At the head end, a streamlined train has several cars that are different
from passenger cars. One of them is built for the people who work on the
train. It has berths where they sleep, shower rooms, lockers for
clothes. The stewardess and the conductor may have offices there, too.
(The men in the engine crew, of course, don’t stay with the train. They
change at division points.)
Some trains take a Railway Post Office car along at the head end. It
does the work of a small post office. Regular mail clerks in the car
sort letters and cancel the stamps. They toss out bags of mail at
stations where the train doesn’t stop. At the same time, a long metal
arm attached to the car reaches out and picks up mailbags that hang from
hoops beside the track.
The men who work in the Post Office car have learned to be very
accurate and fast. They need to know the names and locations of hundreds
of towns and cities, so they can toss each letter into exactly the right
sorting bag.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Railway Express car carries packages of all kinds. It has
refrigerated boxes for small quantities of things like fresh flowers and
fish.
The idea for express cars started long ago, before the government’s
regular post office system had been worked out well. In those days,
people often wanted to send valuable packages or letters in a hurry, but
they had no way to do it. So some young men, who were known to be very
honest, took on the job. Sometimes they carried parcels or letters in
locked bags--sometimes in their own tall stovepipe hats! Gradually they
got so much business that they had to hire a whole car from the
railroad. They were the grandfathers of the Railway Express that now
owns hundreds of cars.
In springtime, the express man often travels with noisy cargo. That is
the season when chicken farmers begin sending baby chicks in boxes all
over the country.
[Illustration]
Pet animals usually ride in the baggage car, along with suitcases,
trunks and bicycles. All kinds of pets travel on trains. You check them,
just the way you check a suitcase, and the baggageman takes care of
them. He is used to dogs and cats and birds, but once a baggageman had
to mind a huge sea cow all the way from New York to St. Louis.
Sometimes dogs get so fond of trains that they spend their whole lives
riding with friendly engineers or baggagemen. Cooks and waiters in the
diner save scraps for them to eat.
The most famous traveller of all was a Scotch terrier named Owney.
During his long life he covered more than 150,000 miles, riding in
Railway Post Office cars. The men put tags on his collar showing where
he had been. Finally he collected so many tags that he had to have a
harness to hold them. When he died, the Post Office Department had him
stuffed and put in its museum.