Welcome to Postal History Sunday, featured weekly on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog. If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with this one (the most recent always shows up at the top).
This week, we're actually going to start with an item that was probably more of a souvenir piece than a postal history piece. But, the advertising envelope is interesting to me and it provides a colorful opening to the topic of trains and the mail.
The Rock Island Railroad ran through my hometown of Newton, Iowa, when I was growing up. And, like many kids at the time, I had some fascination with railroads and trains. My grandfather had a Lionel, O-gauge set of model trains in the basement that we would get to see him run during some visits. I was even fortunate enough to have some of my own HO-gauge trains and I favored pieces that featured rail companies I saw in real life, like the Rock Island line.
This particular cover was clearly intended to advertise the Rock Island passenger trains that were serving the central part of the United States. But, it specially highlights the route to southern California via the "Golden State" route or train. The envelope itself was probably sent by or to a stamp collector because the postage stamp commemorating railroad train engineers (issued in 1950) was used to pay the 3 cents internal letter mail rate. It is even possible that the recipient, Joe Keefe, mailed this envelope in another envelope so that he could have this mailed to him. It was not uncommon for collectors who sought specific postmarks to send items care of the post office to have just such an item postmarked and sent back.
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| Chi. W.Lib. & Om. E.D. Train 9 - Railway Post Office |
It gets a bit more interesting when we look at the postal marking dated May 5, 1954 (an enhanced image helps us see it a bit better). The abbreviations on the marking stand for Chicago, West Liberty and Omaha, Eastern Division, which would be the name of the Railway Postal Office where the letter was mailed. These passenger trains typically had a car dedicated to carry the mail and these were staffed by mail clerks that sorted mail and could process mail on board. It is possible a passenger on "Train 9" saw the envelope and decided to send the letter. It is also possible that this particular stamp was made available on the train to encourage just this sort of mailing. In the end, I'll likely never know the original motivation for sending this item to Keefe.
And, just to do this thing right... the RMS in the football shaped cancellation stands for Railway Mail Service. And now you know.
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| from a May 1957 schedule brochure |
Trains 9 and 10 were known as the "Corn Belt Rocket," with Train 9 outgoing from Chicago and Train 10 outgoing from Omaha. So, this particular envelope was mailed by someone heading west on the Corn Belt Rocket - one of the twenty Rockets advertised on the cover.
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| You can see Train 9's schedule in 1957, 4th column |
While I was not able to find a schedule for 1954, I did find this one on the Streamliner Memories site from the same brochure the prior image was from. Train 9 on the Corn Belt Rocket was an overnight express for passengers, hence the emphasis on reclining seats and the availability of pillows. A Chicago departure at 10 PM would get you to Omaha at 8:15 the next morning. And, as a side note, the train would likely pass through my home town at about 4:30 AM, but it was not scheduled to stop there. It did, however, make a stop at Newton at 2:42 PM on the return trip from Omaha.
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| Corn Belt Rocket, 1967, near Grinnell. Photo Ron Goodenow |
The return trip on Train 10 would leave just before mid-day from Omaha, so most photos of the Corn Belt Rocket would be east-bound, like the 1967 photo shown above. By the time we reach the 1960s, passenger services offered by the Rock Island Railroad and other railroads were in decline. And, the US Post Office was also moving away from Railway Post Offices. While they did have Highway Post Offices for routes that did not have corresponding train service, the real reason to reduce the use of traveling post offices was the proliferation of automated sorting equipment in the non-mobile offices, something that helps explains the addition of the Zip code to addresses in the US.
Speaking of Zip codes, some folks might remember Mr. Zip - but for those who do not, here is a quick summary of who Mr. Zip was. You can even listen to Ethel Merman sing the Zip code song (scroll to the bottom of that page). Or maybe you prefer this version with the Swingin' Six?
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| Train 10 arrives in Des Moines. Apr 15, 1960. Photo Ed Wojtas |
An excellent two-part article titled the Rise and Decline of the Rock Island Passenger Train in 20th Century by Paul C Nelson was published in the Annals of Iowa (1971). This article provides an in-depth look at the process that took an inefficient passenger service and turned it into a successful enterprise - at least for a little while. Part II of this article can be viewed here, you will need to search and find the download link for Part I.
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| photo by David Sebben, 10/24/18 |
According to Nelson, the last of the steam engines providing passenger-service for the Rock Island Railroad had been retired by 1954, with the last steam engines documented to be serving in this capacity being in 1952. Replacing them were the shiny new diesel-powered engines with their streamlined profile. Rock Island actively promoted their new engines and enhanced services, using the "Rocket" motif effectively. But, by 1961, demand for passenger train services was waning as increased access to cars and planes made train travel less attractive. Yet, Rock Island, with its fleet of Rockets, maintained its passenger service longer than its competitors in the state, attempting to cut costs by removing more expensive services, such as dining cars.
Trains and the Mail
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| image from Colorado Railroad Museum |
The development of rail service and the expansion of the use of postal mail services are strongly linked in many parts of the world. The first official carriage of the mail via train is acknowledged to have been in the the United Kingdom (November 1830) as was the first processing of mail on board a train (1838). In the United States, the first official mail contract for a railroad to carry the mail was in 1834. A very good online summary can be found at this site. If you want to dig deeper, I recommend Hugh Feldman's work on the subject of early mail contracts with railways.
The Railway Mail Service officially started in 1869 after a couple of experimental services in 1862 and 1864 (this last was run between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa). Dedicated mail cars would be attached to trains that would run specific routes, picking up mail, sorting mail, and dropping it off along the way.
If this topic interests you, the Smithsonian has several online pieces on the Railway Mail Service, including some oral history with recordings of some of those who worked in these mail cars for the RMS.
Hobbyists who enjoy the history of the railroads, model railroading, stamps, and postal history tend to be among the most willing to dig into details and share their findings with others. As a result, a person can get started in collecting postal history that features Railway Post Office (RPO) markings and find a fair amount of resources. A good summary of that collecting area can be found here, at the TPO and Seapost Society website.
In France, rail development can actually be tracked, to a certain extent by simply taking a look at the markings on letters sent in the mail. Railway postmarks often featured two locations (the two terminal points of the route), in this case, Nantes and Paris, along with the date and a designation for the railway crew (or train). The obliterating postmark would be applied to deface the postage stamp so it could not be reused, but even it has the letters "NP" - for Nantes-Paris. The ordering of the names mattered, because it told everyone which direction the train was heading (from Nantes towards Paris). If it were going the other way, it would read Paris A Nantes and the cancellation would read "PN."
Some countries, such as Switzerland, would include the word "Ambulant" to indicate that the letter had been processed in a mobile post office (see the top right marking on the 1867 letter above). It was possible that more than one railway post office could put a marking on any given letter. Essentially, each time a group of letters was re-sorted on a new train, the letters would likely receive a postmark.
Think of it this way. The train picks up mail in Zurich, Switzerland - in the middle of the country. The clerks on the train might sort letters to France and Italy into different places. The letters to France and Italy would likely get put onto different trains in Basel where they might get sorted based on regions in their respective country. And this might be repeated yet again, depending on the processes adopted by each country's postal service.
The back of this envelope mailed in 1869 in Belgium for Switzerland shows multiple progress points. The marking at the right is a Belgian railway marking that reads "Suisse MIDI II." This refers to the MIDI station in Brussels where mail was likely sorted into bags by country (or perhaps it was sorted on the train leaving MIDI station, I do not know this answer). The letter must have gone from Belgium to France where it traveled to Pontarlier, which sits near the border of Switzerland. The middle marking reads "Pontarlier - n - Berne" which would be another traveling or railway post office marking. Finally, the letter was received at the Bern post office to be delivered to the recipient.
There are people who specialize in finding postmarks for as many railway post offices as they are able to. Some will focus on a geographic region and often they will only consider a specific time period for that region. Others are generalists who love to find everything and anything related to railway post offices. But, I like these markings because they give me more clues to figure out how any given item got from point A to point B.
That, and I was able to identify a colorful letter that likely passed by my hometown on a railroad line I am familiar with.
There you are! Another Postal History Sunday in the books. Thank you for joining me and I hope you found something to like in this week's entry.
Have a fine remainder of your day and a great week to come!
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