Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1891 — How Mail-Cars Are Manned. [ARTICLE]

How Mail-Cars Are Manned.

Nearly every railroad in the United States carries, at least once a day, one or more men whose business is to receive, sort and deliver the mail gathered at the towns along or near that road. If there is little work to be done one man does it alone, in a small room bnilt ii a part of the baggage-car or smoking-car. As the business increases, two or more men work together, having a whole car for their accommodation. The car is drawn directly behind the engine, so that there shall be no occasion for any passing through it. With still more business, between the large cities, two or more cars are run, until between New York and Chicago we have a whole train run exclusively for the mail service, made up of five cars and worked by twenty men. A line of railroad between two cities, used in this way, for sorting the mail, is called an “R. P. 0.,” i. e., “Railway Postoffice,” and there is an immense number of such in the country, taking their names from the chief offices on the line. Such are the “Boston and Albany,” “Boston, Springfield and Now York,” “Portland and Island Pond," “Chicago and Cedar Rapids,” and many hundred others. The runs vary greatly in length, ranging from twenty miles to as high as n thousand miles. The extremely long runs, with the exception of the “New Y’ork and Chicago,” are found only in the West, where there are great distance? between the cities. On such a run there will be two or more men, one crew sleeping while the other works. The “New York and Chicago is divided into three sections. On this run the twenty men who start out from New York are relieved by as many more at Syracuse, and these in turn are relieved at Cleveland by another company who take the train into Chicago. As a general thing, however, a run is planned to be about the distance which can be covered in a day. On all the more important lines there are two sets of men, one for day am d for night service. If the run is a short one with but little mail, one man does the work alone, running every day, and usually having several hours to rest at one end of the road or the other. Where the run is long enough, so that the trip takes all day, there will be four sets of men. One man, or set of men, starts at one end of the run, and covers the entire line, meeting the other somewhere on the route, and returning the next day. When these men have worked a week they go home to rest a week, and the others take their places. Such is the arduous nature of the work, the strain to mind and body, and particularly to eyesight, from working all day long in the constant jar and rattle, that few men would be able to retain a place were it not for these periods of rest.—St. Nickolas.