MessageFormer railway mail clerk remembers working the trains
Edward Waddell recalls "riding the rails and delivering the mail."
He had to memorize every Post Office in 10 states and the trains that served
them. Sometimes he and his co-workers shared space with a corpse. And they
handled so much mail during World War II that some of it was kept in burlap
feed bags.
Edward Waddell is a 94-year-old former railway postal clerk from St. Elmo, IL.
"It was always interesting and I enjoyed it," says Waddell, who spent most of
his career on the Pittsburgh to St. Louis run. "I was away from home a lot, but
it paid well."
Like thousands seeking good jobs during the Depression, Waddell took the Civil
Service exam in the 1930s. He was hired for the Railway Mail Service. It could
be challenging, recalls Waddell, "catching" a mail pouch hanging from a crane
near a station, or throwing the mail into a fenced receiver area from a
fast-moving train. "It wasn't easy," he said, "standing at a case or moving
around in a car running 60-80 miles per hour, but railway mail clerks were a
dedicated, conscientious group and they liked their job."
"I stuck with it," Waddell said, until he retired in 1967 when only a few
trains still carried mail. The last official railway mail run was made in June
1977.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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