderly gentleman named Joe Rolland with an equally elderly pickup took the mail from the Mojave Depot to the nearby post office for years.
Several SP and ATSF mail trains visited, mostly at night.
I have no idea who he worked for. On the RPOs the mail was sorted by Railway Mail Clerks, USPS employees.
In my first real job, at the Mojave PO in 1958, I worked for a retired railway mail clerk named Barney Finnin, a really great gentleman who had
some stories to tell!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are a lot of contract mail trucks on the
> highway in Florida.  US Mail is prominently
> displayed on the trailer
You are correct about the contract mail trucks and this has been a sore spot for many of us who feel that the U.S. Government should be ashamed.  The reason?  Why does the government spend millions of dollars to private truck companies to move mail when much of it could be given to another Government agency called Amtrak to haul this mail?  Amtrak needs the revenue and in this way the government would be helping itself, but once again this is an example of how our tax money is wasted by our elected leaders in D.C.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

An interesting side-bar.  During the mid-1960s I used to occasionally see PRR Mount Vernon #137 at Newark Penn Station loading newspapers on Saturday nights.
I remember seeing a man, who normally worked at a newstand on Market St. (right below the tracks) among the guys loading the papers onto the baggage car, so I guess not all the men involved with the newspaper loading were railroad employees.  Interesting how railroads used to carry lots of Sunday papers.
Andy

Amtrak has enough issues at the moment just getting people from Point A to Point B in a logical, timely and efficient manner.  A reintroduction of the carrying of snail mail would more than likely just throw more monkey wrenches into the overall mechanism.  Another concern is how localized are the larger postal operation centers to the constantly dwindling number of station stops on the network?  First Class mail seems to already be taking numerous hits on efficient delivery.  Case in point, I live in Southeast Virginia, part of the greater Hampton Roads network of cities.  Up until 2 years ago, my First Class mail was routed thorough the postal ops center in Norfolk, a very large operation center indeed.  That center closed and now my mail is routed through Richmond, VA, a much farther distance and an automatic 1 to 2 day additional transit time.  Efficient?  Perhaps.  Convenient?  Not for me, but it is what it is.  Most of what ends up in my mailbox is junk mail to begin with.  An unsavory, but matter-of-fact reality of the here and now.  But I would certainly like to have the previous processing and delivery functions before the closure of the aforementioned ops center.  I would imagine this particular set of circumstances has become the norm instead of the exception in other areas of the country.  The USPS seems to always be in the red.  Cutting service to increase efficiency and any kind of perceived value added to the bottom line is their focus.  (Sounds like another quasi-government operation, huh?)

twropr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An interesting side-bar.  During the mid-1960s I
> used to occasionally see PRR Mount Vernon #137 at
> Newark Penn Station loading newspapers on Saturday
> nights.
> I remember seeing a man, who normally worked at a
> newstand on Market St. (right below the tracks)
> among the guys loading the papers onto the baggage
> car, so I guess not all the men involved with the
> newspaper loading were railroad employees. 
> Interesting how railroads used to carry lots of
> Sunday papers.
> Andy

Of interest I have photos on the South Shore, early 70's of newspapers being unloaded at Michigan City.

Bob

SANSR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>  Cutting service to increase efficiency and
> any kind of perceived value added to the bottom
> line is their focus.  (Sounds like another
> quasi-government operation, huh?)

Or a non-government coporate operation ...that operates on a Schedule with great Precision, maybe?

Folks love to bash government. My experience with corporations is no better, and in some cases, worse.

TAW

ClubCar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There are a lot of contract mail trucks on the
> > highway in Florida.  US Mail is prominently
> > displayed on the trailer
> You are correct about the contract mail trucks and
> this has been a sore spot for many of us who feel
> that the U.S. Government should be ashamed.  The
> reason?  Why does the government spend millions
> of dollars to private truck companies to move mail
> when much of it could be given to another
> Government agency called Amtrak to haul this
> mail?  Amtrak needs the revenue and in this way
> the government would be helping itself, but once
> again this is an example of how our tax money is
> wasted by our elected leaders in D.C.
> John in White Marsh, Maryland

They tried that once. Didn't work



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/20 08:51 by WAF.

WAF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ClubCar Wrote:
> > You are correct about the contract mail trucks
> and
> > this has been a sore spot for many of us who
> feel
> > that the U.S. Government should be ashamed. 
> The
> > reason?  Why does the government spend
> millions
> > of dollars to private truck companies to move
> mail
> > when much of it could be given to another
> > Government agency called Amtrak to haul this
> > mail?  ...
> > John in White Marsh, Maryland
>
> They tried that once. Didn't work

Yes, it's not like it hasn't been tried, in the Amtrak era. The lack of interest is mostly owing to the rail carrier, not USPS.

Up until 2002, Amtrak ran dedicated mail trains Washington-Springfield, Mass. One direction (can't remember which) also carried passengers.

Gunn ended that relationship with the Post Office, as part of winding down the entire Warrington-era Mail and Express initiative. And that was after the state of Massachusetts contributed to building a dedicated mail handling facility for Amtrak.

Paul Wilson
Arlington, VA

So reading what many have posted on this subject in the past. Class Ones carrying mail pre 1968 was good and kept many trains running, and it was a govt conspiracy to kill passenger service when the mail was taken off. But if Amtrak carries mail it’s bad?

Posted from iPhone

When Amtrak hauled mail, it was a disaster. It always delayed trains as the the cars were often cut off the trains just prior to reaching its final destination. I don't think it had much impact on Amtrak's bottom line.

Posted from Android

ClubCar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There are a lot of contract mail trucks on the
> > highway in Florida.  US Mail is prominently
> > displayed on the trailer
> You are correct about the contract mail trucks and
> this has been a sore spot for many of us who feel
> that the U.S. Government should be ashamed.  The
> reason?  Why does the government spend millions
> of dollars to private truck companies to move mail
> when much of it could be given to another
> Government agency called Amtrak to haul this
> mail?  Amtrak needs the revenue and in this way
> the government would be helping itself, but once
> again this is an example of how our tax money is
> wasted by our elected leaders in D.C.
> John in White Marsh, Maryland

Amtrak does not go everywhere, it never did. The highways and the trucks do go everywhere.
And that's why they use the trucks.

Newspapers were also a regular loading on Lackawanna and Erie-Lackawanna MU commuter trains. The railroad made certain that the early afternoon (2.43pm) out of Newark Broad Street had a combine MU leading.  The Newark Evening News published several editions, the first went out by train.  It was quite a lot with several baggage carts of bound newspapers to be dropped in Summit, Chatham, Madison, Berkeley Heights, Bernardsville and other destinations.  The train already had bound copies of the NY afternoon papers, of which there were several

[Edited to add]  I recall crossing combines with newspapers in the middle of MU trains on several occasions.  It would make sense that these would be the first car on the Gladstone section, which splits at Summit.

A railroad baggage handler (IIRC) was assigned to the combine, and tossed off a few marked packages of newspapers at designated.stations, and the kid assigned to pick them up would wheel their Newark News, World Telegram & Sun, NY Post down to the local news stand / illegal numbers joint.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/20 07:19 by Lackawanna484.

When I was in high school, the post office hired some of us to work mail during the Christmas rush.  (In those days the PO even used military reserve vehicles to supplement their fleet - 2 a day deliveries in some areas).  I worked at the main SR station loading and unloading mail cars and transfering mail sacks to trucks, or other mail cars since many trains handled storage mail and interchanged sacks.. A 40 ft box could hold a lot of mail, but a full size baddage car was really something.  There were deadlines on mail loaded in rail cars since they had to be ready to be picked up by the proper train. Trains with multiple baggage cars and express boxes for mail were the rule in that season. Talk about dusty work!  I assume the regular PO guys who supervised us were the ones who did the work in normal times.

Not just railroads, but inter-city buses as well relied on newspapers for revenue.  Local buses often were scheduled to leave major cities where papers were published just after morning and/or evening press runs. They would be left at "stations" or other places along the route for local delivery agents.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/20 13:20 by wilewil.

In the 1950's and earlier, the Santa Fe had baggage clerks at most bigger stations who handled loading and unloading mail.  Parcel post was in regular mail bags and was handled in baggage cars by railroad employees.  The RPO handled locked first class mail pouches and was manned by US Mail clerks carrying guns.  Once the mail (first class or parcle post) came off the trains it was all handled the same way.  A contractor hauled it to the local post office in a locked box truck with U.S. Mail on the side.  When I first worked for the Santa Fe in the early 50's, there were two Model A Ford trucks that had seen service for many years.  About 95% of our town's mail came off Santa Fe No. 27.  It usually took 20-30 minutes for the baggageman and operator to unload the local mail.  REX was handled by REX employees in baggage cars and unloaded by the local REX agent. They carried guns too. 

At many smaller stations, particularly where there was "nonstop exchange" (pick up pouch on the fly and kick out a pouch of mail for the town) there was an postal or contract employee who was designated as a "Mail Messenger."  These people handled mail from trackside to the local post office.  The same class of job was found at other small stations where the train did stop - sometimes the mail was transferred by truck, other times if the post office was close enough the mail messenger pulled a baggage cart through the streets from the depot to the post office.  My understanding is that all of these people were either postal employees or hired by the post office on a contract basis.

The actual loading of mail from baggage wagon to baggage car or RPO was done by a baggageman or station employee at smaller stations.  At larger stations where mail volume was considerable, there were mail handlers who generally handled load and unloading at trainside, delivering the mail either to a post office transfer office in the station or to a post office annex located adjacent to the station.  I am unclear whether these mail handlers also handled Railway Express loading and unloading at trackside, or whether that work was performed entirely by REA employees. 

Its all an interesting question, and being the railroad, there were undoubtedly craft distinctions that somewhat segregated the work.  Reading a union agreement for these job classifications might provide some insight.

Bill