A Great Heavy Commercial Build Opportunity

[Tom Geiger]

The US Post Office moved a lot of mail via the rails, thus the Railway Post Office car on many trains.  Not only did this car carry the mail, but it was a mini postal sorting hub, with postal workers sorting mail as the train moved between cities.  Many of these cars had a mail slot in the side of them so people could insert mail directly into the car.  As time went on and rail service started to become limited in the early 1940s, the post office created highway post offices, replacing the railroad cars with a mobile sorting center that traveled the highways instead of the rails.  Here's a photo and interesting article, anyone up to build one?

http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/highway-post-office/

 

 

[XJ6]

Yes Sir if a kit came out of the "Modern Pony Express " I would be the first to buy one ? for its History and just a Wonderful Subject ?

Thanks for sharing ?

XJ6?

[Art Anderson]

Yup, as a college student, out in Fairfield IA back in the 60's, I used to mail letters home from the Burlington RR station (just a block from my residence hall), by meeting the late mail train to Chicago, simply handing my letters to the clerk in the RPO (Mom wondered why the postmarks never said "Fairfield Iowa" though, the clerks carried their own cancellation rubber stamps from whatever town it was where they boarded the RPO).  It was interesting too, handing a letter to a USPO clerk who packed a revolver on his hip!

I also saw the nightly HWPO bus, in that case, it was a Fageol, which had the bodywork of a Fruehauf round-nosed semi-trailer with large arched windows for a windshield.  Those ran both north and south on Iowa State Highway 1, through Fairfield, on the street out front of my res hall.

Art

[XJ6]

Yup, as a college student, out in Fairfield IA back in the 60's, I used to mail letters home from the Burlington RR station (just a block from my residence hall), by meeting the late mail train to Chicago, simply handing my letters to the clerk in the RPO (Mom wondered why the postmarks never said "Fairfield Iowa" though, the clerks carried their own cancellation rubber stamps from whatever town it was where they boarded the RPO).  It was interesting too, handing a letter to a USPO clerk who packed a revolver on his hip!

I also saw the nightly HWPO bus, in that case, it was a Fageol, which had the bodywork of a Fruehauf round-nosed semi-trailer with large arched windows for a windshield.  Those ran both north and south on Iowa State Highway 1, through Fairfield, on the street out front of my res hall.

Art

Wow I can only imagine  what that would have been like?, very interesting Art 

Thanks for sharing your Story 

XJ6?