[CBQ] Re: Shipping human remains by rail

["shuck n' jive" <bearmtnbob@yahoo.com>]

--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel" <no17eng654@...> wrote:
>
> 
> As part of the Manly Jct. Railroad Museum (Iowa)displays, we will have 17 
> flat screens depicting different North Iowa-Southern Minnesota railroads. In 
> addition, we will feature things like Railway Mail Service, Railway Express, 
> etc. Many human remains were transferred in North Iowa and Southern Minnesota 
> by rail up to discontinuance of most trains in the late 60's. 
> 
> Would anyone out there be able to share a photo that would demonstrate the 
> common scene of handling human remains by train? 
> 
> Dan Sabin
> No17Eng654@...
>
 No photo but when I was looking through old records at the C&S Rice Yard 
during my meal breaks, i read many letters of correspondence (1898-1915)that 
stipulated an escort had to accompany a corpse (maybe these were the 
"corpsemen" president Obama was referring to in that famous speech of his. Two 
of the letters ok'd a half rate for the escorts, one stated the fare was the 
full rate. Interesting when you think that the CB&Q D&RG etc gave free 
transportation to those, who by law were required to escort livestock shipments 
(drovers)but if you escorted human remains you had to pay the half or a full 
rate (not rite) of passage. I have several D&RG livestock travel contracts 
(1897) showing the free rate for drovers. An old C&S conductor I worked with 
said the drover caboose was invented because the drovers, in taking care of the 
cattle, smelled (and presumeably, looked) very bad and had to be kept out of 
the coaches and the fare paying hoi polloi!



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