Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
♪ [music plays throughout] ♪♪.
(male voice-over). As early as 1832, our mail
once traveled largely by our nation's railroads.
By 1930, more than 10,000 trains moved mail.
Though seeing an almost complete end in the 1960s and 1970s,
due to planes and postal codes, the rail mail service saw a
resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s via Amtrak.
While mail formally stopped being carried by rail in 2004,
the rich history involved lives on.
Today, we're going back into the mid-20th century and
delving into that rich history in hopes of discovering
that there were more than just tracks to be followed.
[no dialogue].
The job of a railway postal clerk was a distinguished but
very difficult job to acquire.
Applicants had to go through rigorous examinations that
allowed for very little error.
As a result, one can only imagine the amount of
preparation one needed in order to become
a railway postal clerk.
You'd make up little stories, you know, that little story
would help you a lot.
Use all them names and that town went to a certain place.
Everyday there was the little cards, I don't know if you've
seen the little cards that everybody had.
When you were sitting in the train station waiting to go to
work or after, waiting to go home or anything else,
you would be sitting there studying those cards.
And like I said, twice a year you had to go to Chicago and
take your exam, and you had to get 95 out of 100, and
they would give you 100 cards at random.
I had Texas which was in three parts, Illinois was in two,
Michigan and Indiana, and I had Arkansas.
So that was all my states that I had to learn, and you
had to go to Chicago twice a year and get 95 out of 100
or you didn't keep your job.
Basically, you just had to memorize them, or I would
associate it with a map, look at the town on a map
and associate what location it was at.
(male voice-over). When not going north to south
or east to west across our nation, these men basked
in their family life and the days off.
Though their schedules demanded often numerous days of
constant and rigorous work, it also afforded a number of
days off for men to relax back at home, wherever home was.
Well, I have one son and he was very small at that time.
And when I was gone, that left the wife pretty well
in charge of everything.
It seemed like either one of them was always getting sick
when it was due for me to go to work.
We lived in Murphysboro, Illinois, at that time.
Life was good, especially on the days off.
Well, family was a little bit rough at times, especially
when you had children, because sometimes you'd be gone
for several days, you know, and it was a little bit rough.
But then other times you'd be home for a week
or so straight and it worked real good.
Like I said, being a sub you really didn't have no set
schedule, where if you were a regular you worked
six days and off eight, you kind of planned.
But being a sub you were kind of always on call,
so you may think you had time off and they may call that day
and you had to go out that night.
So it was a little trying at times, but I liked it.
(male voice-over). Once a clerk, these men soon
became entrenched in our nation's railroads and the
working conditions they fostered, ranging from
imaginably dirty and stressful conditions to
suprisingly clean and enjoyable.
The typical railway postal car was enjoyed by
all of its inhabitants.
It did, however, at times face a bump or two along the way.
You worked hard alright, but the conditions were alright
for back in them days.
We didn't have no air conditioner or stuff
like that, but we had heat.
It was dirty because of all the road dust coming up from the
cars and they never really, they cleaned the car out somewhat,
but it wasn't spotless.
They weren't easy, you probably heard that before.
The worst part about that run was working 15 hours
and 15 minutes a day, that's hard to do.
Train mail car derailed going out of Indianapolis towards
Cleveland one morning.
It turned over and the clerks from the Indianapolis
Post Office came down and cleaned it all up and we had
to ride in the baggage car all the way to Cleveland.
Most generally some guys, when they got the mail up,
they'd sit down and play penny ante till the next stop.
So in the baggage car there was a wooden box in there
about six feet long and about as wide as that table.
Well, they sat around that thing and played penny ante
all the way to Cleveland, got looking at the label on it,
it was a corpse being shipped to New York.
More dirty than tough.
The steam engines had not been gone that long
when I came out.
The dust on the railroad tracks was still there,
the movement of the train kicked it up.
If you did the non-stop local where you had to stick your head
out the door, you ended up with a black face.
But all in all, it wasn't that bad.
(male voice-over). The job these men held was
not one short of pride.
With the termination of the railway service in the 1970s,
these men and countless others were forced to walk away,
deeply saddened for having to give up their enjoyable and
meaningful work as railway postal clerks.
Well, it started out as rumors and it come up pretty quick
and kind of sudden.
You kind of got the idea that the railroad wanted to get out
of the passenger business and the post office wanted to put
the mail on the airplane, and that's what they did.
Scuttlebutt had already come out that they were decreasing,
but when I finally learned that my job was the next one to go,
it was by letter from the Central Office, and it was
very short and firm.
Your job had been deleted, there are two vacancies in
Carbondale and elsewhere.
Of course, I took the Carbondale position.
I found out in April, I believe it was, in 1967, that my job
was being eliminated.
The last trip I made was on September 9, 1967.
That was a very disappointing day.
It was nice that you could help and accomplish something
at the end of the day.
You were always proud at the end of the day that you had
completed what they put before you to do and realize that you
had moved the mail faster than it could move any other way.
(male voice-over). Thank you for joining us today
on Rail Mail: Tales of Railway Postal Clerks.
♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.