Paul, Ed will no doubt answer this more definitively, but:
Cars with specific indicators of service really didn't mean much -
you have cars with "mail storage", "Express", Baggage-Express", etc.
yet all could handle mail storage, or express shipments, or REA
shipments, or any combination - along with milk (in cans), other
products (produce) and such. Even refrigerators cars could be used
for express or mail storage. '
REA and express could be two different terms or could mean the same
thing. Most railroads had their own express - just as Greyhound
did/does. For a long time, stores in downtown big cities would
arrange for shoppers to ship their packages on railroads and then to
their homes - thus someone living in, say Piscataway could shop in
New York, and not have to lug packages home - they could even beat
the shopper home.
Express could also mean the other various express agencies - Adams,
Wells Fargo etc. Some roads had specific contracts with a specific
agency. And in some cases, those contracts would include the express
shipments for the railroad as well as for the express
agency. Sometimes, the messenger in messenger-equipped cars could be
mail employees, express agency employees or railroad employees. A
lot of railroads used the express agency employees in their cars as a
sort of "outsourcing" (before the term was defined). For instance,
the Rio Grande had Express Agency messengers in their cars to Craig
from Denver to eliminate the job and overhead. The Rio Grande - and
most railroads in and out of Chicago - also picked up cans of milk
along the way to a larger city that might have some sort of
processing plant (butter, cream, etc.). Most railroads also hauled
newspapers as express - the Q was huge in terms of newspapers,
catalogs and other such products given their servicing printing
plants, department store warehouses and the connection in Omaha with the UP.
If you can find a loading diagram (and I'm sure Ed will have a few in
his upcoming book on the subject), you can see that a baggage car was
parcelled out in footage - for instance, the loading diagram for the
CZ baggage cars included half (or thereabouts) of the car dedicated
to "express". Then each large station had its own location within
the baggage car. For the local trips, the same thing applies (for
milk and produce). On the Rio Grande, trains 19 & 20 (Denver to
Montrose) had three head end cars in 1939 and two coaches - the
headend was for mail, express, milk (big butter processing there) ,
newspapers & catalogs - all outlined in the loading diagram for those cars.
It's a huge subject, and Ed has been piecing things together for a
number of years. Hopefully his book will be out soon!
At 03:30 PM 1/24/2006, you wrote:
>All,
>
>I would appreciate the group setting me straight on some of my fuzzy
>thinking on this matter.
>
>I understand that there is a difference between express service and
>LCL shipments. My main question concerns express -- I think of REA
>for express shipments, but there are also cars labled "Express" for
>the various railroads, too. Did the railroads offer their own form
>of express service in addition, or competing with Railway Express?
>
>Also, for LCL...would any old boxcar be used by a railroad for this
>or would they use one of their labled "Express" cars...or both? And
>in what trains would these cars be included, mixed, separate, etc?
>
>Thank you in advance for your comments.
>
>--
>"Paul (Kossart) - The CB&Q Guy"
> Proto-Lancing the CB&Q "Illiniwek River-Subdivision-Branch Line"
> in the 1960's.
>
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Bob Webber
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