Extra Mail and Express Trains This Time of Year

Dominic,

The basic, short answer to your question is yes, in peak shipping times, like between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the railroads did use cars such as express refrigerator cars, std refrigerator cars and boxcars to move the massive amounts of mail and parcels. Just about any car could be pressed into service if there was a need for shipping capacity. Many roads had express mail trains, or passenger trains with express freight and mail service, so those trains only used cars fitted with high-speed trucks and steam / signal lines, to be compatible with the rest of the equipment.

There are a couple of great books on this segment of railroading. They are;

Moving Mail and Express by Rail - Edward M. DeRouin

Express, Mail & Merchandise Service - Jeff Wilson

Tom

And I would say lcl traffic would also jack up.  Like a BLUE STREAK on the Cotton Belt.

If you would like to read a very good first person account of running an express mail train on Christmas eve 1955 get a copy of David Plowden's A Time of Trains through inter-library loan and read the text part of the book - the first 25 pages (the book is a collection of black and white photos from the steam era - I think the pictures are OK but I think the text is one of the best short descriptions about running a steam engine that I've ever read).

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Ok, back in the day the Railroads did run Mail and Express trains.  This time of year I would guess they were slammed.  Now did they ever use non express box and refer cars?  And if they did my guess is the train they were on was slapped with a lower speed if they did not have the right trucks, signal, and steam lines?

Yes . . . the number of sections of passenger trains increased around the holiday season, some for more passenger cars, and some for mail and express.

In the case of Santa Fe and Union Pacific, two railroads with whose speed restrictions I am familiar, speed  restrictions for passenger equipment could make a difference in the maximum authorized speed for a train.

Union Pacific had speeds for Streamliner, passenger, and freight trains.  Streamliner trains had to have all-lightweight equipment.  Passenger trains could have heavyweight cars and/or express boxcars.  Any car not equipped for passenger service (high speed trucks, plus through steam conduit and communication signal pipe) required freight speed, even if the rest of the train was passenger cars.  Few of the heavyweights and express boxcars (and almost none of the freight cars) had roller bearings.

Santa Fe had a timetable maximum speed for passenger trains, but with a footnote that required a lower maximum for passenger trains with heavyweight cars.  There were two reasons for this: (1) a number of Santa Fe's heavyweight baggage cars were actually wooden cars with steel plating overlaid on the sides, not steel cars; and (2) most of the heavyweight cars had friction bearings.  After ATSF converted the heavyweight cars to roller bearings in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and bought a sizable number of no-frills lightweight baggage cars during 1957-64 to replace the wooden ones, the restriction was removed.  Express boxcars were treated the same as the heavyweight passenger equipment except that the cars with Fox trucks were restricted to 60 MPH after they demonstrated a tendency for truck "hunting".  On a 100 MPH railroad, this was not well-received, and the Fox trucks were replaced with Barber high speed trucks.  Like the UPRR, Santa Fe restricted freight equipment to 60 MPH.  (This was increased to 70 MPH in the 1960's.)  As far as I know, there was no restriction on Railway Express Agency or Santa Fe express reefers with true passenger trucks.

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Ok, back in the day the Railroads did run Mail and Express trains.  This time of year I would guess they were slammed.  Now did they ever use non express box and refer cars?  And if they did my guess is the train they were on was slapped with a lower speed if they did not have the right trucks, signal, and steam lines?

It still happens today.

CSX Operates an extra UPS train (Q035) between Baltimore, MD and Jacksonville,FL, for example, just during the holiday rush season (Mid-November through Christmas)

This is to accommodate the increased holiday volume. The rest of the year the regular North Bergen, NJ to Jacksonville, FL hotshot (Q031) stops at Baltimore to handle the regular traffic.

In addition to the mostly UPS trailers in the consist, the trains handle boxes and trailers from other shippers including UPS's rival FedEx Ground.

Also switching did occur with these trains, including RPO's, in the pre-Amtrak era.  Cars were added or removed depending on the mail contract and the amount of express carried.