I grew up in the Village of Cameron along the Buffalo Line and can recall this train in question. Normally passed our house near MP 155 (now MP 126) abound 11:00 am, made up of short containers on flat cars, "US Mail" on the containers, usually normal freight road power on the point, don't recall seeing many E or F types on the line after the late 60's. Always wondered about this train because it was so different from the usual freights and coal drags.
Just received confirmation from a former PRR / PC / CR engineman from Olean. His note follows:
While I don't recall the exact time frame,the fact is they did have a Interdivisonal Mail train on for a short time in the '70s.The symbols were Mail 12 South and Mail 13 North.Mail 12 came out of Buffalo in the morning,and they had a little over 300 miles to go to Harrisburg,and they were 8 to 12 hours doing so.Mail 13 came out of Harrisburg the next morning.Their power was usually six axle road power,but you would see E-8s once in a while.The train didn't last long because as you know the trackage in the '70s ( PC days )
was full of slow orders,and it became difficult to make it all the way to Harrisburg.
An aside to that,I was set back to Fireman at one point while these Mail Trains were on and made up my mind I was going to bump the job as the Fireman was a younger man( senority wise ). When I called the Crew Dispatcher at Buffalo to make my move he said are you older than Joe Kusnik,and I said no but he isn't on there is he? He said he is now,He just bumped the job a couple of hours ago. Joe was a 1948 man and I was a 1955 man so that shot my plans down.The jobs weren't on much longer anyway.If you know someone who has a PC timetable( I think there were 5 of them between 1968 and 1976 ) the Mail Trains should be listed in one of them.
JR