Class MPBM54 RPO MU Combine car #1384 is seen here at Morris Park  (Rugen-Huneke) 

Handling the mail was a serious business and mail handlers on board trains had to observe security precautions.  Windows on the cars were barred, doors were locked and employees wore sidearms.  BM62 interior photo: ACF 3/17/1914

Beginning in 1921, RPO clerks were required to carry revolvers, surplus WWI Army Colt 45s. Due to their size and weight, it was not necessary that the revolvers be worn by the clerks, but they had to keep them handy should they be needed. These guns were replaced in the 1930s by the Post Office Department's snub nosed 38s. Because these guns were of a smaller size and of lighter weight, clerks were required to wear them at all times while on duty
Info: Clarence R. Wilking

Here’s a view of mail handlers inside a LIRR RPO car taken on June 18, 1965, the last day mail was carried on the LIRR.  You’ll see the POD employee at the left is wearing his sidearm while on duty.  The holsters were leather with “Property of U. S. Post Office Dept.” stamped into the side. (Photographer unidentified)

Mail handlers on board new runs had to practice their sorting so they would be proficient on whatever line they were assigned.  To this end, RPO “practice cases” were available as were small cards for the handlers to practice sorting into the various “pigeon-holes” in the box, which, as you can see below, is a smaller version of the full-sized racks seen in the car interior photo above.

(Both photos courtesy of David M. Morrison)

Mail could be dropped by individuals wishing to mail a letter into a RPO car while it was sitting at the station platform.  A typical mail slot was installed in the side of the car near the door and it was of sufficient height to be reached by someone standing on the platform.

Clerks in charge of RPOs had to have stamps available, in case they were needed by the public. Stamps on letters mailed at the postal car or at depot letter boxes were canceled by a hand postmarker, showing the name of the RPO, the train number, and the date. Info: Clarence R. Wilking

These four images are close-ups of the images of the cars posted above to show the location of the mail slot built into the side of the car to allow people needing to mail a letter while at the station to drop it conveniently in the side of the car, probably on the very train in which they will soon be riding. Info: Dave Keller

MAIL CRANES:
Starting in 1869, railroad companies installed mail cranes for the exchange of non fragile mail at non stop stations. There were two arms on the crane, the upper arm pointing up and the lower arm pointing down when not in use. There was a swivel pin at the end of each arm, where the catcher pouch was attached. These arms were folded parallel toward the track when the pouch was hung, the spring tension of the arms holding the pouch about three feet from the side of the train. As soon as the pouch was caught, the arms sprang back to their original position. The crane had to be installed in perfect alignment, as to its height and its distance from the track.

If the exchange was made after dark, a lighted lantern was hung on the crane. It was the duty of the mail messenger who carried the mail between the post office and the station to witness the exchange. It was the engineer's duty to give a station whistle (one long), allowing the clerk time to get to the door. A good "local clerk" had his own landmarks or sounds and did not depend on the engineer's whistle. In later years, safety goggles were provided to clerks making local exchanges. Thousands of these exchanges were made each day by the RPOs. Info: Clarence R. Wilking

Bags of mail were brought to and from the respective Post Offices and railroad stations to be loaded on the train or taken back to the Post Office. My father remembers the Postmaster at Holtsville meeting the train with the mail bag in a wheelbarrow.  The Post Office at that time was in an old general store called Lydecker’s which used to stand facing Waverly Avenue and across from the station at the western-most end of the crushed cinder platform.  Pushing the wheelbarrow on that platform was no easy task.  It would probably have violated some union contract in force today.

If the train were to stop, the bag would be manhandled up onto the car for loading or manhandled off the car into some form of conveyance . . . . a truck . . . a postal worker’s car trunk or, as in the case at my hometown of Holtsville, the Postmaster’s trusty old wheelbarrow for the “trip” back to Lydecker’s store.

However, most times mail was picked up “on the fly” meaning the train didn’t stop.  This was effected by a POD employee or, in some instances, a designated railroad employee lugging the hefty mailbag to a trackside mail crane.  He climbed the ladder and hooked the top of the mailbag on the upper arm and then yanked the lower arm down and hooked the bottom of the mailbag to it, stretching the bag taught.


Here’s a view of the mail crane to the left of the tracks at the South Country Road crossing of the Montauk branch in East Patchogue.  The East Patchogue Post Office used this
crane for mail pickup. The crane arms are at rest.  View is looking west towards the crossing shanty on April 24, 1946 (Fred Weber photo)

Mail crane pick-up Central Islip c.1930

Here’s a close-up of RPO car #7751 showing the steel grab bar in the “out-of-service” position, but in use as a guard rail as the pedestrian door is open.
 

RPO #7717 westbound mail crane pickup at Shinnecock Hills - View W c.1955

Islip mail crane  6/17/1965 (Ziel-Queens Public Library)  Located approx 500' east of Islip Ave. this is the eastbound crane just south of the original LIRR Main.

CATCHER POUCHES:
Catcher pouches were subject to very hard use, both by being thrown from the train when dispatching and by being caught from the crane. They were made of very heavy canvas, reinforced with leather on both ends, where there were large iron rings for attaching the pouch to the crane. The mail was equally divided in the pouch and a strap in the center was drawn tight; that was the point at which the end of the catcher arm first made contact. The pouch was hung on the crane in an upside down position. Info: Clarence R. Wilking

We’re looking at the mail crane again at Central Islip, only this time a train is in the process of yanking the bag off the crane by the metal arm.  It will soon be manhandled into the car for opening, postmarking, canceling and sorting. (George G. Ayling photo)

Once the bag was snagged, the momentum of the train and the resulting breeze kept the bag wrapped around the steel bar until the mail handler would lug the bag inside the train to be opened and sorted into various other destination bags on board.  

          RPO/REA car #7743 catching mailbag on the fly at Bayport, NY – August, 1958   (Art Huneke photo, Dave Keller archive)

In reverse operation, the mail bag, if on a non-stop train, would be tossed off in the vicinity of the mail crane while the train was at speed and the designated railroad employee would retrieve the bag, bring it into the ticket office and await its pickup by one of the postal employees from the local Post Office in town.

This tossing of the bag from a moving train created a problem initially.  Sometimes the bags would hit the hard ground and bounce back up and go under the wheels of the train where the bag would be run over, severed and the mail strewn all over.
          
To avoid this mishap, low, slat fences were installed in the “dump zone” trackside so that the bag, if bouncing back up, would hit the wooden slat fence and stay contained AWAY from the rails and the moving steel wheels.

If you refer to the image above of the mail bag on the crane at Central Islip in the snowy, winter view, look at the base of the crane and beyond . . . you’ll see the slat fence to stop the mailbag from going under the train.

LIRR FM CPA20-5 #2001 is pulling a Pennsylvania R.R. RPO car which is not only about to pick up the suspended mailbag from the trackside mail crane, but also shows a mailbag for local delivery airborne in the process of being tossed-off. The foldout metal bar on the car door is about to hit the racked mailbag dead-center. Eastbound at Blue Point - 1951.

The photo was taken just after diesels took over the LIRR.  I always wanted a picture of a train picking up mail but I had forgotten railway mail pick-up rule #1: What gets picked up also is detrained.  

Anyhow, I felt an object go whizzing by my head just as I snapped the photo. It was the off-loaded bag and it missed me by inches. It appears in the photo just about at the coupling point of the engine and RPO car.  I was lucky--another few inches and my brain would have been scattered along the ROW and deservedly so. 

Well, it was a lesson I would never forget! Info/Photo: Stephen Myers

As mentioned earlier, mail was sorted on the moving train and the letters, etc. were also cancelled on board.  This created another railroad-related hobby of collecting stamped “RPO” covers some of which are depicted below.

This old cover from September 11, 1902 shows a scan of the front as well as the back of the envelope because this envelope was carried partly by regular carrier and partly by train.  You’ll see the front of the enveloped is postmarked in a normal fashion in Brooklyn but on the BACK of the envelope, we see the railroad postmark of “ Brooklyn So. Shore, Tr 1.”

Another example of the Brooklyn South Shore RPO service:  This post card from August 13, 1906 was postmarked at Freeport and the railroad cancellation of  "BROOKLY SO. SHORE R.P.O. Train 21” applied.