--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>
To: "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
Cc: <Gblatham@aol.com>, <railspot@yahoogroups.com>
Fred,
I know that most (maybe 80-90%) of the US Mail was removed from the
trains
in the fall of 1967. That's one of the historic periods of time that I
always stress in my books.
But that's not the point I was making. What I was trying to say was that
the
Burlington used the loss of US mail as the primary reason to terminate
the
TEXAS ZEPHYR. But what has never made any sense here was that the USPS
did
not make the announcement (down here at least) until Sept. 1, 1967 well
after the CB&Q had sent in its train off petition (stating this excuse)
to
the ICC. On top of this the USPS announcement gave no time frame for the
definite removal of US Mail on the TZ. It was all supposed to take place
nationwide within a 12 to 24 month time frame.
So how was this accomplished?
The facts are that we have a train off petition which makes the statement
that the recent loss of the US Mail contract is the primary reason for
the
Burlington not making enough money to keep the train running.
But we have a train that was still handling US Mail on Sept. 11, 1967
(just
as it always had).
So in other words the ICC gave the Burlington permission to cut a train
on
account of lost mail contracts when in fact the US mail was still on the
train on the day that they made their last runs.
Since the TZ was never allowed to operate a single day without mail,
sleeping car service or dining cars, how are we supposed to know if the
train could have continued to run a bit longer? Late October? Christmas
1967? Fact is in the case of the TEXAS ZEPHYR we'll just never know.
At least the Santa Fe continued to operate several trains (Kansas Cityan,
Chicagoan, California Special, etc.) several months after the mail had
been
yanked. Same with the KCS and T&P. I think that we would all be very hard
pressed to find any other example of a train in Railspot territory that
was
discontinued on account of an event that had not yet occurred.
Let's compare the Santa Fe and the Burlington. We know that John Reed of
the
Santa Fe completely caught off guard on the speed in which the mail was
yanked. So how was it Lou Menk was able to use an event that had not yet
occurred? Devine speculation?
I'm not arguing that it would not have happened at a later date. We all
know
that it would have eventually been removed in October or at least prior
to
January 1, 1968 just like most other runs in this area. But to use the
loss
of a mail contract as their primary excuse when the train in question was
never allowed to operate a single day without handling US mail seems to
say
all that we need to know about the mindset of the Menk regime and the ICC
at
the time.
As for Menk not being with the Burlington at the time of the
Lincoln-Billings incident, his policies had been implemented and the die
was
already being cast to merge the CB&Q, GN and NP anyway. Its not that big
of
a stretch to know that all three lines were working in tandem to
eliminate
as many trains as possible before the merger. It was just a bit of
housecleaning before the lines all became BN.
TZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
To: "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>
> Across the entire Burlington system, and across the entire U.S. rail
system for that
> matter, virtually all first-class mail was removed in the fall of 1967,
> mostly between mid September and mid October of that year. I don't know
> the source of your remark that the postal service meant to do this over
a
> two-year period. Maybe it did say that, but in fact 90% of the deed was
> done immediately afterward - so rapidly that Santa Fe president John
Reed
> says he was stunned and shocked. It is inconceivable to me that of all
the
> trains in the U.S., the remaining pair of FWD trains would be exempted.
> Had they remained into mid October, they would have been threadbare of
> storage mail and definitely without a Railway Post Office.
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