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Railway post office
In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service and used specifically for staff to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train.
From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains. The Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. A number of railway companies maintained nominally unprofitable passenger routes, having found that their financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail on such passenger routes.
The world's first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdom's General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted railway carriages on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Sorting of mail en-route first occurred in the United Kingdom with the introduction of the travelling post office in 1838 on the Grand Junction Railway, following the introduction of the Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act 1838.
In the United States, some references suggest that the first shipment of mail carried on a train (sorted at the endpoints and carried in a bag on the train with other baggage) occurred in 1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road. Other sources state that the first official contract to regularly carry mail on a train was made with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in either 1834 or 1835. The United States Congress officially designated all railroads as official postal routes on July 7, 1838. Similar services were introduced on Canadian railroads in 1859.
The railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28, 1862, using converted baggage cars on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (which also delivered the first letter to the Pony Express). Purpose-built Railway Post Office (RPO) cars entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was initiated. They were used by staff to separate mail for connection with a westbound stagecoach departing soon after the train's arrival at St. Joseph. This service lasted approximately one year.
The first permanent Railway Post Office route was established on August 28, 1864, between Chicago, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. This service is distinguished from the 1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the route's end-points.[citation needed]
George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, originally came up with the idea of having mail processed and distributed while the mail was on board, en route in mail cars. With the assistance of Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House at the time, and A. N. Zevely, Third Assistant Postmaster General, Armstrong was authorized to test his ideas.
In 1869, the Railway Mail Service (RMS), headed by George B. Armstrong, was officially inaugurated to handle the transportation and sorting of mail aboard trains. Armstrong was promoted from a supervisory position in the Chicago post office following his experiments in 1864 with a converted route agent's car on runs between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa.
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Railway post office
In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service and used specifically for staff to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train.
From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains. The Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. A number of railway companies maintained nominally unprofitable passenger routes, having found that their financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail on such passenger routes.
The world's first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdom's General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted railway carriages on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Sorting of mail en-route first occurred in the United Kingdom with the introduction of the travelling post office in 1838 on the Grand Junction Railway, following the introduction of the Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act 1838.
In the United States, some references suggest that the first shipment of mail carried on a train (sorted at the endpoints and carried in a bag on the train with other baggage) occurred in 1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road. Other sources state that the first official contract to regularly carry mail on a train was made with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in either 1834 or 1835. The United States Congress officially designated all railroads as official postal routes on July 7, 1838. Similar services were introduced on Canadian railroads in 1859.
The railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28, 1862, using converted baggage cars on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (which also delivered the first letter to the Pony Express). Purpose-built Railway Post Office (RPO) cars entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was initiated. They were used by staff to separate mail for connection with a westbound stagecoach departing soon after the train's arrival at St. Joseph. This service lasted approximately one year.
The first permanent Railway Post Office route was established on August 28, 1864, between Chicago, Illinois, and Clinton, Iowa. This service is distinguished from the 1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the route's end-points.[citation needed]
George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, originally came up with the idea of having mail processed and distributed while the mail was on board, en route in mail cars. With the assistance of Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House at the time, and A. N. Zevely, Third Assistant Postmaster General, Armstrong was authorized to test his ideas.
In 1869, the Railway Mail Service (RMS), headed by George B. Armstrong, was officially inaugurated to handle the transportation and sorting of mail aboard trains. Armstrong was promoted from a supervisory position in the Chicago post office following his experiments in 1864 with a converted route agent's car on runs between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa.