Railway Mail Service
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Railway mail clerks at
work on the New York to Chicago Fast Mail, 1875. (Harper’s
Weekly) |
CHRONOLOGY
| 1832 Nov 30 |
Stage contractors on a route from Philadelphia to Lancaster,
Pennsylvania granted an allowance of $400 per year "for carrying the mail
on the railroad as far as West Chester (30 miles) from December 5, 1832." |
| 1836 |
Postmaster General lists only one railroad company as a contractor
during the first six months of 1836, "Route 1036 from Philadelphia to
Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. " |
| 1837 |
Post Office appoints a route agent to accompany the mails between
Albany and Utica, New York. First route agent is John Kendall, nephew of
Postmaster General Amos Kendall. |
1838
Jul 7 |
Act of Congress designates all railroads as postal routes; mail
service by railroad increases rapidly. |
| 1840 Jun |
Two mail agents appointed to accompany mail from Boston to Springfield
"to make exchanges of mails, attend to delivery, and receive and forward
all unpaid way letters and packages received." At this time, mail was
sorted in distributing post offices. The only mail sent to the agents on
the railroad lines was that intended for dispatch to offices along each
route. The route agents opened the pouches from the local offices,
separated the mail for other local points on the line for inclusion in the
pouches for those offices, and sent the balance into the distributing post
offices for further sorting. Gradually, the clerks began to make up mail
for connecting lines, as well as local offices, and the idea of
distributing all transit mail on the cars slowly evolved. |
| 1862 |
First experiment in distributing U.S. mail in so-called "post offices
on wheels" made between Hannibal and St. Joseph, Missouri, by William A.
Davis, postmaster of St. Joseph. This new procedure expedited the
connection at St. Joseph with the overland stage. |
| 1863 Jan |
First experiment discontinued |
| 1864 Aug 28 |
First U.S. Railroad Post Office route officially established when
George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster of Chicago, Illinois, places postal
car equipped for general distribution in service between Chicago and
Clinton, Iowa, on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. Similar routes
established between New York and Washington; Chicago and Rock Island,
Illinois; Chicago and Burlington, Illinois; and New York and Erie,
Pennsylvania. |
| 1867 May 1 |
Order for railway mail service over
the Union Pacific R. R. goes into effect. Rails had been laid to North
Platte 292 miles west of the Missouri. To handle the mail matter committed
to this road four route agents were appointed. These men were route agents
merely, not opening the packages received and distributing their contents
but working only local mail and transferring packages of mail unbroken.
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| 1868 Summer |
Agent of the department now
constantly kept at end-of-track, where, encamped in tent, he superintends
the transfer of mails from the stages to the cars and vice versa,
while in addition to these duties he acts as Postmaster for the local
camp. |
| 1881 Jan 2 |
Service over recently completed
Denver Short Line begun with nine postal clerks. Prior to this time a
pouch service had been in operation for several months. |
| 1888 |
By this year mail was being distributed on 126,310 miles of railway,
and postal clerks traveled in crews over 22 million miles annually to sort
the letters and periodicals en route.
11 |
| 1930 |
More than 10,000 trains used to move the mail |
| 1958 |
Transportation Act of 1958
Mail carrying passenger trains begin to decline rapidly. |
| 1965 |
Only 130 trains carry mail. |
| 1970 |
Railroads carry virtually no first class mail. |
| 1971 Apr 30 |
Post Office Department terminates seven of the eight remaining
routes. |
| 1977 Jun 30 |
Last surviving RPO makes last trip between New York and Washington,
DC. |
For More Information —
Carr, Clark E. The Railway Mail Service, Its Origin and Development. Chicago:
A. C. McClurg & Co. 1909.
Lyford and Glenn, The Official Railway Guide to Colorado, Denver, Colorado:
Lyford & Gleim, 1883.
88/45 The Catalog of Colorado Railway Mail Markings, Volume l. Robert G.
Munshower, Jr.
113/73 Narrow Gauge Railway Mail Routes in Colorado. Robert Munshower, Jr.
102/81 Accidents Involving Railway Post Office Cars on Colorado Railroads, 1885
- 1889
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