Should the RPO go ahead of the Baggage Car or Behind it?
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Many times it depends on the railroad. What railroad are you specifically interested in? Then you can do some research looking through photos of passenger trains in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
If the train crew needs access to the baggage car (for example, for passenger's checked luggage), it will be behind the RPO since the crew generally didn't have access to the RPO. If the baggage car is carrying storage mail or express that doesn't require access en route, it could be ahead or behind the RPO. If you look at pictures of the 1950's GN Empire Builder, particularly westbound, a storage-mail baggage car is the first car behind the locomotives, then the RPO, then a baggage-dorm which carried the passenger's checked luggage.
Hot Water is right, though. Practices varied widely among railroads, eras, and even season of the year on a given RR.
I think the Post Office PREFERED some distance between the crewed RPO and the engine. However, I have seen pictures of BOTH. Also, some PRO's were combined with another car when the PO unit was 30 or 15" With a combo car, it depended what it was combines with. Some were RPO/Baggage. Others were RPO and some sort of passenger car. Due some studying!
Forgive my ignorance, but what is an r$po?
Misspelling. Just took care of it.
Shoot, I thought I was going to learn something new
Yeah I have seen it both ways as well, which road and era Gene?
Originally Posted by Dominic Mazoch:
Also, some PRO's were combined with another car when the PO unit was 30 or 15" With a combo car, it depended what it was combines with. !
OK, since you are correcting stuff, what in the devil does that mean??
If you have access to copies of Classic Trains, you can find passenger train photos in every issue. It might be helpful to look at the photos to see where they show RPO's entrained.
A Railway Post Office often shared a car with a Railway Express Co. section. N&W's Abingdon Branch used an RPO-Express combine; my grandfather worrked in the Express end of it, out of which I took many photos over the years.
Main Line trains often used what was referred to as a "Full-Length" RPO; these cars were often sixty-footers; on long distance trains they'd be coupled to a storage mail car so the crew could transfer mail back and forth.
PRR used some longer RPO cars; if you have access to old TRAINS magazines, a PRR fireman named John Crosby wrote a fantastic story about firing the Broadway Limited from Chicago to Fort Wayne. The first move before coupling onto this hotshot train was going into the Post Office tracks and getting a full-length RPO to go on the head end of the Broadway. Crosby, BTW, wrote some of the best stuff TRAINS ever ran, and any of his stories are worth your while to look up.
EdKing
