RPO on the Powhatan Arrow

[NW Mailing List]

March 6, 2009

Good morning:

I have an inquiry requesting information as to the years that a Railway Post Office (RPO) car ran on the Powhatan Arrow, trains 25 and 26, between Bluefield and Columbus or Cincinnati.  The RMSL has a gap in schedules between 1954 and 1957, so I am wondering if anyone can pin down when the RPO assignment commenced. There are no RPOs on trains 25 and 26 during 1954, but they have been added by 1957.

For those who are interested in the mail service on N&W trains, here are schedule page scans.

1954 - COLUMBUS & NORFOLK East and West Division RPOs:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585035.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585037.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585039.jpg

Front cover, calendar, and frequency notes:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585000.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585007.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585009.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/03585011.jpg


1957 - West Division trains 25 and 26 had a 60-feet RPO:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'57029.jpg


1958:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'58027.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'57029.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'57000.jpg


1961:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'61029.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'61031.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'61032.jpg


1962 - Route name changed to NORFOLK & CINCINNATI East and West Divisions, with 60-feet RPO cars assigned to trains 25 and 26:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'62029.jpg


1965:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'65099.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'65101.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'65103.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'65105.jpg

The frequency symbols changed in July 1965 to a simplified system:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'6508A.jpg


1967 - the final schedules issued in April, before discontinuance in July:

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'67091.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'67093.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'67095.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'67097.jpg
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/WA'67098.jpg


If you want to refer to this information in the future, please download these files to your hard drive.  I'll remove them from the server in about a month.

As an aside, late 1950s and 1960s postal schedules changed to a loose-leaf format.  This makes it more difficult to locate information for a specific date because they were updated weekly.  Obsolete pages were discarded,  which few people saved.

Best wishes,

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com