The Wish of Old, So Often Told by Yesterdays-Paper on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Antique birthday greetings post card
Circa 1915
Postmark Butte & S.L.CY R.P.O.

A modern-ish design for the times, clean and crisp graphics with black outlines and gold highlights.

The real cool thing about this card is it's postmark, it was mailed on a train.

About RPO Postmarks:

In the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train.

In the UK and Ireland, the equivalent term was Travelling Post Office (TPO).

From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains; and the Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. In fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail.

Most RPO cars had a mail slot on the side of the car, so that mail could actually be deposited in the car, much like using the corner mail box, while the train was stopped at a station. Those desiring the fastest delivery would bring their letters to the train station for dispatch on the RPO, knowing that overnight delivery would be virtually assured. The mail handled in this manner received a cancellation just as if it had been mailed at a local post office, with the cancel giving the train number, endpoint cities of the RPO route, the date, and RMS Railway Mail Service or PTS Postal Transportation Service between the bars of the cancellation mark. Collecting such cancellations is a pastime of some philatelists and postal history researchers, and maybe of railroad fans as well.

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