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I read that freight trains still, in some cases, carry bulk mail. Maybe they could carry regular mail from town to town?
I'm only half serious. But it does seem like the US Postal Service has become a disaster. Not only do we have slower snails carrying the mail, but some small US post offices are disappearing or cutting down hours of service. One here, in Santa Rosa, was completely shut down. Also, the USPS seems to be ripping out curbside postal boxes. The mail gets to my home mail box from, roughly, 5PM to 8PM. In the winter, I need a flashlight to retrieve my mail
Recently, I had a check, from an insurance company in El Paso, TX, sent to me by first class mail. I received the check 2.5 weeks later. I think if they put the check on the Texas Eagle then the Coast Starlight, I would have received the check much sooner.
I wonder if freight trains could deliver mail to small towns or hamlets in fly-over country? Possibly UPS or Fed Ex could deliver the mail, although I hate to think of what a postage stamp would cost.
Great Northern post office car #42:
Richard
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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Richard, the mail handling infrastructure at various rail stations has been dismantled. There is no turning back from '67 when the then Post Office Department bid the rails farewell (some "conspiratorists" hold the roads approached the POD to move away - just so they could get rid of trains, sound like National City and GM?).
A once major station - Kansas City - handled mail well into the Amtrak era. But their handling was simply truck to truck.
Class I stopping a freight at every Jerkwater Junction simply to pick up or unload mail? Please.
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