LIRR mail trains

[chrismears]

Hi
This is my first post here. I am a fan of the LIRR and I'm looking forward to building an N scale layout featuring the Long Island's operations in the 1970's. This evening while looking for some passenger car photos for a project I am trying to get back to and finish I came across this picture from Railpictures.net

This is another one of those moments where I learn that I have so much to learn about the railroad and how it operated. Originally I was curious about the picture because of this reference: "Greenport Mail WB". Were mail handling trains still operating into the 1970's on the railroad?

Then as I thought more about the picture's comments and the note regarding the foreign coaches. Was it common to have another road's coaches on a LIRR train? Were these cars just not repainted yet?

I'm sure these are simple questions - but I'm sure looking forward to a little enlightenment. Thanks.

Chris Mears
Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

[LI Loco]

Mail service in the Long Island Rail Road ended in 1964. Two trains continued to carry baggage cars - one to Montauk and one to Greenport - till around 1970.

Second-hand passenger cars were commonplace on the Long Island Rail Road. In the 1940s and 1950s, it acquired coaches and parlor cars from the Pennsylvania, Boston & Maine, Lehigh Valley and Reading railroads, among others. In the late 1960s, it acquired coaches, sleeping cars and lounge cars for use on trains to the East End from the Kansas City Southern, New York Central, Florida East Coast, Pennsylvania, New Haven, Union Pacific, Erie Lackawanna and Baltimore & Ohio.

Jack Deasy has an excellent website listing the various heavyweight and lightweight parlor cars owned by the LIRR: http://www.dominionrailvoyages.com/jhd/lirr/

[jhdeasy]

Chris:

I think Martin O'Toole's June 1970 photo captures a rather unique moment in time in that the four passenger cars (3 x-KCS coaches and 1 x-NH sleeper) ahead of the heavyweight baggage car are still painted/lettered for their former owners. Eventually all of the smooth-sided cars MTA/LIRR acquired from other roads were repainted into MTA/LIRR colors, and the stainless steel cars were relettered using MTA/LIRR colors.

Here are two other pictures of LIRR trains of that era with a B60 baggage car in the consist:

Train 211 in 1970 (3rd photo from the top of this page):
http://www.dominionrailvoyages.com/jhd/ ... aches.html

Photo at:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1428687

I am not certain, but I believe the baggage cars also handled newspaper distribution, bringing newsapers printed/published in New York City to the communities on the east end of Long Island. Maybe not the daily editions of these papers, but at least the bigger Sunday editions. I hope someone else with more expertise than I can confirm this detail of baggage car operations in the 1960s thru early 1970s.

[LongIslandTool]

Well into the late 1970's the LIRR carried the Long Island Press daily in baggage cars to Montauk Branch and Main LIne stations. The Transportation Department employed a Baggageman to handle this task. Does anyone recall his distinguishing physical feature?

[chrismears]

I am not certain, but I believe the baggage cars also handled newspaper distribution, bringing newsapers printed/published in New York City to the communities on the east end of Long Island. Maybe not the daily editions of these papers, but at least the bigger Sunday editions.

This is neat. I assume that the paper bundles would have just been handed carefully at each station along the way?

In the original picture the baggage car is at the rear of the train. Was this typical? Just curious.

Thanks
Chris Mears

[LongIslandTool]

It was usually on the head end going out to Montauk on a train of ping-pongs, though I've seen it on the rear too.

The bundles were thrown out at each station.

[Ocala Mike]

Well into the late 1970's the LIRR carried the Long Island Press daily in baggage cars to Montauk Branch and Main LIne stations. The Transportation Department employed a Baggageman to handle this task. Does anyone recall his distinguishing physical feature?

Was he the guy who worked shirtless no matter what the temperature?

[LongIslandTool]

Shirtless and...

[REM3Night]

As for the baggage car in mid-train - I was watching a video recently and it was stated that the mid-train baggage car was serving as a bar car. Bar cars were common on evening trains to refresh the customers after a long day at work.
Another interesting operation that could be duplicated on a model rr would be the mail cars picking up mail on the fly. The mail crane was still in use in the late 50s in Westbury (and maybe later).
Ray

[railfaned]

In the 1960-1964 period, I worked for a Bayside candystore/newspaper store. On weekdays we would get The Morning Telegraph of of an evening train. The paper was the only one that used the LIRR on weekdays, so they would be on one end of a MP54 or MP72. On saturday evenings, however, the NY Times would ship the entire Sunday Times via the LIRR. They would fill up an entire MPB54 with newspapers. Two Bayside news stands would send employees to take the papers of the train and up the stairs. The elevator was never made available to us. The Conductor or Baggageman would just point-out all the Bayside papers and then watch us unload the combine. In 1965, all LIRR deliveries stopped, replaced by direct truck deliveries. I don't remember ever seeing mail delivery to the Bayside P.O. at the station.

[Ocala Mike]

Shirtless and...

...wearing shorts.

[LongIslandTool]

...he had one arm.

[lala]

I remember a baggageman who would handle the papers whose name was Calhoun. I could bairly keep warm in the winter turning the engine on the wye in Montauk and he would be swimming in Fort Pond Bay.

[joetrain59]

railfaned,
Would that be Bob & Terry's, or Creamy Egg Cream??? Both on Bell Blvd.
Or the shop next to Rex Pizza?
Joe

[railfaned]

Joe,
The candy store on Northern Blvd, across from the Animal Hospital. Creamy Egg Cream was the other store that got their papers by LIRR. The others on Bell got their deliveries by truck in the 60's.
Ed