Fall 2006

Classic Trains is a quarterly magazine celebrating the “golden years of railroading.” Each issue covers the North American railroad scene from the 1920s to the late 1970s with extraordinary photographs and compelling writing. Giant steam locomotives, colorful streamliners, down-home local trains, great passenger terminals, recollections of railroaders and train-watchers . . . they’re all in the pages of Classic Trains.

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Mail by Rail: The fast trains and elite crews of the Railway Mail Service

Fast Mail

By David P. Morgan

Longtime Trains Editor David P. Morgan rides the Burlington Route’s Fast Mail between Chicago and Omaha. Adapted from a booklet published by the Burlington in 1959 on the occasion of the train’s 75th anniversary. With a sidebar by William W. Kratville on Council Bluffs Transfer, where Midwestern roads turned mail over to the Union Pacific.

The Few, the Proud

By Peter A. Hansen

Retired Railway Post Office clerks, members of an elite corps of public servants, recall the adventure, hardships, and satisfaction of working on mail cars out of Kansas City. ONLINE EXTRA: See films shot by one of the retired clerks of mail trains on the Santa Fe in 1967.

Online video extra: Santa Fe mail trains in 1967

In the Fall 2006 issue of Classic Trains, we look at the fast trains and elite crews of the Railway Mail Service. These video clips are from 8mm moves shot by mail-car clerk G. W. Corben on the Santa Fe in 1967, as a number of Railway Post Office routes were making their last runs.

Mrs. Adkins Meets No. 51

By Richard Steinheimer

In a series of photographs by Richard Steinheimer, the postmistress of Caliente, Calif., makes the daily exchange of mailbags with SP’s San Joaquin Daylight in 1966.

RPO Rainbow

By Robert S. McGonigal

An all-color gallery of Railway Post Office cars, from tiny trolleys to 85-foot streamliners.

Tales from a Coatesville Mail Helper

By Bert Pennypacker

Bert Pennypacker recalls his first job: slinging mailbags at Coatesville, Pa., in the early 1940’s. With a sidebar on the two biggest mail-haulers, PRR and NYC.

Classics Today: Snag that Bag!

By Karl Zimmermann

Museums and tourist lines keep RPO history alive through static displays and pouch-catching demonstrations.

Racing into History

By Don L. Hofsommer

In 1967-68, historian Don Hofsommer recorded on film the final months of a classic Railway Post Office run, the Duluth & St. Paul RPO on the Great Northern’s Badger and Gopher.

Night Train Stowaway

By David A. Thompson

On the Chicago & North Western in 1955, an 8-year-old boy stayed up all night to ride a mail car (and the locomotive) with his RPO-clerk father.

Boston to Seattle for 3 Cents

By David A. Thompson

How a letter would have crossed the country in 1947.

Big Emmas over the Red River

By Ed Theisinger

Color photos of a New Jersey railfan’s 1952 trip to Kentucky, where he bagged Louisville & Nashville M-1 2-8-4’s crossing a spectacular trestle. ONLINE EXTRA: See movie clips of L&N Big Emmas on Kentucky Derby trains from the Herron Rail Video archives.

Online video extra: L&N M-1 2-8-4’s in action

In 1956, several L&N M-1 2-8-4’s worked special passenger trains for the Kentucky Derby at Louisville. It was the last year for steam on Derby Day trains, and the only time “Big Emma’s” were used. These video clips of Big Emmas on Derby trains is from the program “Reflections of American Railroading: The Action-Packed 16mm Films of Dr. Howard Blackburn” from Herron Rail Video.

Photo Section

By Jim Shaughnessy

Diesels on the Monon, Delaware & Hudson, Wabash, Grand Trunk Western, and New York Central in color. Lehigh Valley diesel and Jersey Central steam in color at Aldene, N.J. Southern Railway’s diesel motor cars in color. IC steam in black-and-white and color. A black-and-white gallery of Sydney & Louisburg steam.

Bird’s-Eye View

Jacksonville (Fla.) Terminal in the 1940’s.

Online extra: Jacksonville Terminal train chart

Daily trains in and out of Jacksonville Terminal, 1946. Reprinted from June 1978 Trains magazine.

One Day at . . . North Platte, Nebr.

Run-through power predominates on a May 1970 morning

Departments

Editor’s Page

Final Night for the Fast Mail

Fallen Flags Remembered

New York, Ontario & Western

True Color

N&W 611 at Iaeger, W.Va., in 1959

A Classic Year

1959: Motive-power Transition Continues

The Way It Was

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, by Edward J. Prendergast • Canned Steam at “The Cash,” by Harry V. Noble • First Train to Tower Grove Usually Wins, by John A. Mills • Policing the Olympian Hi, by John P. McMahan • An Accidental Beginning, by Barry Anderson

Car Stop

Public Service Coordinated Transport in and around Newark, N.J.

Second Section

A Gold Mine of Rail-Mail Information. ONLINE EXTRA: See movie clips of mail clerks at work from the Railway Mail Service Library’s DVD.

Online video extra: Railway Mail Service Library DVD

See clips of “Mail in Motion” and “Men and Mail in Transit,” two 1956 films offered on DVD by the Railway Mail Service Library.

Bumping Post

Dallas Union Terminal

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