Catcher pouch

Last updated
This is a transfer of a catcher pouch to a mail train of a Railway Post Office. The Moment of the Pull.jpg
This is a transfer of a catcher pouch to a mail train of a Railway Post Office.
1909 U.S. Patent 928,117 catcher pouch crane US Patent 928,117 drawing.jpg
1909 U.S. Patent 928,117 catcher pouch crane
UK catcher pouch mechanism Travelling Post Office circa 1890.png
UK catcher pouch mechanism
Post Office Clerk in mail car ready to make an outgoing-incoming exchange Railway Post Office Clerk in Mail Car.jpg
Post Office Clerk in mail car ready to make an outgoing-incoming exchange

A catcher pouch is a mail bag that can be used in conjunction with a mail hook to "catch" mail awaiting pickup from a moving train. Catcher pouches were most often used by railway post offices in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. [1] Its use was limited to exchanges onto moving trains. The specially constructed catcher pouch was grabbed by the catcher mechanism in the passing railway car [2] and the catcher pouch would release from the holding rings on the mail crane. [3] [4] This technique was known as "mail on the fly". Starting in the 1870s the use of this technique of the Railway Mail Service was an important issue in the United States. It was a popular technique and the backbone of the United States Postal Service through the 1930s. [5] [upper-alpha 1]

Contents

Mail on-the-fly technique

When the mail clerk of the railway post office car grabbed the catcher pouch on the mail crane he would at the same time kick out the outgoing mail for delivery to that village. The idea behind the catcher pouch was that there could be an exchange of mail to villages too small to justify the train stopping. [6] The complete transfer technique (tossing out the outgoing mail a second before grabbing the catcher pouch) required much skill and potentially could cause harm or even death for those not trained properly. [7] Another reason why the catcher pouch and mail crane were developed is so the train did not have to slow down just for the exchange of mail. [5]

The mail on-the-fly was not a smooth operating technique. [8] One problem with the technique was that the postal clerk had to pay close attention when he raised the train's catcher arm. If it was raised too early there was a chance of hitting and destroying switch targets, telegraph poles, and railway semaphore signals, as well as the train's mail catcher arm. If the clerk was too late in raising the train's catcher arm, he might miss the catcher pouch altogether. [9]

In the United Kingdom as early as 1855 an apparatus for snatching mailbags on-the-fly and delivering mail without stopping a train was in use at Slough, England. It continued in service until 1939. [10]

Mail hook

A mail hook is an installation alongside a railroad where a catcher pouch can be hung, to be picked up by a passing train without the train having to stop.

Nineteenth-century regulations

Catcher pouches could not be used for any other purpose. The catcher pouch was to be used only for letters (sometimes newspapers were an exception). The maximum weight of a filled catcher pouch was to be 50 pounds (23 kg). The catcher pouch was to be locked and placed upside down on the mail crane no sooner than 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival of the Mail Train. The catcher pouch was to be tied in the middle before it was to be transferred. If a small amount of mail, it should be put in the lower half below the tie strap. If a large amount of mail, it should be divided equally between the upper half and the lower half of the catcher pouch. [11]

Construction

The catcher pouch is a specialized form of sack made of an extra tough canvas material and had metal rings on each end so they could attach to the arm of a railway mail bag crane. The body of the pouch was strengthened by leather bindings both at the top and bottom. A Registered Mail pouch came also with a leather bottom and had a special postal lock to secure the contents. A leather strap was secured around the center of the canvas body of the catcher pouch when it was readied to be snatched by a passing train's mail hook. [12]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ As the United States Postal Service undergoes its fiscal crisis in the second decade of the 21st century, it is well to note that these are not entirely new problems. A national pickup and delivery system to remote and small locales is a fiscally challenging model. "A Congressional Investigation of the United States Post Office Department in 1900 disclosed that postal expenditures were not and, in some cases, could not be apportioned to revenues. A remarkable anomaly in Maine, at the intersection of mail bags and a printing press, provided, at the time, a basis for costing questions of policy and regulation and, for us now, an understanding of the postal commons in its Golden Age."DeBlois, Diane; Harris, Robert Dalton. "It's in the Bag" – The Shape of Turn-of-the-Century Mail" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 15, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2012.

Related Research Articles

The Railway Mail Service of the United States Post Office Department was a significant mail transportation service in the US from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century. The RMS, or its successor the Postal Transportation Service (PTS), carried the vast majority of letters and packages mailed in the United States from the 1890s until the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Post Office Department</span> Former US federal department (1872–1971)

The United States Post Office Department was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet department. It was headed by the postmaster general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZIP Code</span> Numeric postal code used in the US and its territories

A ZIP Code is a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). The term ZIP was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently and quickly when senders use the code in the postal address.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Railway post office</span> Mail transportation service

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.

The Railway Mail Service (RMS) Library is a major collection of materials pertaining to en route distribution history. Incorporated in May 2003, it can assist researchers interested in Railway Mail Service, route agent, Seapost, Railway Post Office (RPO), and Highway Post Office (HPO) history. The collection has many unique, original-source documents that provide answers to questions dealing with the transportation and distribution of USA Mail between 1862 and 1977, as well as other countries during the 19th century and 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Highway Post Office</span>

The term highway post office refers to brightly colored red, white and blue buses used to carry mail to multiple areas over wide distances.

An air mail facility is an installation for airmails of the United States.

Terminal railway post offices were sorting facilities which were established by the Railway Mail Service to speed the distribution of parcel post. These offices were usually located in or near railroad stations in major cities or junction points. Terminal railway post offices operated generally from 1913-1914 into the mid-1960s, before their function was absorbed by post office sectional centers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transfer office</span>

From the 1880s until well into the 1950s, virtually all long-distance transportation of United States Mail was performed by the railroads. Specially equipped railway post office (RPO) cars were a part of most passenger trains, the cars staffed by highly trained railway postal clerks who sorted mail as the train sped along its route. The growth of this mail distribution network paralleled the expansion of the railroads, allowing mail to be exchanged between routes at junction points where two railroads crossed or shared passenger terminals.

A Seapost was a mail compartment aboard an ocean-going vessel wherein international exchange mail was distributed. The first American service of this type was the U.S.-German Seapost, which began operating in 1891 on the S.S. Havel North German Lloyd Line. The service rapidly expanded with routes to Great Britain, Central America, South America, and Asia. The Seapost service still employed fifty-five clerks in early 1941. The last route of this type was terminated October 19, 1941, due to unsafe wartime conditions on the Atlantic Ocean. The few remaining Seapost clerks transferred to branches of the Railway Mail Service (RMS). Seapost operations for the US Post Office Department were supervised from a New York City, New York, office.

The Postal Transportation Service (PTS) was the renamed successor to the Railway Mail Service of the United States Post Office Department from October 1, 1949. Although this branch of the service had been in charge of all transit mail, some parts had little to do with railroads, even though they were still the most important part of the service. In 1950, of the 32,000 clerks assigned to the PTS, only about 16,000 actually worked on trains. The remainder were in terminals, transfer offices, Air Mail Facility, Highway Post Offices (HPO), administrative offices, etc. Boat Railway Post Office, Streetcar Railway Post Offices, and the Seapost Service had already been discontinued. The name of the Chief Clerk's office was changed to District Superintendent's office.

Streetcar railway post office (RPO) routes operated in several major US cities between the 1890s and 1920s. The final route was in Baltimore, Maryland. The Mobile Post Office Society, Affiliate 64 of the American Philatelic Society, has published monographs detailing the operational history of each route.

The National Postal Transport Association (NPTA) was a labor union representing workers in the Postal Transportation Service in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owney (dog)</span> Late 1800s U.S. Railway Mail Service mascot

Owney, was a terrier mix adopted in the United States as a postal mascot by the Albany, New York, post office about 1888. The Albany mail professionals recommended the dog to their Railway Mail Service colleagues, and he became a nationwide mascot for nine years (1888–1897). He traveled over 140,000 miles throughout the 48 contiguous United States and around the world as a mascot of the Railway Post Office and the United States Postal Service. He was the subject of commemorative activities, including a 2011 U.S. postage stamp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile post office</span> Type of postal service infrastructure

Mobile post offices deliver mail and other postal services through specially equipped vehicles, such as trucks and trains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Bangs</span> Developer of the railroad mail car

George Bangs was an American businessman who began his adult life working in private ventures including printing, shoes, farming and journalism before becoming postmaster of Aurora, Illinois, in 1861. During his postal career, he worked with the Railway Mail Service (RMS). There he improved the mail sorting system on trains and was the most prominent advocate of "fast-mail" express mail trains. In 1871, as the RMS General Superintendent, he oversaw the start of the "fast-mail" service which began in 1875. The next year he resigned after Congress cut funding. He died in 1877 and was remembered with an elaborate grave marker denoting his contribution to the postal service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlotte May Pierstorff</span> American shipped through the post

Charlotte May Pierstorff, American girl who was shipped alive through the United States postal system by parcel post on February 19, 1914. After the incident, parcel post regulations were changed to prohibit the shipment of humans.

<i>Mail Delivery</i> (sculptures)

Mail Delivery is a set of four relief sculptures by Edmond Amateis completed in 1941 for the Section of Painting and Sculpture and displayed at the U.S. Court House and Post Office Building in Philadelphia, now called the Robert N. C. Nix, Sr., Federal Building, at 9th and Market Streets. The reliefs are carved in granite and each measures about 108 inches (2.7 m) in height by 120 inches (3.0 m) in width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mail bag</span> Package for carrying posted objects

A mail bag or mailbag can be one of several types of bags used for collecting or carrying different types of postal material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pony Express mochila</span> Removable leather cover for a horse saddle

A Pony Express mochila was a removable lightweight leather cover put over a horse saddle for carrying mail and was used by the Pony Express.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Romanski, Fred J. (Fall 2005). "The "Fast Mail": A History of the U.S. Railway Mail Service"". Prologue Magazine . Smithsonian National Postal Museum: 1–6.
  2. ↑ Melius p. 40
  3. ↑ Scheer, Frank. "Railway Post Office Lingo". Guide and Glossary of Terms for Mobile Unit Substitutes, Railway Mail Service Library. Eastern Illinois University . Retrieved August 16, 2012.
  4. ↑ Cushing, Marshall Henry (1892). Story of our post office: the greatest government department in all its phases (Google eBooks). Boston, Massachusetts: A.M. Thayer. p.  116 . Retrieved August 15, 2012. fourth kind of mail bag, the catcher pouch.
  5. 1 2 Pope, Nancy (December 2007). "Railway Mail Crane". Former Object of the Month. National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution . Retrieved August 16, 2012.
  6. ↑ Cushing, Marshall (1893). The Story of Our Post Office: The Greatest Government Department in all its Phases. Boston, Massachusetts: A.M. Thayer & Co. p. 59 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ↑ DeBlois, Diane; Harris, Robert Dalton. "Constant Motion: The Job of Railway Post Office Clerks Teaching Ideas" (PDF). Teaching with Primary Sources. Smithsonian Institution; Eastern Illinois University. p. 4. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
  8. ↑ Collins, Ronnie. "The "Mail Catcher"" . Retrieved August 16, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Mail-on-the-fly". National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved August 16, 2012.
  10. ↑ EARLY PUBLIC SERVICES
  11. ↑ The Postal laws and regulations (Google eBook), United States. Post Office Department, G.P.O. 1893, pp. 239-240
  12. ↑ DeBlois, Diane; Harris, Robert Dalton. "It's in the Bag" – The Shape of Turn-of-the-Century Mail" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 15, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2012.

Sources

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.