Mail train

“ The swaying of the train around a curve makes little difference, as the clerks in a short time learn to follow every motion of the train. A quick decision, ready eye, and economy of movement as a superstructure to a good knowledge of his duties, are the invaluable qualities of a successful railway postal-clerk; and one so equipped soon outstrips his lagging seniors and associates in grade. As the train approaches a junction, preparations are made to "close out" that part of the mail to be delivered at that point, the sacks are tied, the tags or labels having been attached before starting. ”

“ There was no mail coach—no driver in scarlet—no mail guard—no passengers, but only a ramshackle iron mail cart—a "postboy" as driver and carrying no arms. What a contrast is this old mail cart with a single horse, carrying the mails for all the places enumerated [Pg 129] in the Notice, to the splendidly appointed four-horse mail coaches of a period thirty years later on, or to the present time, when on the Great Western Railway one whole train is used to carry only a moiety of the King's mail to Bristol and the West! ”

“ If such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances, for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by any train they like. They may [464] have them carried, if they please, by a goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. ”

“ A railroad company is required by law to carry the mails upon any train that may be run, when so ordered by the Postmaster-General, without extra charge therefor, and as a result the mails are carried on the fastest trains and with great frequency. Express matter is not as a rule carried on the fast limited passenger trains, nor with the frequency with which mails are carried. ”

“ Before we deal with the mail matter, let us look at the cars and the men who occupy them. The train, as it leaves New York, is made up of five cars which are placed immediately behind the engine, and are followed by express and baggage cars and one passenger coach. The car next to the engine is devoted entirely to letter mail, and the four following it to papers and packages. The letter car is fifty feet in length, while those for the newspaper mail are ten feet longer. All are uniform in width, nine feet eight inches, and are six feet nine inches high in the clear. ”

“ The pouches and sacks into which the packages of letters and papers are deposited will be received at the next junction into a railway post-office car, sorted and forwarded in the manner described. In many cases a mail is sent across by a stage route to connect a parallel line, and thereby feeding a new section.
Mail matter is frequently received, through error, for post-offices on the line of road but just passed, or for post-offices supplied only by one railway post-office train moving in the opposite direction; to provide for such mail a pouch is left at the meeting-point of this train ”

“ When the stations at which pouches are caught are within a mile or two of each other, the greatest activity is needed to assort the mail between stations, to avoid carrying mail by destination and subjecting it to considerable delay before its delivery by a railway post-office on the train to be met at a point perhaps many miles ahead. ”

“ There are frequently five or six clerks in the postal cars, and on fast mail trains, where there are two or three working cars to a train, the number runs up as high as 23. The express seldom requires more than two men in a car.
"The Post Office Department claims as much space at depots without specific payment therefor as may be required for the storing and handling of mail in transit. The express companies are required to pay the railroad companies for all space used at depots. ”

“ At connecting points where railroad stations are not over eighty rods apart a company having mails on its train to be forwarded by the connecting train will be required to transfer such mails and deliver them into the connecting train, or, if the connection is not immediate, to deliver them to the agent of the company to be properly dispatched by the trains of said company. ”

“ Car loads of perishable fruits and the like were rotting in the yards, men were beaten, engines crippled, orders mixed up, crown sheets burned and cars smashed on open switches.
The Limited Mail was annulled as a regular train, and Griscom and Ralph and all other passenger employes placed on the irregular list. One day a man would take out the Mail, the next day he would be running freight empties to the city. ”

“ The bags to be forwarded, being suspended from a projecting arm at the station, are so knocked off by a projection from the train as to fall into a net which is attached to the mail carriage, and is for the moment stretched out to receive them, while, at the same time, the bags to be left behind, being hung out from the mail carriage, are in like manner so struck off as to be caught in a net fixed at the station ”

“ In Great Britain, all regular trains carry at least one mail car free, or at a mere nominal charge, and the trunk line roads are required to turn out extra mail trains of ten cars each on demand of the postoffice authorities. For such a train the road can charge no more for the run than the average cost of an average passenger train. ”

“ Model mail and post-office cars occupy the side of another large room; but this exhibit is so vast and varied that the memory refuses to retain its classification, and holds side by side Alaskan sledges drawn by dogs, Russian post-chaises with reindeer teams, mail-boats on Norwegian fiords, carrier-pigeons and balloons, camels and elephants, and the model mail-coach of the lightning express of the New York Central Railroad. The working appliance used in America for catching off a mail-bag without stopping the train attracts much attention. ”

“ On the arrival of the Mail train from London, the Mail Coach will depart from Hull for Scarbro' and Whitby, through Bevereley, Driffield, Bridlington, Hunmanby and Filey, returning in time for the Mail train at 4 55 p. ”

“ In the forward part of the train are still other members of its crew, some of them possibly who are not paid by the railroad, but who are indirectly of its service. Among these last may be classed the mail clerks, who are distinctly employees of the Federal Government, and the messengers of the various express companies. If the road is small and the train unimportant, these workers may be grouped with the baggagemen in the baggage-car. If the train is still less important the baggageman may assume part of the functions of mail clerk and express messenger. ”

“ The Post Office claims the merit of this. Nothing is said of the facilities afforded by the railway. The mail, here referred to, leaves London at half-past one in the afternoon. It stops only at the four junction stations on the line;—Reigate, Tunbridge, Ashford, and Folkestone;—reaching Dover at four o’clock, and thus, in two hours and a-half, carrying all the correspondence with Europe to the confines of England. Twice a month this train carries the Indian Mail. It conveyed, last year, nearly two million letters, exclusive of newspapers, to and from the army and navy in the Crimea. ”

“ A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in company with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the weary trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train, carrying word from the world to the men who sought gold under the shadow of the Pole. ”

“ When safely deposited in the mail-bags, valuable packets are still in danger, inasmuch as the bags in many cases are constantly being transferred from one kind of conveyance to another, and frequently despatched from railway trains by apparatus machinery whilst the train is in motion. ”

“ Almost every railroad has become a postal road, the mail being carried upon its trains. Most of the trains upon the main lines of railroads have each a postal car fitted up with the proper conveniences for receiving and delivering the mail at the various stations and sorting it while the train is moving. ”

“ The weight of mails to be conveyed is usually insufficient to warrant the provision of a special train, and the Post Office is therefore compelled, as far as possible, to make use of such trains as may be run for other traffic, endeavouring to obtain such modification in the times and working as will make them of the greatest advantage to the mail service without destroying their utility for general traffic. ”

“ At two o’clock on the night of the holdup, the conductor in charge of this train reported from the first telegraph office that he could reach, that his train had been held up one mile west of that point, by masked men who compelled the members of the crew, except the chief mail clerk and engineer, to get off, and cut the mail car from the rest of the train, taking it west with the engine. ”

“ Speed and reliability are the essence of mail-carrying. It's the time taken from the office boy licking the stamp until the presentation paper-knife slits open the envelope at the other end that counts, and the letter has always got to get there. The only letter-writers in a tremendous hurry, excepting the mad people who are frantically in love, are in the main centres of population, and they are connected by fast train services. Also, the wireless telephone rather put a bend in the show—talk to anybody anywhere at any time.
Erecting the 15-ton Felixstowe Fury. ”

“ The Assistant Superintendent and others immediately went up the road about two miles, and found obstructions placed in the spot indicated, and removed them. When the train passed, the light in front of the locomotive showed several men running into the woods.
This was the third instance of attempted obstruction to the mail trains upon this road, within less than a month (one having occurred previously to that first mentioned, causing, however, but slight damage,) and it was ascertained that there were considerable amounts of money in the mail on each of those occasions. ”

“ For a short run, involving only one stoppage for the engine to take water, the most rapid on the narrow gauge [47] in England is between London and Dover, by the South-Eastern Railway, 88 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes, 42 miles an hour. But on Australian mail nights (the 26th of each month) , the Post Office employs, in addition to the ordinary “down” mail, a special one for the conveyance of such bags and boxes as can be got ready by 7 p.m. This train travels between London and Dover in 1 hour and 45 minutes. There is one stop for water. ”

“ It will still be in the recollection of a good many that in the early days of railways the mail bags were only forwarded by a certain number of trains, which were called mail trains, and were in charge of a post-office guard. They may also call to mind that there used to be attached to those trains some carriages a good deal resembling the old mail coaches, and constructed to carry only four passengers in each compartment. So difficult is it to break altogether with old associations. ”

“ This is a train devoted entirely to the mail service, and it runs in both directions between London and Aberdeen. Similar special trains run on the Great Western Railway between London and Penzance. One of the latest developments of the system is the provision of a late-fee box on the side of the carriage. The letter-box on the side of the carriage next to the platform is kept open while the train is standing in a station. The up-to-date sorting carriages are an immense improvement on those of the old pattern in the matter of easy movement. ”

“ The relations between the companies and the department have been amicable during the last seven or eight years, and there is now scarcely a railway in the kingdom upon which mails are conveyed that has not adopted a system of general contracts. The Post Office acquires, by means of them, the right, for a fixed gross payment per annum, of using all the trains of the company for the transport of mail bags. There are certain trains which of course must be run for the convenience of the Post Office, such as the night mail trains to and from London, with their branch trains and ramifications. ”

“ The only thing I could hope for was that the sealed forwarding address had been made out at that little town near the Harrisons and hadn't been moved. So I went and took a train that carried no mail.
It made my life hard. I had to wander around that tank town for hours, keeping a blanket-watch on the post office for either the income or the outgo of my precious hunk of mail. I caught some hard eyes from the local yokels but eventually I discovered that my luck was with me.
A fast train whiffled through the town and they baggage-hooked a mailbag off the car at about a hundred and fifty per. ”

“ Railroad companies will require their employees who handle the mails to keep a record of all pouches due to be received or dispatched by them, and to check the pouches at the time they are received or dispatched, except that no record need be kept of a single pouch from a train or station to the post office or from the post office to a train or station which, in regular course, is the only pouch in the custody of the company's employees at that point while it is being handled by them. ”

“ In fact, as to the mails, notwithstanding an increase in tonnage carried on the average train, the mail earnings per passenger train mile were actually less in 1907 than in 1898, due largely to the automatic reduction of railway mail pay per ton mile. Considering the freight train mile, the composition of which is almost entirely within the control of the railroads, which institute methods for reducing cost of transportation, it will be observed that by such methods the railroads have been enabled to place 58 per cent. more tonnage in a train, bring them 58 per cent. ”