What happened to the mail contracts?

[frequentflyer]

Remember when trains like the SWC would have three or four baggage cars up front full of express and priority mail packages? It helped LD trains near breakeven or better in some cases. Then someone at Amtrak got stupid and started attaching box cars and adding dwell and switching time to the trains, and oh yeah, the "freight" railroads did not like "passenger" trains carrying "freight" cars. Something about competition. But in the beginning it was a succesful program, what changed? FEDEX and UPS taking over moving mail for the Post Office?

[adamj023]

Amtrak should be focused on Passenger rail. Adding mail slows down train speed and loading times. If rail was used for mail, it should be done by the freight railroads. I believe USPS stopped using rail for mail altogether.

The old mail sorting center by NYP is being reused as a train hall for customers and that is a more effective and productive usage than reactivating it as a sorting and distrubition center like before where mail was shipped on trains.

The distribution model likely has some carriers perhaps UPS Ground or others outsourcing parcels to freight railroads for ground based services, If train parcel shipment is competitive then carriers would still use it as an option. Airplane has lots of capacity to load on mail in cargo holds on passenger and cargo airplanes. And dedicated vehicles are owned and operated by USPS so they control their own costs and schedules.

Train really is only an option for larger parcels shipped by services like UPS Ground or other shippers who ship parcels to postal addresses who utilize the freight railroads. USPS’s non first class parcel shipment ground products could use rail if it was cost effective but I am not sure if it used freight railroads on these. If i was shipping non time intensive large parcels, train could be utilized as an option if pricing was more competitive.

Ship can handle less time sensitive large items from abroad or coastline distribution. Rail can handle larger packages as can truck and even plane to some degree domestically where these will compete against each other.

[DutchRailnut]

USPS is one that canceled all rail/mail contracts and sold its rail/mail properties .
Amtrak had no say in the matter.

[adamj023]

Yes, but it was the right move overall. The days of Amtrak delivering mail are long gone. The freight railroads can ship parcels which get delivered to postal addresses via private carriers.

[ExCon90]

USPS is one that canceled all rail/mail contracts and sold its rail/mail properties .
Amtrak had no say in the matter.

... and it started well before Amtrak was formed. The (then) passenger-and-freight railroads began losing the mail traffic when the Post Office decided that anything under 500 miles would go by truck and over 500 miles by air (airmail had previously moved at a higher postage rate -- if the sender paid for an airmail stamp the letter would go by air; otherwise by rail.) After the change all mail going over 500 miles went by air at the regular rate -- and still does.

[chuchubob]

A friend from Ossining, NY, had his new EZ-Pass transponder delivered to his post office a couple years ago while he and his wife were at their condo in South Florida, Atlantic Coast. The Ossining P.O. forwarded it to Florida. When he got his next statement, he was charged for every EZ-Pass toll booth that the mail truck passed through on the trip.

[John_Perkowski]

The nascent USPS dropped the railway mail service in 1967 to build its first regional sorting centers. It was the cost LBJ mandated to get the funding.

The last run was IIRC a DC to ny one, and it died in June 1977.

Amtraks 1997 mail and express issue was the movement of certain book rate mail and express stuff on the LDs. It was part of Warrington's experiments. It died within ten years, because the freight railroads saw a taking of revenue not in the Amtrak charter.

[John_Perkowski]

A friend from Ossining, NY, had his new EZ-Pass transponder delivered to his post office a couple years ago while he and his wife were at their condo in South Florida, Atlantic Coast. The Ossining P.O. forwarded it to Florida. When he got his next statement, he was charged for every EZ-Pass toll booth that the mail truck passed through on the trip.

OUCH!

[frequentflyer]

The nascent USPS dropped the railway mail service in 1967 to build its first regional sorting centers. It was the cost LBJ mandated to get the funding.

The last run was IIRC a DC to ny one, and it died in June 1977.

Amtraks 1997 mail and express issue was the movement of certain book rate mail and express stuff on the LDs. It was part of Warrington's experiments. It died within ten years, because the freight railroads saw a taking of revenue not in the Amtrak charter.

I don't think the freight railroads cared as long they filled a couple of baggage cars bringing in incremental revenue for the LD train. What got their attention was strings of box cars and road railers behind passenger trains. "That" is called competition. SWC used to have heavy mail loads in the baggage car up front, again bringing in incremental revenue and no time consuming switching en route. It made the SWC for a time one Amtrak's best performing LD trains. Its a shame the extra business went away.

[frequentflyer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozqY3Ze4sAU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Is it even a question why the freight railroads would have a problem with this?

[eolesen]

I doubt the freight roads were as concerned as some are assuming, at least out west. They are primarily interested in intermodal and bulk, and a couple box cars isn’t competition. They still made the money for switching at the last mile, and that’s where the money is made. Road railers might have raised a few eyebrows, but again, the volume involved wasn’t as much of a threat. The larger railroads were interested in larger fleet contracts where someone like Schneider or JB Hunt were shipping large numbers of trailers on a regular basis.

I’ll guess at a system level, the incremental cost of switching and maintaining the express cars outweighed the revenue.

About 20 years ago, USPS stopped tendering first class mail to most of the airlines, and started contracting with dedicated lift carriers and Fedex. We did the cost analysis when I was at AA and the labor/facility cost of handling was break-even at best. Even then, it was clear email had taken over, and without volume, carrying mail was a loser.

[radio]

A friend from Ossining, NY, had his new EZ-Pass transponder delivered to his post office a couple years ago while he and his wife were at their condo in South Florida, Atlantic Coast. The Ossining P.O. forwarded it to Florida. When he got his next statement, he was charged for every EZ-Pass toll booth that the mail truck passed through on the trip.

It must have slipped out of the protective Mylar pouch they are all shipped in, which prevents that from happening.

[DutchRailnut]

normally even if you put it in your pocket it won't read it, doubt it reads trough a truck body and mail container, but cool story Bro.

[chuchubob]

normally even if you put it in your pocket it won't read it, doubt it reads trough a truck body and mail container, but cool story Bro.

As I PM'd you, Jake, the source is reliable. It happened.

[Backshophoss]

Trailer had a fiberglass roof,will allow the transponder to be scanned.