I am a member of the Nebraska Railroad Museum and we have received a grant from the Union Pacific towards the restoration of CB&Q RPO #1938. Does anyone on this board have any information regarding this car's history and any links to photographs? The only online photo I have been able to locate is of RPO #1933.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Trevor Henderson
Omaha, NE

Trevor,

I think a good place to start would be the Burlington Route Historical Society:

http://www.burlingtonroute.com/

Is the car complete?

There is a Railway Post Office association, whose name and link information escapes me. They are located in Virginia, and have provided items (hooks, sorting tables, etc.) to organizations who are restoring RPOs. Maybe one of our other forum members can provide this information.

Illinois Railway Museum has and and operates CB&Q RPO / Baggage #1923. Is your car similar? 1923 was built by AC&F in 1914.

http://www.irm.org/gallery/CBQ1923

Steve

Thanks for the information.

Here are two photos of the car as it is now.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=891189
http://www.fevrfans.com/rpo.html

The only photo of a 193x series CB&Q RPO located so far is of #1933. But the majority of what I find on other cars are all similar, like #1923 as referenced above.

http://rr-fallenflags.org/acfx/cbq-rp1933asw.jpg

Trevor

The Museum of Transportation near St. Louis has RPO/baggage #1942 built by Standard Steel Car Co in 1922 and it is mostly intact.

Trevor,
"Burlington Passenger Car Photo Album" by William Glick (published by Quincy House of San Jose, CA, and copyrighted in 2007) has photos of CB&Q 1938 on page 172. The photos were taken by Burlington Route historian Mike Spoor on 10-24-1989 while the car was located at Oxford, NE. Page 175 has one shot of #1938 taken on 07-08-83 by Joseph Douda, also at Oxford, NE.

#1938 was in the group of baggage-RPOs numbered 1935 through 1944, MB-22 class, built by Standard Steel Car Company in November 1922. This series of cars had a 30 foot RPO compartment.

It is good to see another CB&Q car being preserved. Good luck with the restoration.
Don C.

I am a member of IRM Coach dept and have restored the interior of the CB&Q 1923 in the early 1980-1982. We might have extra ceiling globes and other misc parts for your project. We often operate our 1923 RPO and twice a year dimenstrate how to catch mail, the railroad way, on the fly at 25 mph. Whats your interior like? Anything left? Regards RwkPullman

Railway Post Office interiors were standardized early - I'd guess by 1890? - so any Railway Mail Service employee could work any car and know exactly where everything was.

Golden Gate RR Museum is restoring RPO Union Pacific 5901 http://ggrm.org/Collection_view.aspx?id=13. It was built in 1949. Per U.S. Post Office regulations, the interior is identical to a 1920s RPO, including the emergency candle lamps. The interior is intact, except we are missing the portable sorting tables that have center legs (they lock into metal fittings set in the floor on the car centerline) and hang off the mailbag racks. If anyone is planning to reproduce these portable sorting tables, we would be very be interested in buying hardware etc.

Thanks! - Doug Debs

P.S.: This car was on the streamliner "City of San Francisco" snowbound on Donner Pass for 4+ days in January 1952.

RwkPullman

Thanks for the offer. Once the "shopping" list is complete we may be in contact.

Trevor