Where Were Most RPO Cars Located In The Train And Did Amtrak Use Them?

RPO's normally were placed directly behind the engines and ahead of any baggage cars.

Can't say for sure whether or not Amtrak operated any but, I never saw any on Amtrak trains in central or western PA.

Curt

I doubt that Amtrak ever ran any RPO's because the Post Office ended mail contracts on the railroads back in the mid 1960's.

 

Stuart

 

 

As usual, Google is your friend. 

 

The U.S. Postal service ended mail contract with the railroads in 1967 or 1968. The final run of an RPO car, however was between New York and Washington D.C. on June 30, 1977.  You will learn MUCH more about the history of the Railway Post Office service by Googling it.

Actually, Amtrak did carry mail up until 2004. I'm not sure about RPO cars though. I  seem to remember box cars tacked onto the end of the Empire Builder that carried mail. I don't think they ever sorted mail on board, and that was the main function of the RPO.

True. Amtrak did try to compete with UPS and FedEx with their "small package service" as well as bulk mail for the USPS. However, Amtrak no longer had RPO service, i.e. sorting mail by Post Office Personnel, after 1977.

It was the end of railway mail contracts that created Amtrak. The mail contracts subsidized passenger trains. When the mail contracts ended the passenger train financial losses were so high that the ICC had no choice but to allow the railroads to discontinue many passenger trains.  I toured the country by passenger train in the mid 1960s. The passenger service provided by Amtrak is just a shadow of what rail passenger service was once like. The end of passenger service resulted in the abandonment of many branch lines. This was at a time where airlines and the interstate highways were well positioned to pick up the load of the traveling public. It is amazing how the Post Office has shaped passenger travel in this country. 

I have no knowledge of Amtrak and no plans to learn (every time I have thought of

using it, there was no station near here, or none near there, or both, or it was in

some city where you could not leave your car), but I thought there were Amtrak logoed and painted long bulk mail storage cars.  In Switzerland, I got on the Glacier Express at a small station outside of a larger city, with a free parking lot filled with some businessmen's expensive cars, circled the country by train, with time spent at the Matterhorn, and returned to find my car safely in place so I could drive back out to

Austria and Germany.  Could I do that in the US???

That's because every male is required to enter military service at age 18 and is issued a rifle which he keeps for life.  The result is that the Swiss have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. 

I think unless there were some major over-riding reason, the RPOs were place at the front of the train in front of the baggage and express cars if any.   The RPO (Railway Post Office) was staffed by Postal employees, not RR employees, and the cars did not allow admittance to anyone.  You could actually get a letter postmarked by the RPO if you put in the slot in the door while in the station.  hence if Aunt Matilda wanted to visit her little puppy riding in a cage in the baggage car, she could do it if the RPO were not in between.  

I would think the same would apply to Mail Storage cars, in that they would be locked and sealed.   

 

I am pretty sure the RPOs ended before Amtrak, but Amtrak did carry Mail Storage Cars which just meant cars dedicated to carrying mail between major hubs.

There was, however, a very small door through which, if unusual circumstances arose that required it, a member of the train crew could be admitted to pass through the RPO car.

 

The working train baggage car would always have been behind the RPO.  Storage mail (in baggage cars or express boxcars) would have been ahead of or behind the RPO, depending on origin and destination.  Not all RPO's went the full route of the train, and storage mail cars were often switched into or out of the train at places like Kansas City, Fort Worth, Ogden, Omaha, St. Paul, and similar sized eastern cities served by multiple railroads or where passenger routes connected.  When there were secondary trains on the same route as a premiere train, they were commonly switched en route.

 

But . . . that was all before Amtrak's one lonely RPO route as mentioned above, and you did specify that you wanted Amtrak RPO information.

That's not why their crime rate is low.

Perhaps you could brush up on some of the reasons for Amtrak's difficulties, as well as some geography.   You can't compare rail passenger service in such diverse countries. For starters, Switzerland is only a bit less than twice the size of New Jersey. There's really no way to compare rail service logistics between such disparate countries.

Breezinup:  I would sure vote for that Swiss military system, and find out if that is why their crime rate is low...I have heard that reason postulated before.  If not that, then, why?  I just know that there is nowhere near me that I could get on Amtrak, that some years ago when I thought of attending a NW US train convention, the closest place to get on Amtrak was in a far southern Chicago suburb, with no parking, so I kissed off the whole idea.  The airlines, while charging, do provide reasonably secure parking lots at airports (and there ain't no streetcar lines to get you from home to the also non-existing Amtrak stations, so cars are a necessity) 

The last RPO train in the US in 1977 WAS an Amtrak train, but the RPO cars were owned by PC.  Amtrak never owned any RPO cars.

The attached photo shows a cover from the last day of RPO service, NY to Washington on June 30, 1971.

The second one must have been from an Amtrak mail storage car train, no sorting en route. Don't know if its still running or what equipment was used.

Scotie

There are numerous photos in Alfred J J Holck's book, "Burlington Route Color Pictorial V 2" of passenger trains with one or more baggage/express cars ahead of the RPO/baggage car and the RPO compartment immediately ahead of the coach.  This was probably because the RPO/baggage ran through between terminals and the baggage cars were dropped off at towns where the road loco had to do the switching.

 

ChipR

Didn't the PO employees in RPO's all carry sidearms?

Yes, they were all required to be armed when on duty.

Scotie

Like baggage cars, railway post office (RPO) cars or travelling post offices (TPOs) were mail sorting facilities.  Because these cars carried mail, which often included valuables or quantities of cash and checks, the RPO staff (who were employed by the postal service and not the railroad) were the only train crews allowed to carry guns. The RPO cars were normally placed in a passenger train between the train's motive power and baggage cars, further inhibiting their access by passengers. If baggage or express cars were not included, the baggage end of the RPO was placed facing the train. The US mail sorting compartment was not accessible from the baggage end.

The mail sorting compartment was accessible from the baggage compartment.  At least it is on IRM's CB&Q RPO.  It's just a very tiny (18"x18" maybe?) door at floor level.

Rusty

Charlie,

 

I have numerous photos with the RPO compartment closest to the passenger cars. Also in the middle of a group of baggage cars as well as next to the loco.

 

ChipR

Entirely possible, since RPO cars generally didn't turned, however the thru door into the train behind, was tightly secured, i.e. LOCKED, from the INSIDE of the RPO. No one from the train consist was allowed to enter, nor pass through the RPO car. Thus, mail storage cars may have been placed ahead of the RPO.

Remembering that the passenger train from Camden, NJ to Point Pleasant, NJ in the fifties consisted of a Doodlebug and RPO; so for what it is worth, did a little research,.

Looked at a PRR file listing passenger trains arriving and departing NYC form the period 1938 to 1952, a total of 121 trains. Did not include Express trains which did not carry revenue passengers.

 

Have three general categories:

1] Baggage or express car between RPO car and train --- 77 %

2] A dormitory or Rider car between RPO and Train -------  4%

3] RPO coupled directly to front of train -----------------------------19%

 

BM60 were coupled at the rear of several trains but do not think they were in RPO service.

 

There were 7 trains with headend RPO's noted as deadheaded .

 

 

Amtrak handle US Mail contract with MHC(Material Handling Cars) on all of the long distance trains. These cars where 50' boxcars with high speed truck and most of the time where operated on the rear of the train. Some train operated them ahead of the baggage car. Amtrak also operated roadrailers but I don't know on what routes.

The mail contracts where canceled in 2004 after it was found that revenue for the service was very small.

I have heard that the RMS preferred to have baggage/storage cars between the RPO and the locomotives so to protect the mail crews in case of a wreck.

The shortest RPO run in the US was on the Lackawanna's Gladstone Branch in NJ, between Summit and Gladstone, 20.2 miles!  The RPO was actually one end of an electric MU trailer car.  The RPO section was fully equipped for sorting mail en route, and there was a letter slot in the side of the car. As the train made all stops, there was no need for a pickup hook.  The engineer would have been isolated in his compartment in the front vestibule on westbound runs. I don't recall if there was a door to the passenger section or vestibule.

What you're probably seeing are, from front to rear:

 

baggage cars configured for carrying sorted bags of mail;

 

the RPO;

 

baggage cars used for carrying baggage, LCL, Railway Express, etc.

 

For example, the Pennsylvania Railroad had a fleet of cars that looked like baggage cars from the side, but didn't have end doors, dedicated to hauling mail.

 

Lots more information here: http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/rms/history/index.html

 

And you can download 'Mail by Rail' by Bryant Long, a 454-page history of the Railway Mail Service written in 1951, here: https://archive.org/details/mailbyrailstoryo00long

Amtrak hauled USPS Roadrailers on the rear of New York to Florida passenger trains.

I believe they were added to the trains at Philadelphia and were taken off at

Jacksonville.  Not knowledgeable of the other routes they were used on.

I am not sure of the dates but could have been about 1997......

Attached are pictures of models made by Bowser of the USPS Roadrailers.....