Re: C&S RPO 11: More details

Posted by Mike Trent on Nov 05, 2018; 11:51am
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/C-S-RPO-11-Linn-Moedinger-s-Shapeways-Print-in-Sn3-and-Hon3-tp12427p12623.html

Thanks for the detailed and expansive information.

I would still contend that if mail service west of Como was not continued in later years, the Baggage and Mail Car was still, inarguably, present in every train.  It was the presence of the clerk and mail that made the car a Railway Post Office. The USPS may only have routed mail between Denver and Como in later days, and used the train for delivery between those points as a less expensive alternative than trucking. The clerk would simply have laid over in Como for the return to Denver the following day. The Postal end would be locked, and pretty cold the following morning in Winter.

If this was the case, the USPS would have routed mail to Leadville and the region on Standard Guage RPO's and then trucked it from there between Frisco and Breckenridge. Mail between Frisco and Dillon could have been done in a car or small truck, same as it would have been to other small places not on the railroad. Climax, Kokomo and other places could easily have had mail delivered by a truck which ran each way between Leadville and Breckenridge every day, just as they did after April 1937.

This actually makes sense to me, and the Baggage and Mail car was used only for baggage between Como and Leadville in later years.

Remember this was also the middle of the great depression. Easy to imagine this as a result of that. It probably also eliminated a Railway Postal Clerk's job.

So this actually could have happened, but who knows how that could be proven. All I can say for sure is that I see a mail clerk in the postal end of car #13 as it rolls through Dickey 6 times a week in three times weekly service.