The term highway post office refers to brightly colored red, white and blue buses used to carry mail to multiple areas over wide distances.
Due to withdrawal of many railway post office (RPO) trains from service, the U.S. Post Office Department decided to experiment with distribution of mail on large buses equipped similarly to RPO cars. On February 10, 1941, experimental service started on the Washington, DC and Harrisonburg, Virginia HPO. It was a success from the start, but due to World War II, expansion of the service was delayed for several years. After the war, the service increased rapidly, with more than 130 routes established between 1948 and 1955. As this service was somewhat enmeshed with the RPO service, its value decreased as RPOs were abolished. The last HPO service to operate in the U.S. was the Cleveland, Ohio, and Cincinnati, Ohio HPO, which was discontinued in 1974.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Post was transported over water in the United States in the later nineteenth and the twentieth century.
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 USA 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 Bureau of Transportation of the United States Post Office Department was established in 1960. It was the successor to the Postal Transportation Service (PTS); the PTS had responsibility for mail transportation contracting as well as employees assigned to Mobile Unit and stationary PTS facilities such as Air Mail Facility, Terminal Railway Post Office, or Transfer Office operations. Only the contract issuance and administration responsibilities for mail routes were given to the Bureau of Transportation. Human Resources were transferred to postmasters in the cities where Mobile and Stationary Units were located. This division of activity continued to the end of the Post Office Department and after it became the U.S. Postal Service.
Parcel post is a postal service for mail that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to be carried in bulk, to a regular schedule and at economic prices. Today, many parcels also travel by road and international shipments may travel by sea or airmail.
A postbus is a public bus service that is operated as part of local mail delivery as a means of providing public transport in rural areas with lower levels of patronage, where a normal bus service would be uneconomic or inefficient. Postbus services are generally run by a public postal delivery company and combine the functions of public transport and mail delivery and collection. A standard passenger fare is payable to the driver or mail carrier.
Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza is the main passenger rail and intercity bus station of Toledo, Ohio.
The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was the first railroad to cross Missouri starting in Hannibal in the northeast and going to St. Joseph, Missouri, in the northwest. It is said to have carried the first letter to the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, from a train pulled behind the locomotive Missouri.
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.
The Bangladesh Post Office also known by trade name Bangla Post is a government-operated agency responsible for providing postal services in Bangladesh. It is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology. This ministry is concerned with the policymaking for its two attached departments. The Director General of Bangladesh Post Office is Md Harunur Rashid.
The Washington–Chicago Express, an American named passenger train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), was one of four daily B&O trains operating between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois, via Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the 1930s–1960s. Other B&O trains of that period on the route were the Capitol Limited, Columbian, and the Shenandoah.
The Fast Mail was a Southern Railway mail and express train that operated between Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, Louisiana. The southbound Fast Mail carried the train number of 97, and was later known by the nickname of "Old 97". One such trip made by the train, on September 27, 1903, derailed at Stillhouse Trestle in Danville, Virginia, and was later known as the "Wreck of the Old 97", for which the service was most well known.
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. 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 and the catcher pouch would release from the holding rings on the mail crane. 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.
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