By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
September 16, 2015

The Fred Harvey Company, around 1912, published this pastoral scene showing a roadway in Swope Park. It was mailed to Mrs. Millie Patterson in Larou, Mass., and bears a Railway Postmark from the Kansas City and LaJunta Railway Post Office, April 22, 1915.

The description on the back of the card reads: “Swope Park, the gift of the late Thomas H. Swope contains 1,332 acres. A natural park, it is the second largest of American playgrounds; located in the southeast corner of the city, it is easily reached by trolley or automobile via beautiful Swope Parkway. In this great park, art and nature are delightfully blended and the lover of each will find satisfaction here. Winding through the park are many miles of drives of matchless charm. Many beautiful rock formations contribute to the beauty of the park. The Blue River, Lake of the Woods and the Swope Park Lagoon afford boating facilities for the lovers of this sport.”

RPO(Railway postal Office) cars, also known as mail cars or postal cars, were equipped and staffed to handle most postal processing functions. First class mail, magazines and newspapers were all sorted, cancelled when necessary and dispatched to post offices in towns along the railroad’s route. Most all of the major railways in the United States had RPO cars in their line.

One interesting feature of RPO cars was a hook that could be used to snatch a leather or canvas pouch of outgoing mail hanging on a track-side mail crane at smaller towns where the train did not stop. With trains operating at 70 miles per hour or faster, a postal clerk would have a pouch of mail ready to be dispatched as the train passed the station. In a coordinated movement, the catcher arm was swung out to catch the hanging mail pouch while the clerk stood in the open doorway of the moving rail car. As the inbound pouch slammed into the catcher arm, the clerk kicked the outbound mail pouch out of the car. The key was to make sure the mail sack was kicked far enough out of the door that it was not sucked back under the speeding train. An employee of the local post office would then retrieve the pouch and deliver it to the post office.

RPO cars also had mail slots on the side of the car, so that mail could actually be deposited in the car, much like using the corner mail box, while the train was stopped at a station. Those desiring the fastest delivery would bring their letters to the train station for dispatch on the RPO, knowing that overnight delivery would be virtually assured.

At its height, RPO cars were used on over 9,000 train routes covering more than 200,000 route miles in North America. While the majority of this service consisted of one or more cars at the head end of passenger trains, many railways operated solid mail trains between major cities, often carrying over 300 tons of mail daily.