Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/395

 The Railway Mail Service.

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��and Chicago railway post-office at 8.17 A.M., tiien it is given to the Boston and Albany railway post-office at Albany, the latter line connecting at Westfield, Massachusetts, with the Williamsburgh and New Haven railway post-office, ariving at destination at 9.37 that night. Again at 6.08 p.m., from Lyons, another New York and Chicago railway post-office train passes, but, owing to different connections, disposes of it differently : from this railway post-office a pouch containing a similarly ad- dressed letter, with other maO, is deliv- ered at Albany for the Boston and Albany railway post-office, due to leave Springfield, Massachusetts, at 7.15 a.m. ; this pouch is conveyed from Albany in the baggage-car attached to an express- train, which train, passing Westfield, connects at Springfield with the 7.15 A.M. railway post-office train East. At Palmer a short distance east of Springfield a return mail is left for the railway post-office that left Boston at five o'clock that morning ; into this mail the letter for Leeds is placed, as the clerks in the latter-named railway post-office deliver at Westfield a pouch for Leeds, which place is reached at 10.07 that morning, on train in charge of baggage-master. This illustration is comparatively a simple one. Many instances could be given where a detour of many miles is made to gain a few minutes in time. By the old system the letter would, in all probability, have gone to Albany post-office for distribu- tion, thence either to New Haven, Connecticut, or Westfield, Massachu- setts, for the same purpose, losing trains at each place waiting to be distributed, and consuming fully, or more, than sixty-four instead of sixteen hours. By the old method delays became almost interminable as the connections became

��intricate, more so than on a continuous line. The advantage in the " catcher " system described elsewhere, which enables towns to communicate ^vith one another in a few minutes, instead of by the direct closed pouch system through a distributing office miles away, con- suming hours, is not inconsiderable. The gain by the present method is incomparable. Intersecting at Albany, New York, \vith the line from Vance- borough, Maine, to San Francisco, just described, or perhaps what may be called the vertebral column of the system, is the New York and Chicago railway post-office line, known also as the " Fast Mail " or the " White Mail," as the mail-cars on this line were origi- nally painted white. A mail-train con- sisting of four mail-cars and express- cars leaves New York City at 8.50 p.m., making the through connection to Chicago. There are two similar trains, leaving New York at 4.35 a.m., and at 10.30 A.M., with a less number of cars j and three moving in the oppo- site direction. There are twenty mail- cars on this line, each interior is sixty feet in length, and the exterior, as already mentioned, painted white, and bearing the coat-of-arms of some State and the name of its past or present governor. Each car is devoted to a special purpose : the distribution of letters and local, or "way," work; the distribution of paper mail; and others for storage. The distribut- ing cars are built upon a different plan from the one hereinbefore described ; the packages, etc., are distributed into large compartments or boxes slightly pitching back one over the other in a large case, and the clerk \vishing to empty one of them passes into tjie narrow aisle to the rear of the case ; the pouch or sack is hooked to the case

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