Ever more than one RPO car in a train?

The first place I'd look would be a reference book which details who assigned an RPO to a specific train.  Did the US Post Office assign cars by road number or did they tell the specific railroad company they wanted one RPO on Train 5?  On a Fast Mail it seems to me the Post Office would either ask for or tell the railroad company how many storage mail cars and working mail cars were wanted/needed on Train 4.  Later, John in Lansing, ILL

There was only one RPO per train.  Unsorted mail was loaded into the RPO in sacks, mail sorting was pretty much specific for the route traveled.  Presorted bulk mail was carried in baggage cars and "blocked" for various destinations where it would be transferred to another train or to the local post office.

Very limited access to the mail room on an RPO.  RPO's belonged to the railroads and leased back to the Post Office.  The clerks were the only ones supposed to be inside and were busy sorting the mail en route.  Once sorted, the mail would again be loaded into sacks for delivery.

And they were armed:

The Fall 2006 issue of Classic Trains devoted a full issue to mail by rail.

Rusty

Rusty, that was my uninformed thought several days ago after some online research, but I thought I would inquire here. Many thanks to all who replied.

I thought l had seen photos of more than one RPO in a train, and collect models of them. Sorry to be corrected. A friend's dad was a supervisor on Pennsy RPO's , Pittsburgh to Cincy and to Chicago, and one of her chores was to clean his .38.

I don't know about the Pennsy, but I am sure I have seen photos of trains with two RPOs (although it was not routine). 

Possible reasons could be that one RPO car was deadheading or one was being used for storage mail. If a train required a 60 ft RPO, I could see where two baggage cars with 30 ft RPO compartments might also be substituted.

It's your train, do what makes you happy!

I've got video of a Southern Pacific train running with a string of RPO cars and a single coach at the end. This was possibly a mail train running from north to south here in California with steam at the head end.

Always remember that anything and everything was possible at the railroad. Sometimes new ways were invented on the fly...i like to do whatever i feel like ...my railroad !

The last RPO was between New York and Washington. It came off in 1977. It had two RPO cars every time I saw it.

Check out the preservation on this link! 1 MORE PRO RUN CUMING UP!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_post_office

In Larry Goolsby's book "Seaboard Air Line Passenger Service, The Streamlined Era", page 142, it shows the consist for SAL #10, northbound Palmland, Dec 23, 1964.

The train had 4 engines (1 E8 and 3 SDP35) and 35 cars, including 2 RPOs.  This was the longest known SAL passenger train.  Factors included holiday mail and deadheading cars, which made the train triple the length of the normal Palmland.

None of the other consists he listed had 2 or more RPOs, some had 2 baggage/RPO cars.

My great-uncle Roy was a RPO clerk  and he carried a gun to protect the Mail.

He told me that before personal checking accounts were popular, people sent real money by Registered Mail.

Registered Mail was keep in a Safe in the RPO and tracked manually as it traveled across country.

He said he stayed at every 2-bit ($.25) railroad flop-house on his route, this was about 1910 to 1925.

If I don't find my answer in a google search, I sometimes change the wording of the query. Just did a search "How many RPO cars in a train.  The is a reference to testimony in a US commission investigating the Postal Service in the late 1800s.  It appears that in questions posed to a US postal Railway Mail Service Super't, in some mail trains going west out of Chicago, there were multiple RPO cars on one train initially, and then as the train proceeded, some of them would be transferred to different cities.  A Burlington fast mail train was described as having 5 "RPO" cars. Of course one can imagine the amount of mail going out before the internet email, texting, fax machines, and such.  In any event, my PRR fast mail will now have two K-Line RPOs, two Weaver B60 express, and one K-Line baggage car for bulk mail and maybe a coach at the rear once in a while for a train crew. 

The PRR regularly ran trains with more than one RPO along with multiple mail storage cars.  The consist list from 1952 for the Fort Pitt eastbound lists 2 RPO's, The Jeffersonian lists 2 RPO's westbound as far as Pittsburgh, The Gotham Limited lists 2 RPO's westbound and The Manhattan Limited lists 3 RPOs from Pittsburgh to New York.  Additional PRR trains had multiple RPO's based on the consist lists.  This isn't surprising since much of the mail moved by rail in the '50s and PRR passenger trains ran to and from New York and Chicago through most of the major eastern cities. 

Thanks BW14.

The Post Office would determine how much sorting and storage space was needed per train depending on the amount of mail per day per segment.  For example, I think the SUPER CHIEF had different RPO and storage requirements between Chicago and KC, then KC and ABQ, then to LA.  That means there were two  RPO cars CHI to KC, then one would come off.  Means some switching en route.  Also some days there would be NO RPO depending on the route.  Need to find out what time depending on day of week and year your train ran.

Usually car requirements were determined by 15 and 30 foot segemts.  Hence RPO cars with 15, 30 and 60 foot segments.

This may be helpful:  you have to distinguish between "RPO" and Mail Cars.  An RPO is a Railway Post Office, and there is one per train/route, but there may be more than one car in the RPO consist.

In the mid 60's, B&O No. 8, the eastbound Shenandoah regularly carried 2 RPO's + a mail storage car between Chicago and Pittsburg.  At Pittsburg, a third RPO and another mail storage car was added as well.  I cannot say exactly when this started, but I do have pics from mid-1964 with this arrangement.

Back in the days of railway mail and RR passenger trains, there were many railroads that ran a special train, usually referred to as the "Fast Mail", although that probably would have been a nickname.  The consist of those trains could have been baggage, baggage/mail, storage cars and, of course, RPO's.  Sometimes an "accommodation" coach was hung on the back end but that was usually for RR employees being moved around the system rather than public passenger car use.  

I have seen photos of trains with at least four or five RPO cars, although I don't know how many were in actual service with postal employees at the time, but the cars were there.  The reason that you don't see a lot of photos of these trains is that most of them ran at night, but they were an important source of revenue for the railroads.

Paul Fischer

Plus, some trains had baggage cars, and express boxcars which carried "storage mail", but was not sorted enroute.  These cars would run on trains whether it had a working RPO car or not.

If the Post Office would have pulled the mail off the trains before 1967 or soo, there would have been a lot more passenger train removals a whole lot sooner.

Okay, l feel vindicated.  I thought l had seen photos of multiple RPO cars in trains.  This means l can keep this real estate gobbling central post office, with tracks out back full of RPO cars, on my fantasy to-do list 

The UP, at the far east end of its system, had a building just for moving mail between trains connecting from the east.

Does Amtrak still move storage mail?  I thought they gave that up when tey got rid of their express boxes and material handling cars.

Frisco ex-troop sleeper car leased to the Railway Express Agency.  Could be used for stored or working mail.  John in Lansing, ILL

Normally, there was one RPO on a train.  However, there were also a few instances in which the train was split en route and continued on to two different destinations.  On a few of those trains, there were two RPO's before the point at which the train was divided, and one on each section thereafter.  It was very common that RPO cars did not remain in the train for the complete trip, especially on some western passenger trains which ran over 2,000 miles between initial and final terminals.

And, yes, the RPO car was locked at both ends.  Railway Mail Service Clerks wore small sidearms.  There was a provision for a train crew member to enter the locked RPO in case of an emergency.  There was a very -- I mean very -- small door which could be opened but required that the train crew member crawl and squeeze through.  That way, no robber could pose as a Trainman and get the drop on the clerks.  RPO cars carried registered mail, including bank bags.  If I remember correctly, both the train Conductor and the head RPO Clerk had to report any entrance of the RPO by a crew member on their respective daily report forms.

Thanks for the interesting info Tom.  

There were situations where you had a long run with a lot of mail that you'd find an RPO with a baggage car on one side - or one on each side - of the RPO. The baggage cars would have sacks of mail, and the RPO clerks could get them from the baggage cars and sort them out en route.

I liked the photo of the RPO clerks with their pistols. My Dad's first job with the US Post Office in 1943 was going from the downtown Minneapolis post office to the nearby Milwaukee Road and Great Northern depots to pick up mail from arriving trains. He noted that many of the clerks had a constant shaking of the hands / arms, due to all the years of sorting mail on moving trains. Because of his job, he had to carry a pistol also, and he said if any shooting had to be done he always hoped the clerks would let him do it...he didn't like the idea of these guys with shaky hands starting to blast away with their guns!

I looked at some old passenger train consists last night, and saw that the Texas Chief carried two RPO's westward out of Chicago.  One was in service Chicago-Kansas City (and was switched out of the train) and the second was in service Chicago-Houston.

Just guessing here, but there must have been some arrangement to determine which car hooked the mail on the fly between Chicago and Kansas City.  Maybe they each had assigned stations to hook mail, allowing both cars ample time for working mail en route.  There must also have been some exchange of mail destined beyond Kansas City to the Houston RPO..

I would guess the two RPO's doors next to each other would be unlocked, so any mail/bags could be exchanged.

Also, some RPO cars started working BEFORE the train left the station.  Plus the clerks had to prep the car with bags, and the labels for cases.  

Clerks had to know how the mail was routed.  That had to pass tests, parallel rule test railroad personal have to take.