Catching the Mail on the Fly

Every Saturday, Sunday and Holiday the Osceola and St Croix Valley Railway re-creates what was once a fixture of American life: Catching the mail on the fly. Until about 1967 when the US Postal Service switched to airplanes and trucks for mail distribution, Railway Post Office cars were operated at the head end of every passenger train. Mail was sorted en route. At every small town, a mailbag would be hung at the station. As the train passed, a Postal Employee would extend the RPO car's mail hook to grab the mail bag. Mail for that station would be ready in a bag at the door, to be kicked out onto the ground.

The O&StCV's 11:00 am departure for Dresser re-creates this by backing out of the station so that they can catch the mail at track speed. Retired RMS employees staff the RPO, explaining the history and operation to passengers. This is fairly unique - to my knowledge only one other museum in the US re-creates this on a scheduled basis.

Bonus - SDP40 6327 is tagging along so that it can be turned on the wye at Dresser.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• US
• Postal
• Service
• USPS
• Railway
• Mail
• RMS
• Post
• Office
• RPO
• Northern
• Pacific
• NP
• 1102
• Burlington
• BN
• SD9
• 6234
• Santa
• Fe
• BNSF
• SDP40
• 6327
• Osceola
• and
• St
• Croix
• Valley
• OSCV
• Dresser
• Wisconsin
• Minnesota
• Transportation
• Museum
• MTM
• Catch

[rdfox76]

@blindpugh12 Yes, they did. They literally just threw them out the door as they passed the station platform; there were fairly frequent occasions when bags broke and the station clerks would have to collect the mail from all over the station area!

[chinesemonk]

That's a lot of energy just to demo the device. Still nice to see; 67 wasn't that long ago.

[blindpugh12]

As a member of the TPO Group at the Didcot Railway Centre in the UK, it's gtreat to see how it was done in the US. Did the US Mail used to drop any sacks off on the fly as well?