Western Railroads: History and Modeling

Great Northern Mail Trains History: The Great Northern Railway had a large part of the Post Office mail contracts serving the Pacific Northwest. The first dedicated mail train was the Fast Mail which began service in 1909 between St. Paul and Seattle. This train had a working railway post office (RPO) and carried any combination of mail/express/baggage cars in and out of Seattle. Before 1941, all cars in the consist would have been painted Pullman Green with gold leaf lettering. The consist of the early Fast Mail trains would have been baggage and storage mail cars with a RPO in the mix and a coach on the rear. This coach acted as a caboose for the crew, and allows passengers to ride the train. Beginning in 1941 and becoming more prevalent in the post-WWII era, more and more cars, including heavyweight storage mail cars were painted in the Empire Builder Scheme. Also in the post-war era, newer express refrigerator cars and express boxcars were used. These cars came in the Empire

Santa Fe Mail Trains History: Mail trains on the Santa Fe are interesting historical and modeling topics. The Santa Fe had an ideal mail route with a mainline stretching to the California coast and connections to eastern roads in Chicago. I will be focusing on trains running from the 1950s into 1968. While the Santa Fe had mail contracts before this, the equipment used from the 1950s to 1968 generally stayed the same during this period. The Santa Fe's main mail train was the Fast Mail Express, trains 7&8. This train ran from Chicago to Los Angeles with service to Oakland via Barstow. The Fast Mail was made up of all baggage/mail/express cars including lightweight and heavyweight baggage cars, railway post offices, express boxcars, express reefers, flexi-vans, and container on flatcars (COFC). The distinguishing feature of this train was the coach on the rear. This coach was required by law so paying passengers could ride the first class train. The train usually consisted