October 13-14 will mark the 40th anniversary of the last run of a Railway Post Office car on the Southern Pacific Railroad. When Train 21 arrived at Oakland Pier that day in 1967, it ended almost 100 years of Railway Mail Service on the S.P.

The U.S. Post Office operated Railway Post Office (RPO) cars on many trains throughout America from 1864 until the late 1960’s. RPO cars were rolling Post Offices staffed by postal employees who received, sorted and dropped mail off at stations along the route.

To commemorate the 40th Anniversary, the USPS Sunol post office, Niles Canyon Railway, and Golden Gate Railroad Museum have arranged a special event on-board former Union Pacific RPO 5901 at the Sunol Depot on Saturday, October 13 from 9am to 1pm.

U.P. RPO 5901 will be an official Post Station for the day. Outgoing stamped mail brought to the RPO will be canceled with a special commemorative cancel, designed from the postmark of the Ogden & S.F.W.D. R.P.O route of Train 21. Letters left to mail to yourself or friends will be cancelled with the commemorative cancel; they will not be re-canceled by the automated sorting machines.

A special cache has been printed for the event featuring the U.P. 5901 RPO car, and is available for purchase at the event.

We are honored to welcome a reunion of retired Railway Mail Service clerks as our special guests. They will be there to share their stories of working RPOs on the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe.

Randall E. Cape will be signing copies of the book he co-authored The Ghost Trains of SP’s Overland Route. Train Nos. 21-22, Mail, 1947-1967. Books will be available for sale.

U.P. 5901 was built in 1949 to add RPO service to the Chicago-Oakland Pier Streamliner "City of San Francisco". It is the last remaining car from the 1952 train that was snowbound for three days on Donner Pass. It spent it’s last years in MoW service for the UP, but was not stripped of the postal equipment as most RPO cars were. The car is undergoing restoration by Golden Gate Railroad Museum and will eventually be repainted to Streamliner colors. You are invited to come in for a tour.

Admission and cancel are free.

This event and the RPO are wheelchair-accessible.

Directions:
See map and directions: http://www.ncry.org

or:
From the East Bay and San Francisco peninsula, take Hwy 84 (Dumbarton Bridge) east into scenic Niles Canyon, and take the Sunol exit. The depot is a yellow building at the end of the ramp.

From the South Bay, take 680 north to Hwy 84 west. From Concord/ Walnut Creek take 680 south to Hwy 84 west. Pass through downtown Sunol to the depot.

October 13, 2007 9am – 1pm

- Doug Debs for Dave Roth, Operations Mgr.
Golden Gate Railroad Museum http://www.ggrm.org

What was the number of the RPO car on the last run? The 5217 is at Joshua Tree, and I have always wondered if it was that car:

http://www.jtsrr.org/browsers/rpo.html

Chris Allan