Along the lines of the question on business cars, what are the oldest mail cars in existence? Colfax Railroad Museum has Omaha Route #305 built at the Hudson shops in 1884. A note of interest on this car. It has been verified that Owney the postal dog did ride in this car from Black River Falls to Tomah WI. The car was a house in Altoona WI for over 80 years before the museum started restoration. Plans are to complete the roof and lettering this summer. Interior will be done later. I've attached before and current views.

WOW!! Talk about bringing something back! Amazing work is all I can say!

Although not shown as an RPO, the narrow gauge East Broad Top has a baggage express car (EBT No. 29) on the property that was purchased second hand in 1916 from the Au Sable & Northwestern at the time that road was converted to standard gauge. This car and combination No. 18 (which seems to have been built new by the EBT in 1876) were brought back home by the Friends of the East Broad Top in 2002, and have been in storage since, awaiting resources to bring them back to life.

http://www.febt.org/Restore/1829.html

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has, along with some other cars, PRR baggage-mail No. 5403, home-built in Altoona in 1892.

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/about/roster/ ... roster.htm

http://rlkitterman.deviantart.com/art/P ... -479865771

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.or ... 07-7AH.jpg

Although not an RPO at all, this car (which turned up as I was looking for old PRR stuff) is one worthy of mention--Rockdale, Sandow & Southern No. 3, which was formerly PRR coach 3736 (Altoona 1886), then sold to the Dardanelle & Russellville Railroad where it ran as No. 10 before being sold again to the RS&S:

http://sdrm.info/roster/passenger/combine3/index.html

Carson & Colorado baggage-mail-express No. 3 (Barney & Smith 1881, narrow gauge) is in the collection of the Nevada State Railroad Museum.

http://www.nsrm-friends.org/nsrm57.html

A bit newer, but still looking like something older (and reminding me of the Sierra's short cars 5 and 6 that were assigned to the Angels branch), is Virginia & Truckee 1st No. 21, home made around 1906:

http://www.nsrm-friends.org/nsrm34.html


http://www.nsrm-friends.org/nsrm11.html

What a great preservation coup! Thanks for this!

That is a spectacular preservation...

Mail cars are different, because they were regulated by the Post Office through their mail contracts, and with few exceptions (mostly narrow gauge, but also cars on short lines operated only with wooden equipment) steel cars were required about 1916... So old mail cars generally didn't survive as such.

The Post Office did publish standards using old rail running vertically to reinforce ends of wooden cars. Such rails are visable in the photos of the car above, and are also found on the surviving D&RGW narrow gauge cars, as well as the SPng car at Travel Town.

Randy

Just curious where the running gear for this restoration came from? Wondering if some of this didn't come from the deteriorated cars from the Minnesota & Western collection? Must say that is one fine save and restoration. What a gem to have in your collection.

A crying shame some of the valuable parts were stolen from the M&W collection but what was saved will no doubt go to good use in projects similar to this one. Any luck in recovering some of the stolen parts/equipment? Regards, John.

Narrow gauge Carson & Colorado mail-express no. 3, built by Barney & Smith as a smoker-mail-express car in 1880, and converted to its present configuration in 1899, is at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City.

Virginia & Truckee mail-baggage car no. 13, built by Oxford in 1874, is on C Street in Virginia City. (Its express-car mate is at NSRM, disassembled.)

V&T mail-baggage car no. 2, built by Kimball in 1872) is part of a private dwelling in Carson City.

The trucks came from MN Transportation Museum in a trade. China and cash for the 4 wheel trucks and the extra 6 wheel set went to SC for cash. Still haven't found any of the steam engine appliances that were stolen from the Minnesota & Western site.

I do not want to hijack this topic; but mention of the Minnesota and Western reminds me that the Mid Continent Railway Museum salvaged (purchased) some trucks and other hardware from cars at that site. See their site for additional details

There are always too many car bodies needing too few antique trucks; especially passenger car trucks. Good work folks!

ted 66

Is anyone familiar with the RPO car at the Patee House museum in St. Joseph? Is it worth seeing?

DJS

iAs I understand this car was probably a rebuild to represent an earlier car.
Herb

The RPO at the Patee house museum was built by the CB&Q in the 1930's to represent an 1860's car. It is a neat car in and of itself and worth a visit, as is its companion locomotive. The museum itself is worth the visit as well.

Jason Midyette

Here's the latest on the Mail Car. RPO lettering finished and one roof end all nailed down and trimmed.

That looks real nice, great job!
Mike nix

It finally occurred to me that this Anglophile can present a contender that beats your car by one year--maybe:

http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/loc ... &pageNo=24

The National Railway Museum labels this "1885," but other sources I have say this was built at Wolverton in 1883.

Thanks for the comment on the Patee House. Visited it a couple weeks ago. It may be the only museum I've ever been in that had me smiling at every turn. The RPO car was indeed interesting--especially those trucks! And I have to wonder if those are the only original Miller hooks in existence (?). But what I really got a kick out of were the light bulb and vacuum tube exhibits. And the bank of telephone step switches! My very first real job was cleaning those clickers. Who'd thought they'd end up in a museum in St. Jo.