Paul, Bob, and Others:
Bob, thanks for the plug. Bob and others, please be patient. I will be glad to
announce
when the book on mail, baggage, and express is ready, but please do not create
an
expectation. I am researching and writing, so it is many months away.
Paul, Bob hit the nail on the head, the labeling of the car, except for RPOs,
was not
indicative of the car's assignment. I have records of REX reefers assgned to
carry
newspapers and during the Christmas rush, NRC reefers, in addition to regular
40 foot
boxcars, assgned to haul mail.
As far as express is concerned, since 1929, REA, with the exception of Southern
Express,
was THE express agency. SOU Exp was owned by Southern and other SE railways and
ultimately was merged into REA. Prior to WWI several express companies operated.
Simply stated, mail (pouch and parcel) was handled by the Railway Mail Service
of the Post
Office Department, express by REA, and lcl was a form of shipping freight. And,
yes,
sometimes you could not tell the difference by looking, unless you read the
tags...
Many details will be clarified in the book. Please understand that I prefer not
to retype the
book on this list. 8-)
Regards,
Ed DeRouin
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Bob Webber <no17@c...> wrote:
>
> 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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