The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and AppliancesClarke, Thomas Curtis
History
The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances
Clarke, Thomas Curtis
Railroads -- United States
In the first section of the letter car are received the pouches
from the General Post-Office, which when opened are found to
contain letters done up in packages of about a hundred, marked
for Michigan, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania,
Montana, Dakota, and California. When this mass of matter has
been emptied out of the pouches and, in the vernacular of the
service, "dumped up" preparatory to distribution, the section is
clear for the registered mail which is worked in it. Before this
is accomplished, however, much work is done; in fact, a sort of
rough distribution is made. All packages which are directed to one
office are distributed into pouches, which are afterward stored
away until the towns are reached. The other packages are carried
into the letter department for distribution, where a rack, similar
to those seen in almost every post-office, although space is
thoroughly economized, is used for the purpose. To give a slight
idea of the work done in this section, it may be mentioned that
the distribution for New York State alone requires 325 boxes.
Still there is plenty of space, otherwise the third section of the
car would not be used, as it is, for the distribution of Montana
and Dakota newspapers. How closely everything is packed, and
all available space utilized, may be imagined when it is stated
that for this newspaper mail ninety-five pouches are hung in the
section, and that there is still sufficient room for the storage of
pouches locked up and ready for delivery, and also for the sealed
registered mail. A separation of the California mail is also made
in this car, so that when it reaches Chicago the pouches into which
the matter is placed are transferred without delay, thus saving
twenty-four hours on the time to the Pacific Coast, not by any
means an unimportant accomplishment.
There have been received in this car before it moves out of the
Grand Central Station between 1,000 and 1,500 packages of letters
and, in addition, forty or fifty sacks of Dakota and Montana
papers. To handle this mass of correspondence there are six men in
addition to the chief clerk, or superintendent. This official is
not assigned to any particular duty, but he supervises the general
work and lends aid where it is most required. The second clerk
handles letters for Ohio, Dakota, and Montana; the third clerk
takes charge of those for New York State; the fourth, Illinois; the
fifth opens all pouches labelled, "New York and Chicago Railway
Post-Office," distributes their contents, and afterward works on
Dakota and Montana papers; the sixth, Michigan State letters,
and the seventh, California letter mail. The salaries of these
men, intrusted with so much responsibility and of whom so much is
expected, range from $900 per annum for the lowest grade to $1,300
per annum for the superintendent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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