R is for RPO - Page 4 |
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The End of an Era - the Last RPOs
The cover above, with its enclosure, is an interesting souvenir of the era when RPOS's
were a dying breed. The year was 1951, and railroads were already in trouble, as cars
took over in America. The message is charming for its romantic element - let's hope the
"pal" was Mrs. Jackson's husband! The lack of a stamp implies the item was simply a
favor cancel, a souvenir, which is less romantic. I'll let you write your own story to
explain it all.
This cover was produced in 1974, when there was only one true RPO train still running in
the US, on the NY to DC line, where train traffic and mail volume still fit together well
enough to justify keeping the service alive.
Three years later, and one hundred years after the
early cover near the beginning of this topic
was mailed, someone created the cover above as a souvenir of the last official RPO train
in the US, marking the end of a 113-year history. The cachet reproduces the 3c Parcel
Post stamp of 1913, which depicts a step in that process of grabbing a mailbag on the fly.
HPO's - Highway Post Offices
HPO's (Highway Post Offices) were started in 1941 as a supplement to RPO's, which were
still the primary means of moving mail between cities in the US. The cover above - also
a nice patriotic cover - was carried on the very
first HPO route in the entire country, from Washington, DC to Harrisburg, VA, and on its
very first day of service, 2/10/41. "Trip 2" in the postmark refers to which direction
of the route this was carried on - every HPO route had two "Trip"s, one in each
direction. First Trip covers were prepared for many of the routes, some with special
cancellations, some not - see the next cover, which is from the third HPO route
established nation-wide.
The pamphlet below, postmarked by a collector in 1958, explains the HPO service as the
USPS wanted the public to view it. Despite its assertion that all HPO's made a round
trip per day, it appears to me that many took two days.
The HPO's died about the same time as the RPO's, with only a couple of routes lasting
past 1970 - the latest Last Trip date I could find was April 1, 1972 (see the
United States Highway Post Office Cover Catalog, a publication of the Mobile
Post Office Society.)
Links and References
The Casey Jones RR Unit of the American Topical Association (of which I am a proud member) is the premier organization in the US for railway stamp collectors - it has an entertaining and informative monthly newsletter with listings of all the new issues with trains on them.
Casey Jones RR Unit of the ATA
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Norm Wright, Sr., editor of the ATA Handbook of Railways on Stamps has created an
amusing site about his personal railroad:
Norm Wright's Railroad
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Here is a site created by Rick Kunz, an RPO Postmark collector, with
informative text and images on the topic.
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The Mobile Post Office Society is an organization of philatelists interested
in "the enroute distribution and postmarking of mail all over the world." That includes
RPOs and HPOs.
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The Dakshina Kannada Philatelic and Numismatic Association of Magalore, India
has a well-designed and well-maintained philatelic site with several interesting pages
about
trains.
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And if you click on the image below, you will be taken to the excellent site of Al
Peterson (The Rail Philatelist) my favorite dealer - be sure to check out his Railway
Philately Exhibit pages.
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Finally, there are hundreds of books about RPO's and the RMS,
plus thousands of
articles and pamphlets on the topics. I won't try to list more here, but if the
topic interests you, go to your local library, or talk to your favorite
philatelic literature dealer, or do a web search. The Mobile Post Office Society
(see link above) has many publications on the topic.
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9/1/2010 - Erin Cole, who works for her local library, and was researching hobby links for
their database, wrote to let me know that my link to
the Dakshina Kannada Philatelic and Numismatic Association of Magalore, India was broken (It's been fixed now),
and to recommend the Philatelic Resources page of the Gettysburg Flag Works. I agree with her,
it has an excellent selection of links for philatley on the Web - check it out:
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All text Copyright © 2000, William M. Senkus
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Revised -- 09/01/2010