RPO Daze

[altivo]

Wild and wooly day that began with gloomy clouds and whipped through some really black thunderstorms before I got chores done and packed up to go join a furry group at the Illinois Railway Museum for RPO Days and a picnic.

RPO means Railroad Post Office, in case you didn't know, and the museum had their best example out on the rails today, with a postal clerk from the post office in town there to operate a temporary branch station. I got the post card and envelope shown here with the official cancellation specified. What was really interesting to me were the demonstrations of the way mail bags used to be loaded and dropped by a moving train. The mail to be taken on is suspended on a pole alongside the tracks and the postal worker on board uses a special hook hinged to the side of the doorway to reach out and snatch the mailbag without any need for the train to stop at all. The mailbag to be dropped off is literally kicked out the door at the same time so it lands on the platform. At least, that's what happens if they do it right. Every time we watched, they did it right. I have a 30 second video of the operation, and as soon as I figure out how to get it uploaded to Flickr, I'll provide the link.

We had a nice picnic lunch in Electric Park at the museum, once the rain passed over. Then we rode on a couple of trains, including the mail train, before running back to the farm to feed the horses, sheep, and dogs. Then off to a restaurant in Marengo for supper. More photos to follow, but it's too late now and I'm flattened.

Comments

[doco.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty dull stamp though. Over here, they usually come up with something that's marginally more interesting.

[altivo]

That's a nice cachet. I think in this case though, the museum chose to use the original cancellation bullseye that belonged to the RPO they were running. "Chicago and Council Bluffs" was the actual line on which the car was used back in the 1920s. That also made official approval of the event for actual mail handling much easier. The actual 1920s cancellation would have consisted only of the circular date stamp and the lozenge shaped "killer" to the right of it, with "RMS" for Railroad Mail Service. The added bars and text meet today's postal requirements by identifying the current location of the service. Mail from this event did enter the regular mailstream if desired, and the mailbags were loaded and supervised by an active postal employee. (Who was very nice and seemed to be enjoying the event as much as everyone else.)

[moonhare]

The mail to be taken on is suspended on a pole alongside the tracks and...

*snicker* the first time I ever 'saw that done' was in a Sylvester/Tweety cartoon! Thank you Warner Bro's for expanding my otherwise sheltered life.

Very nice day :o)

[altivo]

In spite of the rain yesterday morning, it was great fun. I just posted a video of an actual exchange this morning. Hope I did it right so it will be viewable. I will add a few more still shots from the day later.