The Railway Mail Service Library!



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RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE LIBRARY______________

POSTAL HISTORY RESEARCH - ARTIFACTS



(540) 837-9090 - TELEPHONE

(540) 837-9046 - FAX

fscheer@ - e-MAIL

117 EAST MAIN STREET

BOYCE, VA 22620-9639

December 15, 2009

Dear Railway Mail Service Library friends:

2009 has been a year of travel and building relationships between the RMSL and other rail museums. We share common purposes of preserving railroad history as well as creating accurate interpretations of its heritage through media and displays. In many cases, historical societies are not fully aware of the importance of the jewel-in-the-rough Railway Post Office (RPO) car that they own.

It has been seven years since the visit to the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum at Campo, California, east of San Diego. Santa Fe car 74 was restored through the financial support of Herbert Kehr. It was time to see what progress had been made at other West coast railway museums. A September 2008 trip to Niles Canyon, California, was the first recent opportunity to see restoration efforts in progress. James Briggs and his wife Joyce stepped into the past aboard Union Pacific 5901, preserved by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum. Jim is a veteran of the Ogden and San Francisco – West Division RPO. Jim was stranded in the Sierras for days when the train he was aboard was snow-bound, proving again that there were iron men in those steel cars!

The next stop during December 2008 was the Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM) at Perris, California, accompanied by Gerald McGinnis. Jerry ran on the Albuquerque and Los Angeles – West Division RPO and had made trips aboard Santa Fe car 60 at the OERM. It was a reunion of man and machine (well, RPO car, in which the crew worked as a well-oiled machine) as he recounted stories of past faces and places during his career.

As Spring days lengthened, I embarked upon a 700-mile each-way drive from Oakland, California, to Toledo, Oregon. The Yaquina Pacific Historical Society recently completed a restoration of Southern Pacific 5132. The RPO occupies half of the car, providing 30 feet of space in the end used for Railway Express to develop a library and artifacts display area. Although I presented a short summary of a Railway Mail Clerk’s life at this semi-dedication event, the real star of the day –aside from the RPO—was Art Rotter and his wife Jean. Art recalled working in similar cars five decades earlier, so this festive occasion was likewise a reunion of a man with his past. A handout prepared for this event is included with this letter.

Along the way, I stopped at Tunnel 13 near the peak of the Syskiyou Mountains, just north of the California-Oregon border. Tragically, it was the last trip for a clerk in 1923 when the train was stopped by the D’Autremont brothers and the car was dynamited. The punishment fit the crime: no valuables were seized and a nationwide hunt rounded up the robbers. Meanwhile, the clerk who did not desert his post and protected the mail was remembered amid a dark, rainy afternoon at the scene of the crime.

The annual TRAINS! program at the National Postal Museum (NPM) is a June tradition at the NPM. The RMSL was a part of it, represented by Ric Nelson. Ric worked as a mail handler at the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad station in Silver Spring, Maryland, in the era when the Capitol Limited’s arrival was still regarded as a noteworthy event, carrying the Washington and Chicago – East Division RPO. MEN AND MAIL IN TRANSIT and MAIL IN MOTION and were presented continuously in the NPM’s Atrium area. Both were filmed in 1956 on the B&O, featuring scenes at Washington, DC’s Union Station adjacent to the NPM.

A month later, the Nevada State Railroad Museum at Reno was visited. Virginia and Truckee RPO car 21 that serviced the Reno and Minden route survives in the collection, although interior restoration is unlikely. Nonetheless, the outer body will present a good appearance when work is completed.

Aside from the four major trips, awareness of the RMSL was enhanced at several other special events. Frank attended the 38th annual Washington & Florence RPO reunion on October 2 at Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He also moderates the RailwayPO Yahoo! discussion group at . Finally, he provided guidance to author Dirk Wales about Owney’s travels to Cloverdale, California, in the 1890s. This information was included in the newly-released The Further Adventures of a Lucky Dog: Owney, U. S. Rail Mail Mascot.

Transcription of spoken word to text from audio and video tape is a continuing project. There are more hours of audio and video than the RMSL can convert using its own volunteer resources. Volunteers continue to be recruited for a multi-year project to transcribe thoughts to words because a document format is more easily searchable and editable for research activities.

Another digital effort is to shift answering queries to scanned images instead of photocopied pages. Doing so builds up a reservoir of images that can be digitally accessed, which is often easier and faster than through manual searches from library shelves and files.

Finally, many periodicals such as THE RAILWAY POST OFFICE published by the Railway Mail Association are not indexed. Again, volunteers can develop indexes using loaned copies at their homes during available moments. A benefit for those volunteers is that they are able to read materiel that is not generally available from other sources.

Outreach efforts for volunteer support are very important. A long-range objective is to build a broad base of support for both the RMSL collection as well as preservation of its home, the historic Boyce railway station and former post office. Most activities do not require visiting Boyce and working at the depot. Much can be undertaken by individuals wherever they are and whatever available time permits.

As 2009 reaches an end and the first decade of the 21st Century likewise draws to a close, future years continue to hold much promise for the RMSL. Boyce station is at the grade crossing of railroading with post office history. Thanks for “making the catch” with this letter and being a part of the crew!

Happy New Year 2010,

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Railway Mail Service Library

THE RAILWAY MAIL CLERK & SOUTHERN PACIFIC 5132

Frank R. Scheer, visiting the

Yaquina Pacific Railroad Historical Society

April 10, 2009

Toledo. Oregon

Southern Pacific Railway Post Office (RPO) car 5132 stands before you as a memorial to the Railway Mail Service and its personnel. Within this car and about 4,000 others like it, the United States of America was served for 113 years with excellent postal services.

Under the care and preservation of the dedicated staff at the Yaquina Pacific Railroad Historical Society (YPRHS), SP 5132 is entering a new century. This time, it will serve as a reminder of the lives of Railway Mail Clerks and their collective contributions to society over 11 decades.

Former Railway Mail Clerks and other former Postal Service staff have witnessed the passing of the car to a new generation in a new era. When they visit this car, they reflect upon their own career contributions as well as comrades who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with them on the iron road.

SP 5132 is fourteen years shy of its centennial, having been built in 1923 by the Standard Steel Car Company. In October of that same year, the D’Autremont brothers attempted a mail train robbery, dynamiting the RPO and killing its clerk at Tunnel 13 near Siskiyou, Oregon. One can also think of this car as his rebirth.

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Let's look back to the Twentieth Century for a moment. We'll survey the work, these people, and their capabilities in that era.

The Railway Mail Service --the mail distribution and transportation arm of the Post Office Department-- was growing in 1910, matured by World War II, and began a transition in the 1950s to highway and air services. Established in 1864, there were more than 12,000 Railway Mail Clerks in the year of car 5132's birth. Work performed daily aboard thousands of trains, operated as a national network of Railway Post Office routes over the majority of track miles. That battalion of clerks --who disliked going "stuck"-- made just shy of 16 billion distributions of mail annually during the mid-1930s so that each letter, parcel, and newspaper could reach destinations with certainty, celerity, and security.

Formerly known as "Railway Mail Clerks," this was a misnomer as the USA approached mid-century. This was corrected in 1949 when these jobs were renamed "Postal Transportation Clerks." Not all Postal Transportation Clerks road aboard RPOs on trains. Within the group "Postal Transportation Clerks," some also worked in mail Terminals at major cities such as Portland, Transfer Offices like the one in Albany, Air Mail Facilities, and some registry offices.

Railway Mail Clerks valued their jobs and were dedicated to above-par performance. Advertisements in popular magazines trumpeted "steady work and good pay," along with a somewhat misleading statement of "see your country." Clerks may have traveled as many as 400 miles in as much as a 16 hour workday such as between Portland and Dunsmuir or from there south to San Francisco. However, they peered at little else other than a mountain of pouches and sacks, or the distribution case and racks in front of them.

While the pay was good in the 1930s --clerks earned an average $2,400 per year-- it was not princely. Frugality was hallmark of Railway Mail Clerks, with cash payments covering most transactions.

Positions were competitively filled by those who scored high on a Civil Service examination especially designed to test aptitudes needed for mail distribution. This was not an easy test; one clerk recalls that his lasted seven hours. Clerks who were accepted and endured the rigors of their positions were especially bright. Those who were educated to become doctors, lawyers, and teachers found a career in the Railway Mail Service when other job opportunities were limited.

The clerks who have visited the museum are living links with SP 5132. Looking ahead, today's tribute demonstrates that the YPHS represents more than just artifacts on display and rail equipment preservation. The museum likewise remembers the people who wrote railway and postal history with their lives. Railway Mail Clerks have a lasting tribute of their service to America, supported by YPHS staff who will convey their aspirations and achievements for years to come.

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Southern Pacific 5132 [Photo by Tom Chandler, 2009]

RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE LIBRARY

POSTAL HISTORY RESEARCH - ARTIFACTS



(540) 837-9090 - TELEPHONE

(540) 837-9046 - FAX

fscheer@ - e-MAIL

117 EAST MAIN STREET

BOYCE, VA 22620-9639

\yphs2009.doc Updated March 31, 2009

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