The Philatelic Database - Archive of Stamp Collecting Articles » Trains

By Rail in Japan (1898)

William Cochrane — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:12:25 +0000

This article gives a fascinating insight into railway activities and life in Japan at the close of the nineteenth century.

Originally published in “The Railway Magazine” in March 1898, the author D.T. Timins looks at what to an occidental eye must have been a very strange place indeed. I note with interest that he felt somewhat “inebriated” after drinking a few cups of green tea.

I hope you enjoy this glimpse into the past. Railway/railroad buffs should find the images of engines and rolling stock of interest…

THE WORDS “JAPAN” and “railways” used in conjunction with one another strike anyone who has visited that charming country with a sense of incongruity. What should that placid little people know of the rattle and rush of an express train, typical as it is of the nerve-wasting haste which we Westerners live our lives? Those shining metals are as the veritable trail of the serpent; they follow inevitably in the wake of civilisation, and give rise to crowded and smoky manufacturing towns, while spreading abroad an unrestful desire for travel, with all its concomitant worries and brain-wear. Moreover, the destruction of all peaceful village life comes in their train. It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the merits of a so-called “civilisation,” as accepted by our Western standards, nor the value of the “benefits” which it is supposed to confer upon a people whose ethical, moral, social, and political codes date from a time when all Western Europe was probably peopled by naked savages. But I cannot resist saying that when Japan finally exchanges her peaceful simplicity, her admiration for, and artistic appreciation of, Nature’s beauties, and her contented national life, for the storm, stress, and hurry of that feverish existence known to the West, she will have given up the substance for the shadow.

Happily for her, that day is not yet within measurable distance, and she remains in everything whether borrowed from the West or not, Japanese. And especially does this remark apply to her railways. In them we shall find the national characteristics as truly exemplified as they are in her Shinto temples or her miniature pleasure grounds.

Let us suppose that we have journeyed from the Western Hemisphere, either eastwards via the Suez Canal, or westwards via Canada, and arrived in the land of the Rising Sun, “Dai Nippon”–”The Great Japan.” We shall most probably have landed at Yokohama and proceeded straight from the quay to our hotel. Later on we shall be seized with a desire to explore the country, and having packed up our traps we tell the musmee to call a cab. The nearest approach to this vehicle and its beast of burthen, which Japan provides is to be found in a two-legged steed with a two-wheeled carriage, the latter known to fame as a “Jinricksha,” commonly called “Jinricky,” and the former to natural history as “Homo Sapiens”! If our impediments be of large dimension, we shall find trouble ahead, for no self-respecting ‘Ricksha man can take more than one piece of luggage, so that if there be six trunks waiting transport an imposing cavalcade will accompany us from the hotel. Arrived at the railway station, we are received by an officer in full uniform, who will direct sundry menials clad in butcher blue kimonos, but bare us to their hairy brown legs, to carry our luggage into the station while he conducts us to the booking-office. The gentleman (usually in spectacles), who smiles benignly at us through the diminutive pigeon-hole, then disburdens his mind of a polite but totally unintelligible sentence in Japanese. A dim recollection of the hints of the guidebook leads us to correctly surmise that he is making affectionate inquiry for our passport. This indispensable document is not the banknote-looking paper, signed “Salisbury” in one corner and “John Jones” in the other, with which every Briton worthy of the name arms himself before “going abroad,” and obtains through the recommendation of a “banker, lawyer, or some other responsible person” (vide Badeker). It is a State document obtainable only at the Japanese Foreign Office. For the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be as well to state here that in most of the large sea-ports of Japan there exists a portion of the town known as the “Foreign Concession,” within, which all foreigners (this term, of course, comprising everyone who is not a Japanese by birth) may reside, carry on business, “or otherwise,” as the lawyers have it. Within twenty-five miles of this concession, but no further, may the foreigner direct his wandering steps. To advance one yard outside this special district, known as the “Treaty Limits,” is a criminal offence, unless the individual be armed with a “passport.” This formidable weapon, though not exactly identical with its English prototype, has, as we shall see, certain points of similarity. It is easy of acquirement, and of great service. At the Japanese Foreign Office are drawn up lists of places arranged in the form of tours, separate passports being issued for each series. The traveller selects the itinerary for which he desires a passport from one of these lists. The routes cover all places of beauty or interest in Japan, but no passport can be extended, nor can a traveller deviate in any particular from the tour laid down for him therein. A passport is valid for three months, and each traveller before obtaining one has to sign a declaration stating that he is travelling “for the benefit of his health.” This declaration is of a sufficiently elastic nature to prevent anyone from doing violence to his sense of veracity in subscribing to it. Three large seals depend from the passport in an imposing manner. One of the conditions of issue is that this document shall be returned to the Foreign Office immediately upon expiration or upon the holder leaving the country. Failure to comply with this rule entails very heavy penalties, and also the certainty of a refusal should an application ever again be made for a passport at a subsequent date.

The Railway Station, Yokohama, Japan

As we have seen, the first request of a booking clerk before giving us our ticket is for this passport. When duly presented he will inspect it for some minutes, and discuss the situation with a subordinate. Having finally decided that we are legally entitled to travel over a certain portion of his precious Nippon, he will address another exceedingly suave but equally meaningless speech to us. However, we shall probably know by a species of intuition that he is asking us to name our destination and the class by which we propose to travel. We shall, therefore, reply: “Tokio made jo-to kippu ichimai kuda-sai” (A first-class ticket to Tokio”), assuming that place to be our destination, whereupon a small, oblong square of cardboard will be handed to us (in exchange, of course, for the requisite number of “yen” and “sen”), exactly similar in appearance to an English railway ticket. Fares in Japan are very low, and the validity of single tickets is arranged on a very sensible plan–viz., up to 50 miles, 1 day; 50 to 100 miles, 2 days; 100 to 200 miles, 3 days; 200 to 300 miles, 4 days; over 300 miles, 5 days.

Imperial Railway, Japan, four-coupled in front engine. Built by Sharp, Stewart and Co., 1877. Coupled wheels, 4ft. 6in. diameter; cylinders, 15in. by 22in.

The name of the issuing station and that of our destination, as well as the class by which it entitles us to travel, are printed on the ticket in English as well as in the Japanese character. The journey can be broken at all principal stations en route. Labels printed with mysterious hieroglyphics are stuck on our trunks, and we pass through the barrier on to the platform, a full half hour before the booked time of the train! For hurry and the Oriental are two. Though the Japanese are by no means a lazy or an idle race, and though they possess none of that apathetic indolence common to those Eastern races who dwell beneath a tropical sun, still all notion of speed, haste, or flurry are utterly foreign to a nature. Centuries of Western training will be necessary before a Japanese will be able to appreciate the significance of such a phrase as “catching a train by the skin of one’s teeth!” The native of Japan arrives at the station two or three hours before the train is due. If he be a rustic, or unused to travelling, and he intends to take a morning train, he will probably make a point of taking up a strong position at the station the night before his prospective journey and camping on the platform. To this practice the railway officials make no sort of objection: the ingrained honesty and scrupulous cleanliness of the people put it out of the power of the authorities to find any reason why travellers should not be allowed to insure themselves–after their own unique method–against any chance of being left behind by the train. The Japanese do not regard the train as an object to be worshipped, nor do they seek to propitiate the engine by offerings of flowersand fruit as do the Hindoos; but they none the less experience a certain amount of respect for the tetsudo-bahu, or “fire carriages.” This feeling seems to find expression in a greatly exaggerated fear lest the train should fail to wait for them, as exemplified by their very early arrival at a station when they contemplate making a journey. After all, this is but the original stage of that feeling whose evolution may be seen in a crystallised form at any big English railway station. The perspiring matron with many bundles, who always arrives at least three-quarters of an hour before the train is due, suffers from this same heathenish instinct in a modified form.

A double roof passenger carriage with brake compartment, Japanese Railway.

On the platform we mingle with a very motley crew. There we see an old woman, with that deeply-lined, handsome, and kindly face common to septuagenarian femininity in the “Land of the Rising Sun.” She is evidently in deep distress at the prospect of being obliged to say “Saionara” to her stalwart son. This gentleman will probably be attired in a European felt hat, a Japanese kimono, ditto wooden shoes, and will be carrying an umbrella. He will assuredly consider that the first and last-named items of his get-up hall-mark him as being of the first brand of European civilisation. Of the incongruity of the rest of his costume he will be supremely unconscious. When will young Japan learn that its native garments are beautiful, picturesque, and becoming, and that imported monstrosities, whether worn wholly or in part, are ludicrous and out of place?

Here we may see a group of young girls, with their hair dressed into glossy black squares, and their waists girt with broad and beautifully-worked sashes, called obis. They are talking and laughing together in that happy, careless way which speaks for itself of the contentment of their life. But about all the prospective travellers, and, indeed, the whole scene, there is an air of rest and quiet, which is in singular contrast to the bustle and noise of an European railway station. The travellers are there, and they know the train will arrive; they are, moreover, possessed with an unalterable faith and conviction in the certainty of the train waiting until they have all, at their leisure, selected comfortable seats.

Beautiful simplicity! Would your faith stand the test of an hour on the Underground?

Our future fellow-travellers will not stare at us rudely or aggressively, no matter whether we are entraining at such places as Yokohama and Kobe (where foreigners are a common sight) or at some little wayside shed. For to cause annoyance by inquisitiveness would be impolite, and the sensitive, gentle natures of the Japanese have led them to place the crime of impoliteness among the cardinal sins. None the less, the greatest sign of friendliness and the greatest mark of politeness that a Japanese host can show takes the form of an apparently exaggerated curiosity. He will admire individually and collectively each article of attire which his guest has donned, or which he unpacks from his trunks. This admiration frequently extends still further to a personal trial of the garments which he praises. But it is all done with such naive courtesy, and with such an evident desire to please, that the whole ceremony partakes of the nature of a charming attention.

The exercise of this politeness is all the more remarkable and praiseworthy in our case, because all Europeans are by nature much taller than the natives of Chrysanthemum Land, and, therefore, are bound to look conspicuous.

Yokohama Station, though a terminus in reality, is not used as such, all trains running into it and then out again on their way to or from Tokio, the true terminus of the “Japan Railway” Company’s system.

After a brief wait, our train, which may perhaps have travelled from Kobe, 217 miles distant, rolls in. We recognise with joy that the engine, at any rate, hails from our own country, for its number-plate proclaims that it was built at the workshops of Messrs Dubs and Co, of Glasgow. The driver and fireman are both Japanese. The coaches are very like those of any other country in external appearance. Their class is denoted in both English and Japanese on the majority of trains, but the board labelled with the destination is printed only in Japanese. Trains are, however, sufficiently infrequent to render our getting into a wrong one a matter of considerable difficulty, so we stroll leisurely down the train looking for a seat. The great majority of Japanese travel “Ka to,” or “third class,” while the remainder, the very well-to-do, travel “Cha to,” or “second class.” The first class, “Jo to,” is only used by the very highest in the land, such as court officials or relatives of the Mikado. Some trains do not provide any first class accommodation, but the one by which we propose to travel contains all three classes. The third-class carriages cannot be called comfortable, for they are absolutely destitute of upholstery. The partitions seldom extend to the full height of the carriages. Seeing that some trains travel for twenty hours at a time, it cannot be said that very adequate provision is made for travellers even when the lowness of the fares is taken into consideration. The second-class carriages are sometimes of the same form as those in England. Others are of the same shape as the first-class carriages (which latter we are going to travel by, and shall therefore duly describe), but with less elaborate fittings.

A third-class bogie carriage with brake compartment and double roof, Japanese Railway

We enter our first-class carriage by a door at one end, and find that it is a sort of square-shaped saloon. The seats run round all four sides of the carriage. In the centre is a diminutive table, upon which reposes a tea service properly furnished with all necessary requisites for brewing a cup of green tea a la Japonaise.

So inseparable an adjunct is this beverage to life in Japan that if we leave the tea-table untouched there will probably be very serious inquiries after our health upon reaching Tokio!

The tea itself is comparatively innocuous stuff when drunk in the very small quantities which a Japanese teacup holds, but it does not take very many such cups to render the traveller hopelessly inebriated. Not that a Jap will ever be seen in such a state! They are brought up to tea as Englishmen to meat, and though occasionally–very occasionally–the subtle Sakki proves too much for their natural and inherent sobriety, the spectacle of drunken Jap is as rare as is that of a sober Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day!

The guard whistles, the engine replies with a hoarse screech, and the train moves slowly out into the sunshine. The distance we are about to travel is only seventeen miles, express trains take 40 to 45 minutes, and the slow trains 55 minutes to perform the journey. Our train is an express, and after halting at the suburb of Kanagwa for a moment, and skirting Yokohama Bay, we run through Tsurumi, and come to a halt in Kawasaki station. Here we shall probably be solicited to purchase eatables and drinkables by several itinerant provision merchants, and seeing that we are English they will flourish bottles of “Kirin” beer before our eyes. This commodity is a kind of light Lager beer, and is brewed in Japan by German brewers. It is excellent, and is the one beverage which can be relied on as genuine. There is no kind of bottle, label, or cork which the Japanese cannot imitate perfectly, but of the counterfeit liquid itself–whether intended to represent beer, wine, or aerated waters of some sort–it is as well not to speak. The country is absolutely flooded with these imitations.

For the delectation of the Japanese passengers, our hawker will display small trays of highly coloured and fantastically shaped sugar sweets, and small square wooden boxes, the contents of which merit a word themselves.

When a denizen of “Dai Nippon” goes a-travelling he feels that he is entitled to the luxury of making a slight variation from his usual frugal diet. These square boxes are designed to fulfil his wishes, and much esteemed comestibles. A portion of raw fish, some smoked rice, some green-looking meaty substance, and a few sugar sweetmeats represent to the Jap a pleasurable table, such as the Savoy would be powerless to afford. All neccessary items for this miniature table d’hote lie packed in these wonderful boxes, the whole being surmounted by two neatly-tied chop-sticks. The price is but a “sen” or two–i.e., some small fraction of a farthing.

The entire stock of the refreshment vendor is eagerly bought up, and the train moves on again, halting next at Shinagawa, in the outskirts of Tokio, for ticket-taking purposes. Tokio itself, city of a million and a half inhabitants, is reached five minutes later, and we glide alongside the platform of the Shimbashi Station. Our journey has been very smooth and easy, and we feel that it would somehow be out of place to look at our watch and note whether the train had arrived late.

Tokio is the real railway centre of Japan, and boasts of several termini. The great “Hokkaido” or “North Road” Railway, starting from the Ueno Station in Tokio, stretches upwards to distant Aomori, a large port, while the important line to Noestu and Mayebashi also starts from the ancient “Yedo.” The other long line, the “Tokkaido,” stretches from Tokio via Yokohama to Kobe and Mihara, and it is along this route that the only train in Japan runs which possesses any ressemblance whatever to an express. The 9.55 p.m. train from Tokio to Kobe accomplishes its journey of 234 miles in 19 hours 30 minutes–i.e., at an inclusive speed of twelve miles per hour! It makes, however, fifty stops en route, some of them of considerable duration, and, as has been shown, much time must be wasted at stations. As the Japanese are at present constituted, accidents to life and limb would most certainly occur if trains made but a brief halt to entrain passengers. This 9.55 p.m. train, however, runs through some twenty stations without stopping, and is therefore superior to the ordinary slow train and entitled to be called an express, if only by comparison! No other train in Japan misses more than five stations, no matter how lengthy its journey may be.

Dining-cars and sleeping-cars are as yet non-existent, but travelling is very comfortable and convenient.

It would have been just as easy to describe a journey over a longer distance than that between Yokohama and Tokio, but there is no railway in Japan which offers any startling or remarkable features.

The scenery, though pretty, is not wonderful, and there is no particularly striking feat of engineering skill to be noticed.

In fact, as we observed at starting, Japan can be recognised even in her railways, and through them she offers a new and surprising sensation to the jaded globetrotter–that of being absolutely unable to hurry!

The words “Japan” and “railways” used in conjunction with one another strike anyone who has visited that charming country with a sense of incongruity. What should that placid little people know of the rattle and rush of an express train, typical as it is of the nerve-wasting haste which we Westerners live our lives? Those shining metals are as the veritable trail of the serpent; they follow inevitably in the wake of civilisation, and give rise to crowded and smoky manufacturing towns, while spreading abroad an unrestful desire for travel, with all its concomitant worries and brain-wear. Moreover, the destruction of all peaceful village life comes in their train. It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the merits of a so-called “civilisation,” as accepted by our Western standards, nor the value of the “benefits” which it is supposed to confer upon a people whose ethical, moral, social, and political codes date from a time when all Western Europe was probably peopled by naked savages. But I cannot resist saying that when Japan finally exchanges her peaceful simplicity, her admiration for, and artistic appreciation of, Nature’s beauties, and her contented national life, for the storm, stress, and hurry of that feverish existence known to the West, she will have given up the substance for the shadow.

Let us suppose that we have journeyed from the Western Hemisphere, either eastwards via the Suez Canal, or westwards via Canada, and arrived in the land of the Rising Sun, “Dai Nippon”–”The Great Japan.” We shall most probably have landed at Yokohama and proceeded straight from the quay to our hotel. Later on we shall be seized with a desire to explore the country, and having packed up our traps we tell the musmee to call a cab. The nearest approach to this vehicle and its beast of burthen, which Japan provides is to be found in a two-legged steed with a two-wheeled carriage, the latter known to fame as a “Jinricksha,” commonly called “Jinricky,” and the former to natural history as “Homo Sapiens”! If our impediments be of large dimension, we shall find trouble ahead, for no self-respecting ‘Ricksha man can take more than one piece of luggage, so that if there be six trunks waiting transport an imposing cavalcade will accompany us from the hotel. Arrived at the railway station, we are received by an officer in full uniform, who will direct sundry menials clad in butcher blue kimonos, but bare us to their hairy brown legs, to carry our luggage into the station while he conducts us to the booking-office. The gentleman (usually in spectacles), who smiles benignly at us through the diminutive pigeon-hole, then disburdens his mind of a polite but totally unintelligible sentence in Japanese. A dim recollection of the hints of the guidebook leads us to correctly surmise that he is making affectionate inquiry for our passport. This indispensable document is not the banknote-looking paper, signed “Salisbury” in one corner and “John Jones” in the other, with which every Briton worthy of the name arms himself before “going abroad,” and obtains through the recommendation of a “banker, lawyer, or some other responsible person” (vide Badeker). It is a State document obtainable only at the Japanese Foreign Office. For the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be as well to state here that in most of the large sea-ports of Japan there exists a portion of the town known as the “Foreign Concession,” within, which all foreigners (this term, of course, comprising everyone who is not a Japanese by birth) may reside, carry on business, “or otherwise,” as the lawyers have it. Within twenty-five miles of this concession, but no further, may the foreigner direct his wandering steps. To advance one yard outside this special district, known as the “Treaty Limits,” is a criminal offence, unless the individual be armed with a “passport.” This formidable weapon, though not exactly identical with its English prototype, has, as we shall see, certain points of similarity. It is easy of acquirement, and of great service. At the Japanese Foreign Office are drawn up lists of places arranged in the form of tours, separate paasports being issued for each series. The traveller selects the itinerary for which he desires a passport from one of these lists. The routes cover all places of beauty or interest in Japan, but no passport can be extended, nor can a traveller deviate in any particular from the tour laid down for him therein. A passport is valid for three months, and each traveller before obtaining one has to sign a declaration stating that he is travelling “for the benefit of his health.” This declaration is of a sufficiently elastic nature to prevent anyone from doing violence to his sense of veracity in subscribing to it. Three large seals depend from the passport in an imposing manner. One of the conditions of issue is that this document shall be returned to the Foreign Office immediately upon expiration or upon the holder leaving the country. Failure to comply with this rule entails very heavy penalties, and also the certainty of a refusal should an application ever again be made for a passport at a subsequent date.

On the platform we mingle with a very motley crew. There we see an old woman, with that deeply-lined, handsome, and kindly face common to septuagenarian femininity in the “Land of the Rising Sun.” She is evidently in deep distress at the prospect of being obliged to say “Saionara” to her stalwart son. This gentleman will probably be attired in a European felt hat, a Japanese kimono, ditto wooden shoes, and will be carrying an umbrella. He will assuredly consider that the first and last-named items of his get-up hall-mark him as being of the first brand of European civilisation. Of the incongruity of the rest of his costume he will be supremely unconscious. When will young Japan learn that its native garments are beautiful, picturesque, and becoming, and that imported monstrosities, whether worn wholly or in part, are ludicrous and out of place?

Here we may see a group of young girls, with their hair dressed into glossy black squares, and their waists girt with broad and beautifully-worked sashes, called obis. They are talking and laughing together in that happy, careless way which speaks for itself of the contentment of their life. But about all the prospective travellers, and, indeed, the whole scene, there is an air of rest and quiet, which is in singular contrast to the bustle and noise of an European railway station. The travellers are there, and they know the train will arrive; they are, moreover, possessed with an unalterable faith and conviction in the certainty of the train waiting until they have all, at their leisure, selected comfortable seats.

Beautiful simplicity! Would your faith stand the test of an hour on the Underground?

Tank locomotive, built by Dubs, Glasgow, for the Imperial Railway of Japan. Cylinders, 15in. by 22in.; 6-coupled wheels, 4ft. diameter; water capacity of tank, 970 gallons.

So inseparable an adjunct is this beverage to life in Japan that if we leave the tea-table untouched there will probably be very serious inquiries after our health upon reaching Tokio!

When a denizen of “Dai Nippon” goes a-travelling he feels that he is entitled to the luxury of making a slight variation from his usual frugal diet. These square boxes are designed to fulfil his wishes, and much esteemed comestibles. A portion of raw fish, some smoked rice, some green-looking meaty substance, and a few sugar sweetmeats represent to the Jap a pleasurable table, such as the Savoy would be powerless to afford. All neccessary items for this miniature table d’hote lie packed in these wonderful boxes, the whole being surmounted by two neatly-tied chop-sticks. The price is but a “sen” or two–i.e., some small fraction of a farthing.

Dining-cars and sleeping-cars are as yet non-existent, but travelling is very comfortable and convenient.

It would have been just as easy to describe a journey over a longer distance than that between Yokohama and Tokio, but there is no railway in Japan which offers any startling or remarkable features.

The scenery, though pretty, is not wonderful, and there is no particularly striking feat of engineering skill to be noticed.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Famous Train Journeys (1992)

Betty Van Tenac — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:09:14 +0000

There is still something about a train journey which holds nostalgic memories for many people.

Although many train services have disappeared for compelling political or economic, reasons largely due to the emergence of air transportation over longer distances, still others have adapted and survived to become listed as well known tourist services for a variety of reasons.

For almost a century, the story of The Orient Express was inextricably woven into the tempestuous history of Europe. Its very name is redolent with fame and riches, spies and diplomats and the romance of the mysterious East. The most famous train ever to operate, the Express spanned a continent and became not only the wonder of railroad engineers, but the setting for novels, films, television features and sensational news stories.

A celebrated dancer, Margaretha Gertrud Zelle, who achieved world wide notoriety as “Mata Hari” the most dangerous woman spy, contributed to the popular designation of the Orient Express as “The Mystery Train”. She frequently travelled on the train, often as a spy for Germany in World War I. Shown in Figure 1 is one of set of 4 souvenir sheets (Scott 238), depicting Mata Hari, a poster of the Orient Express and a border scene. Check also Cook Islands 1985 (Scott 865), Korea 1984 (Scott SGN 243-5), Lesotho 1984 (Scott 453), and Romania 1983 (Scott 3165).

It was back in 1858 that the first plans for a “Trans-Siberian Railway” were promulgated linking Moscow and European Russia with the Pacific Coast of Siberia. Official approval was eventually given in 1891. Such was the size of the task faced by the Russians in the construction of the railroad that although work began in 1891, it was not completed until 1905. One of the most interesting aspects of this railway is its vast number of bridges, large and small, as the line traverses a large number of valleys along the route.

After World War II, the main element of passenger services was provided by the “Trans-Siberian” express, which had special sleeping can and dining facilities. The 9612 km journey from Moscow to Vladivostok took about 10 days to complete, at an average speed of 40 km per hour.

In 2002, the Russian Republic (‘Rossija’) issued a miniature sheet for the train’s centenary, Scott 6683, illustrated in Figure 2, that featured the route and the train on a multi-truss bridge. Check also Grenada 1982 (Scott 1121), Hungary 1979 (Scott 2576-7); other countries’ issues also exist.

Fig. 2 – Trans-Siberian Express

Just after the end of World War II, the Japanese authorities planned the construction of a high speed straight railroad line between Tokyo and Osaka. It was not, however, until 1965 that these cities were linked by a full service. A special high speed locomotive called a “Shinkansen” train was built to service the line. Today the Tokyo-Osaka route is the busiest of several ‘Bullet’ train services with trains departing Tokyo at six minute intervals during peak period. Figure 3 illustrates the first ‘Bullet’ train Japan 1964 (Scott 827). Check also Japan 1972 (Scott 1109), and 1982 (Scott 1513).

Fig. 3 – Japanese Bullet Train

The name The Flying Scotsman began to dawn on the consciousness of Britons in 1923. It was in this year that the express service of the same name was inaugurated, covering the 650 km connecting London and Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The first express services on this mute back in the 1920s had a journey time of 10 hours 30 minutes, a figure that has been steadily reduced to today’s time of around 4 hours 30 minutes. Throughout its course it was originally hauled by steam locomotives, later by diesel-engine locomotives and now by electric locomotives. It passes through some of the most attractive scenery in the eastern part of England and also traverses some excellent pieces of civil engineering of the heyday of the Victorian Age. The Flying Scotsman has been depicted on the 17p value of a set of Great Britain stamps to commemorate the Great Western Railway 150th Anniversary, Scott 1093, shown in Figure 4.

Fig. 4 – The Flying Scotsman

Only one transcontinental journey is still operating across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto, a distance of 4467 km. The service operates 3 times a week as the “Canadian Pacific” and takes 3 days and 3 nights to cover the route, which is a combination of point-to-point transport and another which is more expensive, for the passengers travelling on the the train for its touring aspect . The train has been depicted on Niger 1992 (Scott 2471). Those prepared to pay a premium for more comfort enjoy superbly refurbished public cars, which includes club, dining and magnificent scenery from the observation units.

New Zealand issued a set of six stamps featuring its scenic trains on 6 August 1997 (Scott 1446-1465). Shown in Figure 5, is “The Overlander” connecting the North Island’s two main cities, Auckland and Wellington. This is the longest train journey in New Zealand providing scenic views of seascapes, farmland and the volcanic plateau.

Fig. 5 – New Zealand Overlander

The “Indian Pacific” journey across the Australian continent from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean first commenced in 1917. When the service first began the railroad distance was then reckoned at 4372 km. Today however, the line is fairly direct and by standard gauge track throughout, cutting the distance to 3961 km. Illustrated in Figure 6 is the prestamped envelope issued for the “75th Anniversary of the Trans Australia Railway” in 1992.

The Indian Pacific train crosses the Blue Mountains through magnificent scenery. While traversing the semi-desert Nullabor plain, the line contains a straight section of 478 km, which is the longest of its type in the world.

That brings me to the 75th Anniversary of “The Ghan”, which will take place on 2nd August this year. There were celebrations earlier in the year when the Alice Springs/Darwin section of the line was completed and the first train undertook the 3588 km journey from Adelaide to Darwin. An Australian prestamped envelope (# 030) was issued on October 9, 1980 to commemorate the opening of the Tarcoola-Alice Springs section of the line. The Australian Airmail Society Inc. advertised a set of attractive covers in February 2004 Stamp News to commemorate the first passenger train Adelaide/Darwin/Adelaide. The society has overprinted this set of up/down covers with a special cachet marking the Ghan’s 75th Anniversary at a cost of $27 set including postage or $14.50 for a single cover including postage, available from the Australian Air Mail Society, GPO Box 954 Adelaide 5001. (credit card facilities not available).

1992 Trans Australia Railway prestamped envelope

My research book was Famous Trains of the 20th Century by C. Chant, edited by John Moore ISBN 0 75370 2673. This article is an overview as many other countries have issued “Famous Train” sets.

If you would like further information concerning this article or thematics in general please write to me at 2 Springbank Rd, Panorama, SA enclosing a stamped addressed envelope.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Railway Systems of the World (1957)

William Cochrane — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:34:58 +0000

The following article was first published in the Oxford Junior Encyclopaedia (1957) and is a sound introduction to the various different railway system around the world at the time.

IN most countries the pattern of railway lines is determined by the geography (mountains, rivers, and coastal shape), and also reveals the country’s industrial and political history. Railways in Britain are strongly centred on London, which was the hub of finance and industrial enterprise when most of the main lines were projected in the 1830s and 1840s. The routes link up seaports, coalfields, and big industrial cities.

French railways radiate from Paris like the spokes of a wheel, but their biggest network of lines is in the industrial north and east. Belgium, on a railway map, looks like a mere continuation of France, for there are no geographical or political barriers between the two countries, and the French lines seem to run straight through Belgium. Many lines from both Paris and Berlin run straight to the frontier-between France and Germany; ever since the war of 1870 governments of both countries have encouraged these strategic railways, to carry troops in the event of war. One of the queerest railway patterns in Europe is formed by the two main lines that run along the banks of the River Rhine, sometimes within sight of one another, for a distance of more than 1oo miles. This deep and wide river, carrying much small shipping, has few bridges. The big cities of Germany are spread so widely over the country that its railway system is based on several regional capitals. The main lines of Czechoslovakia and Western Poland still show the railway pattern that was laid down when they were part of the German and Austrian Empires up till 1918. They are, therefore, centred on Berlin and Vienna.

Map showing the principal railway lines of the world.

The main lines of north Italy, joining industrial cities and receiving hydro-electric power from the Alps, are well developed. Few railways cross the mountain backbone of central Italy, and southern Italy has few industries.

Swiss railways are notable for the bold engineering which has run main-line express routes through long mountain tunnels, and for the ingenious methods devised for steep climbing by mountain railways. The record railway height in Europe is reached by the Jungfrau railway, one station being 11,465 feet above sea-level. This line has a gauge of 1 metre (3 ft. 3 in.), and climbs continuous gradients of 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 by the rack-and-pinion method. The highest through-route in Switzerland is the metre-gauge Bernina line, which rises to 7,400 feet; it climbs a gradient of 1 in 14 by the grip of ordinary wheels on plain rails.

Of the total mileage of the railways of the world, nearly one-third – 227,244 miles – is in the U.S.A. The American lines are all privately owned by separate companies. In the Eastern States the largest railways are the New York Central (11,000 miles) and the Pennsylvania Railroad (10,000 miles). Both connect New York with Chicago, the chief railway centre of the U.S.A. Following the race between two companies in the 1860s to link the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by rail several lines were laid across the Rocky Mountains. One railway, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, running between Chicago and Los Angeles, climbs the 7,600-foot Raton Pass across the Rockies. Another line rises to 9,ooo feet to run through the Moffat tunnel. Although the less mountainous central and eastern States have a thick network of lines, thousands of square miles of the Western States are far from a railway.

Canada has one of the biggest individual railways in the world, the Canadian National Railways, with 23,500 miles of line. The other main Canadian organization, the Canadian Pacific, not only runs 20,9oo miles of line but also a fleet of ocean-going steamers with regular trading routes encircling the world. Both railways run across the whole width of the North American continent, one main line being 3,770 miles long and the other 3,360 miles. At Kicking Horse Pass in the Rocky Mountains, one line rises to 5,300 feet above sea-level.

All the greatest heights that have been reached by railways are in South America, in the Andes mountains. The mineral wealth of the mountains has encouraged the building of many railways from the Pacific coast up to the highlands of Peru, Chile, and Bolivia. The most notable line is the Central, of Peru, which runs from Callao, the port of Lima. In one stretch of over 100 miles this railway zigzags up steep valleys on a continuous gradient of 1 in 25 and using twenty-one reversing stations; these are points at which a train, having no room to turn at the end of one climb, backs towards the next stage of its climb (see picture). This railway rises to a height of 15,806 feet above sea-level, having passed through a tunnel at 15,694 feet. Oxygen is carried for passengers who suffer from ‘mountain sickness’, or faintness caused by the thin air at a high altitude. Another railway in Peru takes passengers 12,500 feet up to Lake Titicaca. One railway, starting from Antofagasta in Chile, rises to 12,000 feet and does not drop below that level for 500 miles. A branch of this line attains at Montt the world’s record railway altitude of 15,817 feet – all but level with the summit of Mont Blanc. These railways, except for the Central of Peru, are all of 1-metre gauge. The Trans-Andine Railway, linking Argentine with Chile, had to use rack-and-pinion climbing methods on steep gradients of 1 in 124.

Double switchback on the Central Railway, Peru. When the train reaches the end of one stretch it reverses up the next.

One of the most remarkable railway systems in the world is the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs right across the U.S.S.R. in Asia. It is physically possible to travel by railway from Britain to China, with very few changes of train on the way, by taking the railway ferry from England to France and a Trans-Siberian train for the longest stage. Even if there were no political hindrances to free travel, a change of train would still have to be made at the western frontier of Russia, for the Russian track gauge is 3½ inches wider than the European standard of 4 ft. 8½ in. From Moscow to the end of the railway, Vladivostok on the Pacific, is a journey of nearly 6,000 miles, taking 9 days in normal conditions, and forming the longest journey in the world that can be made without a change of train. From one point on the line a train runs through Manchuria, connecting with a Chinese railway to Peking and other cities in the heart of China. Where the Trans-Siberian Railway reaches Lake Baykal in the mountains of central Asia, the engineers who built the line could not take it across the lake, which is 30 miles wide at its narrowest. For some years the trains were carried across the lake in ferries during the summer months; in winter the ice on the lake was thick enough to bear the weight of trains running on a railway track laid over it. Later, however, the two ends of the line were linked up by a permanent track laid round the shore of the lake.

The Trans-Siberian Railway running along the shore of Lake Baykal.

Australia’s greatest railway problem is that of gauges, as various States have gauges of 5 ft. 3 in., 4 ft. 8½ in., and 3 ft. 6 in. Australia has the longest stretch of perfectly straight line in the world – 328 miles across the Nullarbor Plain, an uninhabited wilderness withont a single tree. Yet within a few hours’ journey the passenger finds himself in Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, which claims to be the busiest in the world, handling over 300,ooo passengers daily. The biggest steel-arch railway bridge in the world is Sydney Harbour Bridge

The thirteen main-line railways of India and Pakistan are owned by their governments. Roughly half their mileage is the broad 5 ft. 6 in. gauge, while other railways are 1 metre, 2 ft, 6 in., and 2 foot. Famous mountain lines are the rack-and-pinion metre-gauge railway which reaches a height of 7,275 feet in the Nilgiri Hills, and the 2-foot-gauge Darjeeling-Himalaya Railway, rising to 7,407 feet at Ghoom.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Pennsylvania 6170 Postcard

Richard Turton — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:57:22 +0000

This postcard will be of interest to railroad enthusiasts. It depicts a Texas J1 class locomotive, a 2-10-4, heading into the super elevation of Pennsylvania’s Horseshoe Curve, with a consist of Pennsylvania bituminous.

It was taken from an original oil painting by noted railroad artist, Manville B. Wakefield of Grahamesville, New York.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Mail train overtakes IR 2286

PDb — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:25:53 +0000

Mail train overtakes IR 2286

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Norfolk Southern Mail Train 21J

PDb — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:23:05 +0000

Norfolk Southern Mail Train 21J

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

Railway Post Office Demonstration

PDb — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:37:17 +0000

On September 20, 2008 Illinois Railway Museum presented a day dedicated to the Railway Mail Service and Railway Post Office cars.

Back in the day, mail was not only carried by rail but in some cases was sorted enroute aboard Railway Post Office cars or cars with an RPO compartment. Since some trains didn’t stop in smaller towns they would pick up the bag of outgoing mail that was on a stand called a mail crane. An iron hook deployed from the RPO car would make the grab. Mail being delivered to the town would be simply kicked out the door at the same time.

Retired employees of the USPO Railway Mail Service are doing the honors here. Because the train is not turned at the end of the demonstration railway they were also making catches on the reverse moves.

(Note the video footage is not necessarily in order shot.)

The car is CB&Q 1923, combination baggage / RPO. Built by ACF in 1914. Power are two F7′s, Metra 308 (ex-C&NW 414) and MILW 118C.

BTW, the car on the end of the train, the “Inglehome” belonged for a time to Univ. of Illinois’s Illini Railroad Club which called it “Chief Illini.”

filmteknik
September 20, 2008

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

The Railway Mail Service (1884)

Thomas P. Cheney — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:16:26 +0000

[This article was first published by John N. McClintock and Company, Boston 1884. Thomas P. Cheney was Superintendent New England Division United States Railway Mail Service.]

It is not the purpose of this paper to give a history of the growth of this important branch of the government service, so much as to impart, perhaps to an indifferent degree, the methods of its intricate workings, and the care and study employed to expedite the vast correspondence of the country. A system as colossal as the Railway Mail Service of this country is, could not be organized but through a process of development meeting needs as they arise. This development is best shown by a comparative illustration from an early date to the present time.

In 1811, there were 2,403 post-offices, and during the year the mail was carried 46,380 miles in stages, and 61,171 miles in sulkies and on horseback. In Postmaster-General Barry’s report for the fiscal year ending November 1, 1834, it is said, that, “The multiplication of railroads in different parts of the country promises within a few years to give great rapidity to the movements of travelers, and it is a subject worthy of inquiry whether measures may now be taken to secure the transportation of the mail upon them. Already have the railroads between Frenchtown in Maryland and New Castle in Delaware, and between Camden and South Amboy in New Jersey, afforded great and important facilities to the transmission of the great Eastern mail.” The lines of railway at that time, 1834, amounted to seventy-eight miles.

In 1838, the Railway Mail Service began with 1,913 miles of railroad throughout the country. In 1846, mails were carried over 4,092 miles of railway, which increased in 1882 to 100,563 miles.

The miles of annual transportation of mail by railroad in 1852 amounted to 11,082,768, which increased to 113,995,318 in 1882, with an increase in the number of Railway Mail Service employees from 43 in 1846 to 3,072 in 1882. This wonderful expansion was but proportional with the development of the country at large. At the close of the war of the Rebellion, business was at its height. Industry and intelligence were seeking together new channels for their diffusion. The Pacific Railway was the grand conception that met this demand, and by its means were united the borders of the continent, and communication thus made more frequent and rapid between our interior, the West, and Europe: the most ancient civilization of the world in the Orient greeted the youngest in the Occident, and completed the girdle about the earth.

The lumbering stage and caravan laboring across the plains, and the swift mustang flying from post to post, frequently intercepted by the wily savage, were but things of yesterday, though fast becoming legendary. When those slower methods by which correspondence was conveyed at a great expense and delay, and current literature was to a great extent debarred, were supplanted by a continuous line of stages, it was considered a revolution in the wheel of progress, and the consummation. The possible accomplishments of the present day, if entertained at all at that time, were in general considered Munchausen, and not difficulties to be surmounted by practical engineering and undaunted perseverance. The civilization of the world has kept pace with its channels of communication and has accordingly rendered invaluable aid to it. In our country the field in this direction is exceedingly broad.

There is no branch of the government service that reaches so near and supplies the wants of the people as the Post-Office Department, and whose ramification may not be inaptly compared to the human system with its arteries filled with the life-current coursing through the veins and diffusing health and vigor to the various parts; in the same manner the people in the different sections of the country interchange their information. The centres of art and literature, conveying to the vast producing region in the West the products of their refined taste, scientific research, and mechanical achievements, keep alive and propagate the spirit of inquiry, making remote parts of the nation homogeneous in tastes, knowledge, and a common interest in all matters of national advancement.

If a map of the United States with every railway that crosses and recrosses its broad surface were laid before us, it would appear that a regulated system for an expeditious transmission of the mails in such an intricate confusion of lines, apparently going nowhere yet everywhere, would be an impossibility; but by study and untiring energy this has been accomplished.

The machinery of the Post-Office Department is a system of cog-fitting wheels, in all its component parts; and were it not so, in the necessarily limited period and space allotted, the work in postal-cars could not be successfully accomplished.

The interior dimensions of postal-cars vary, from whole cars sixty feet in length, to apartments five feet five inches in length by two feet six inches in width. The most comprehensive conception of the practical working of the postal-car system, can be formed in a railway post-office from forty to sixty feet in length; with this in view, we will make a trip in one. A permit to ride in the car, signed by the superintendent of the division of the service, is necessary to allow us the privilege; and it is also required of clerks belonging to other lines. This rule is necessary, in order that the clerks may perform their work uninterruptedly and correctly; and also to exclude unauthorized persons from mail apartments. After a hasty exchange of salutations with the four clerks, the “clerk in charge” notes our names on his “trip report,” and we are assigned a spot in the contracted space, where, we are assured, we will be undisturbed, at least for a while. The trip report mentioned is used in noting connections missed, and other irregularities that may occur. The interior of the car is fitted up with a carefully-studied economy of space, upon plans made under the supervision of the superintendent of the division, or chief clerk of the line. Occupying one end of the car are cases of pigeon-holes, or boxes, numbering from six hundred to one thousand, arranged in the shape of a horse-shoe, for the distribution of letters. These boxes are labeled with the names of the post-offices on the line of road, connecting lines, States, and prominent cities and towns throughout the country. A long, narrow aisle passes through the centre of the car, on both sides of which are racks for open sacks and pouches, into which packages of letters and pieces of other mail matter are thrown; on the sides above are rows of suspended pouches, with their hungry mouths open. By this plan, in this contracted space, upwards of two hundred different pouches and sacks can be distributed into between the termini. On one side of the aisle is a narrow counter, upon which the mail matter is emptied from the pouches and sacks; this is hinged to the pouch-rack, and can be swung back, to enable the clerks to get at the pouches more easily. The space beyond, divided by stanchions, is for the stowage of mails, and for their separation into piles.

In order that a minute may not be lost, when passing through tunnels or standing in dark railway-stations, the lamps are kept burning from the start to the finish. The last wagon, gorgeously suggestive of a circus, has arrived with its load of mail, and the busy work receives at once a new impetus. Several loads, however, have already arrived, and have been disposed of as much as possible; for the work begins, in some cases, several hours before the starting of the train. Transfer clerks and porters deliver the pouches and sacks into the car, the label of each being scanned and checked by the clerks, to detect if all connections due are received, and that no mail may be delayed by being carried out on the road with the other mail and returned. The last pouch is scarcely received, when a sudden, but not violent, shock announces that the locomotive is attached to the train, and the start about to be made. The sound of the gong, seconded by the electrifying and resonant “Aboard!” of the conductor, and the post-office on wheels is under way. Now, all is a scene of bustle, but not confusion. The two clerks, to whom are assigned the duty of distributing direct packages of letters and newspaper mail, including merchandise, deftly empty the pouches, out of which pour packages of letters and circulars, to be distributed unbroken into pouches, and others labeled to this route and different States, which are in turn to be separated into packages by routes, States, and large towns, at the letter-case. To the clerk in charge is assigned the sorting of such letters as are destined to distant routes or terminal connecting lines; and his associate, or second clerk, is busy distributing letter mail for local delivery, and into separations for intermediate connections.

In addition to sorting letters, the clerk in charge has charge of the registered mail, which requires special care in its reception and delivery, booking and receipting therefor. Large pouches of registered mail are also placed in his charge, _en transit_ between large cities, and represent great value. The peculiar tooting of the whistle, or a peculiar movement of the train around a curve, warns the fourth clerk, who is on the alert, of a “catch” station; the letter mail for that post-office is quickly deposited by the local clerk in the pouch, the lock is snapped, and he is standing at the door not a minute too soon or too late; the pouch is thrown out at a designated spot and one deftly caught an instant after without a slackening of the speed of the train. The pouch thus caught is taken to the counter, opened and emptied by the fourth clerk, and the letters immediately placed in the hands of the second clerk, who assorts the local mail; the through letters, or those destined to go over distant lines beyond the terminus, are sorted by the clerk in charge; the local, or second, clerk distributes his mail as rapidly as possible, with a watchful eye for letters, etc., to be put into the pouch to be delivered at the next station; the pouch is locked and everything is ready for the next delivery and “catch.” When the stations at which pouches are caught are within a mile or two of each other, the greatest activity is needed to assort the mail between stations, to avoid carrying mail by destination and subjecting it to considerable delay before its delivery by a railway post-office on the train to be met at a point perhaps many miles ahead.

The manner of taking or “catching” the mail from the trackside by some invisible power on a railroad train plunging through space has seemed to many a feat of almost legerdemanic skill, when all that is required is a simple mechanical apparatus and a quick, firm movement of the arm in using it at the right moment. A crane similar in appearance to the oldtime gibbet is erected near the track, and may have served as a warning by its suggestive appearance to some would-be train-wrecker. Its base is a platform two feet and a half square, with two short steps on top to assist the person hanging the pouch; a post ten feet in height passes up through this platform near the edge; a stout joist about five feet in length is fixed across the top of the post and so balanced that when relieved of the weight of the pouch it flies up perpendicularly against the post. The pouch used for this purpose is made of canvas and is somewhat narrower than the ordinary leathern pouch. It is lightly suspended by a slender iron rod projecting from the horizontal joist, passed through a ring at the top and lightly held at the bottom in the same manner as at the top.

When the pouch is snatched from the crane, the top piece flies up as described, and a parallel short joist at the bottom of the pouch drops. The pouch is strapped small in the middle, resembling an hour-glass, where the catcher-iron on the car is to strike it. This “catcher” consists of a round iron bar across the door of the car, and placed in a socket on each side about shoulder high; a strong handle, similar to a chisel-handle, projects perpendicularly from this bar; on the under side of the bar projects, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, a slender and strong iron rod, slightly turned at the end to prevent its tearing the pouch, of about three feet in length. As the train approaches the crane, the operating clerk with a quick, steady throw delivers the mail at a given point, usually near the crane; he then grasps the handle with his right hand, swinging the handle over inward; the arm when thrown outward, the horizontal bar turning in the sockets, comes in contact with the pouch, striking that part of it narrowed by the strap and striking the arm near the vertex of the angle into which it is driven by the momentum of the train; the greater the speed the more securely it is held there; but the clerk is on the _qui vive_, and as soon as it strikes the catcher-iron, grasps the pouch to make sure of getting it, as sometimes if the pouch is not hung properly, the arm will strike it at such a part as to require the most agile movement on the part of the clerk to secure it and to prevent its falling to the ground or under the wheels of the train and being torn to pieces; these cases, however, are rare, but pouches have lodged on the trucks and have been carried many miles.

To return to the clerks and their work. In the meantime, the “through” work continues, when the distance between stations and junctions will allow of it; letters in packages are distributed into boxes with a celerity and economy of motion which could be acquired only by continued practice and training of the eye to decipher an ever-varying chirography, and of mental activity to almost instantly locate a post-office on its proper route, its earliest point of supply, or connecting line.

The emptying of pouches continues; package after package of letters roll out on the counter as though they were potatoes rather than the dumb expression of every human emotion, or the innocent touchspring of their awakening. The pouches are labeled to indicate those requiring the earliest attention, as are also the packages of letters they contain; this plan prevents, to a great extent, the carrying of mail past its destination.

The packages of letters to be distributed by routes, post-offices, and States, are taken to the letter-case; those not to be so separated, that is, unbroken packages, _en transit_, are placed at once into their proper pouches.

The emptying of sacks of paper mail follows that of the pouches; the papers and packages of merchandise are faced in a manner to be readily picked up, their addresses read, and deftly thrown into the mouths of the pouches and sacks in the racks; this is very skilfully done, as the want of space requires that they shall be crowded closely together.

The swaying of the train around a curve makes little difference, as the clerks in a short time learn to follow every motion of the train. A quick decision, ready eye, and economy of movement as a superstructure to a good knowledge of his duties, are the invaluable qualities of a successful railway postal-clerk; and one so equipped soon outstrips his lagging seniors and associates in grade. As the train approaches a junction, preparations are made to “close out” that part of the mail to be delivered at that point, the sacks are tied, the tags or labels having been attached before starting. The clerks at the letter-case are rapidly taking the letters from the boxes tying them into packages, and separating them into piles, which are dropped into their proper pouches and locked, and so on until all is ready. Let us examine these packages of letters and at the same time describe the slip system. On the outside of each package for redistribution, and also inside each direct package, that is, containing mail for a single post-office, is placed a brown paper slip, or label, about the size of an ordinary envelope, bearing its address or destination, which may be that of a post-office, a group of post-offices supplied therefrom, and labelled “dis.” (the abbreviation of distribution), or for a railway post-office; this slip also bears the imprint of the name of the clerk who sorted into the package and is responsible for its correctness, the postmark with date, and a letter, as “N.” for north, or “W.” for west, indicating the direction the train is moving at the time. A similar slip is also placed loose in each pouch and sack.

The errors discovered in the packages of letters, or among the loose pieces in the pouches and sacks, are endorsed on the proper slip, signed and postmarked by the clerk in the railway post-office receiving it. These errors may be the result of carelessness, ignorance, or misinformation; in the latter case, had the clerk been properly informed, perhaps a delay of half an hour or less might have been avoided if sent by some other route. These error-slips are sent each day enclosed in a trip report to the division superintendent; if approved, the record is made, and the clerk in receiving the error-slip at the end of the month is informed of his mistake, and it is needless to add that the error, if one of ignorance or misinformation, will not be repeated. This forms a part of the record of the clerk upon which to a degree his future advancement depends. The beneficial effect of this system as an incentive to study, care in distribution, and a commendable rivalry, is indisputable.

The postmarks on the letters in the package in our hands show that they joined the current at a junction but a few miles past, and if the location of one of them is sought on the map, it is found to be an obscure hamlet on a remote stage route, by which it reaches the railroad, over which a single clerk in an office seven feet square, or less, performs local service, and which line makes connection with the through mail-train on the main road. The letters described are tied in a package with others, and a label slip placed thereon addressed to some railway post-office, perhaps hundreds of miles distant, which is reached unbroken through a many-linked chain of connections; with this package are others for large cities which will be passed along intact to destination, and also letters labeled to railway post-office lines making connections in their turn. The pouches and sacks into which the packages of letters and papers are deposited will be received at the next junction into a railway post-office car, sorted and forwarded in the manner described. In many cases a mail is sent across by a stage route to connect a parallel line, and thereby feeding a new section.

Mail matter is frequently received, through error, for post-offices on the line of road but just passed, or for post-offices supplied only by one railway post-office train moving in the opposite direction; to provide for such mail a pouch is left at the meeting-point of this train; and so the train plunges on with its busy workers, its pleasure-seekers, and its composite humanity, The clerks have long since become grim with the smut of the train, paling all others but the fireman, and the long-nursed illusion that all government positions are sinecures is rudely dispelled by their appearance, and an insight into their arduous duties. As the train lazily rolls into the terminal station, pouches and sacks are ready for delivery and the clerks make ready to leave the car.

The instant the train stops, a portion of the mail, large or small as the case may be, is delivered into a wagon for rapid transfer to a railway post-office train about to start from another station. If the incoming train is late, it may be necessary to exact the utmost speed to reach the outgoing train, and in many cases it is always necessary to effect it rapidly. After the transfer mail is disposed of, the labels of the remaining pouches and sacks are examined, and as the mail is passed out of the car we are surprised at its quantity, filling a number of large wagons; this, however, does not constitute the entire mail distributed _en route_, as the quantities delivered at junctions and stations aggregate, in many cases, more by far than that delivered at the terminal station, There are many details of work that our space forbids us to describe, that are technical and of little interest to the reader, but are of relative importance. These we must leave, and prepare for the return journey on the night-train, feeling grateful that our busy fellow-travelers are to have an opportunity to refresh themselves.

The work performed in a railway post-office on a night-train differs somewhat from that on a day-train, yet maintaining the same general principle of distribution. The methods differ, governed by the connections, and a clerk suddenly transferred from a day-train to a night-train on the same route, unless thoroughly informed of the train schedules, of close and remote connections, the time of the dispatch of direct closed pouches from many post-offices, stage route schedules, etc.,–which knowledge, even approximating correctness, would be extraordinary,–would be almost as much at a loss as if transf erred to another route, excepting his knowledge of the location of the post-offices on his own line. In all cases if a delay occurs, causing a connection to be missed, it is the duty of the clerk to know at once the next most expeditious route by which the mail can be forwarded.

The hardship incurred by a night-clerk is greater in many respects than that of the day-clerk; while in the latter case a continual active strain is required in the performance of local work and its multiplicity of detail, yet this is more than offset by the handling of bulky and heavy through mail and the unnatural necessity of sleeping in the daytime, which at most affords but a partial rest. On many night-lines the clerks commence work in mid-afternoon, accomplishing considerable before the train starts, and as the train plunges through darkness into the gray dawn and early morning, they sturdily empty pouches and sacks, and the incessant flow of letters and papers is only interrupted when approaching some important junction where mail is delivered and received from connecting lines or post-offices. Everything presents a weird aspect in a railway-station at midnight,–men flit about in a dazed way with satchels, the bright light bursting through the doorway of the car gives a ghastly look to the face of the man who throws in the pouches and sacks, and all appear like ghosts that will vanish with the approach of dawn; but we realize the substance of our surroundings when we again turn our attention to the busy scene in the car. The city distribution of letters–a feature of the service on night-trains which has greatly facilitated the early delivery of mails in a few of the larger cities–has been extended to other cities, and others are still to receive its benefit. For instance, clerks from the Boston post-office detailed to do this duty enter the mail-car at the Boston and Albany Railway at Springfield, Massachusetts, and sort the city letters by carriers’ routes, post-office box sections, banks, insurance offices, etc. The corresponding train moving in the opposite direction is boarded by New York post-office clerks making similar separations.

The packages of letters thus made up go direct to their respective divisions in the post-office, thereby avoiding the delay that would be caused in passing through other preliminary distributing departments. This work has been taken up recently by the Railway Mail Service, the plan enlarged and extended, and added to the other duties of the clerks. Additional clerks, however, have been employed to perform this work, yet the others are required to know it, and on lines where additional clerks were not appointed, to make it their regular duty.

A glance has been given at one of the many links in the continuous chains of connections that cross and recross the face of the country. A comparison of the oldtime method and of the railway post-office service will show the superior advantage of the latter. At some remote hamlet in Nova Scotia, a letter is started for San Francisco, California. It crosses the boundary line into the United States and enters at once the swelling current at Vanceborough, Maine. Leaving that place at 1.35 A.M., Monday, without delay it reaches Boston at 5.10 P.M., is transferred across the city, leaves at 6.00 P.M., connecting with the fast mail train from New York City at Albany, through Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, reaches Cleveland at 6.00 P.M., Tuesday, and Chicago at 6.00 A.M., Wednesday, where an intermission of six hours makes the longest delay in the line of connection. The next morning, Thursday, at 11. A.M., Omaha is reached; Friday, at 6.00 P.M., Laramie, Wyoming; Saturday, at 6.00 P.M., Ogden, Utah; Sunday, Humboldt, Nevada; and Monday, at 11.00 A.M., San Francisco. This illustration has been made to show the far-reaching continuity of connecting lines across the country, passing through many of the principal cities but not entering a post-office for distribution, rather than a complexity of connections almost innumerable in a thickly-settled country, and over which study and patient inquiry to simplify are ever at work.

Lyons, Wayne County, New York, is located on the New York Central Railway; a letter is started from that place for Leeds, Franklin County, Massachusetts; it is received into the New York and Chicago railway post-office at 8.17 A.M., then it is given to the Boston and Albany railway post-office at Albany, the latter line connecting at Westfield, Massachusetts, with the Williamsburgh and New Haven railway post-office, arriving at destination at 9.37 that night.

Again at 6.08 P.M., from Lyons, another New York and Chicago railway post-office train passes, but, owing to different connections, disposes of it differently: from this railway post-office a pouch containing a similarly addressed letter, with other mail, is delivered at Albany for the Boston and Albany railway post-office, due to leave Springfield, Massachusetts, at 7.15 A.M.; this pouch is conveyed from Albany in the baggage-car attached to an express-train, which train, passing Westfield, connects at Springfield with the 7.15 A.M. railway post-office train East. At Palmer a short distance east of Springfield a return mail is left for the railway post-office that left Boston at five o’clock that morning; into this mail the letter for Leeds is placed, as the clerks in the latter-named railway post-office deliver at Westfield a pouch for Leeds, which place is reached 10.07 that morning, on train in charge of baggage-master. This illustration is comparatively a simple one. Many instances could be given where a detour of many miles is made to gain a few minutes in time. By the old system the letter would, in all probability, have gone to Albany post-office for distribution, thence either to New Haven, Connecticut, or Westfield, Massachusetts, for the same purpose, losing trains at each place waiting to be distributed, and consuming fully, or more, than sixty-four instead of sixteen hours. By the old method delays became almost interminable as the connections became intricate, more so than on a continuous line. The advantage of the “catcher” system described elsewhere, which enabled towns to communicate with one another in a few minutes, instead of by the direct closed pouch system through a distributing office miles away, consuming hours, is not inconsiderable.

The gain by the present method is incomparable. Intersecting at Albany, New York, with the line from Vanceborough, Maine, to San Francisco, just described, or perhaps what may be called the vertebral column of the system, is the New York and Chicago railway post-office line, known also as the “Fast Mail” or the “White Mail,” as the mail-cars on this line were originally painted white. A mail-train consisting of four mail-cars and express-cars leaves New York City at 8.50 P.M., making the through connection to Chicago. There are two similar trains, leaving New York at 4.35 A.M., and at 10.30 A.M., with a less number of cars; and three moving in the opposite direction. There are twenty mail-cars on this line, each interior is sixty feet in length, and the exterior, as already mentioned, painted white, and bearing the coat-of-arms of some State and the name of its past or present governor. Each car is devoted to a special purpose: the distribution of letters and local, or “way,” work; the distribution of paper mail; and others for storage. The distributing cars are built upon a different plan from the one herein before described; the packages, etc., are distributed into large compartments or boxes slightly pitching back one over the other in a large case, and the clerk wishing to empty one of them passes into the narrow aisle to the rear of the case; the pouch or sack is hooked to the case under the door of the box, and the mail drops into it. Pouches and sacks are also hung in racks to be distributed into. These cars are post-offices of no mean pretensions when the amount of work performed is considered. When it is considered how densely populated the country is through which this line passes many times each day, and its numerous and swelling tributaries, the volume of mail conveyed is enormous, yet not disproportionate.

The average amount conveyed during thirty days, in the sixty days in January and February of 1881, that the weights of mails were taken between New York City and Buffalo, a distance of four hundred and forty-two miles, amounted to 4,416,451 lbs.; between Buffalo and Chicago, a distance of five hundred and forty-two miles, 2,874,918 lbs. Over the first section 73,607 lbs. per day, the second section 47,848 per day; while either of these amounts does not equal those carried during the same period between New York and West Philadelphia, on the route to Washington, a distance of ninety miles, amounting to 6,202,370 lbs. for the thirty days, and 103,372 lbs. per day, the great discrepancy in miles must be borne in mind and the fact that government supplies and public documents to the East and North contribute no small proportion of the amount. The mail between New York and Chicago is altogether a working mail. It requires more than two hundred and sixty clerks to handle this mail, who travel annually 2,030,687 miles.

The clerks on the westerly bound trains are assigned the distributing of mails by route, for all Middle, Western, Southwestern, and Northwestern States, and on the easterly bound trains for the Middle and Eastern States.

When such States as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, with respectively 3,070, 3,681, 2,603, and 2,568 post-offices, are taken into consideration, some idea may be formed of the work required in preparing a system of distribution, the vigilance required to keep pace with the frequently changing schedules, and the study of the clerks to properly carry its requirements into effect. Beyond Chicago, in the new country, the work of distribution grows less intricate, but the powers of endurance of the clerks are severely tested. On the line between Kansas City, Missouri, and Deming, New Mexico, a distance of 1,147 miles, the clerks ship for a long voyage–five days on the outward trip and the same on the inward, sleeping and eating on the train.

There are a number of lines in the far West, on which the clerks do not leave the train for a number of days. Throughout the country the total number of pieces of ordinary mail handled by 3,855 railway postal clerks on the lines, during the year ending June 30, 1883, amounted to 3,981,516,280; the number of errors made in their distribution was 958,478 pieces, or a per centage of correct distribution of 99.97. This minutia of detail is applied to the distribution of a vast bulk of mail. It is estimated that in Boston, Massachusetts, between eighty and one hundred tons of mail matter are daily dispatched, and between forty and sixty tons are daily received; while at New York City this quantity is more than doubled. Even figures become interesting when they represent the standard of intelligence and progress, as shown by an increased correspondence and literature. In no branch of the government service, it can be safely said, have the tenets advanced by the advocates of the civil-service reform been so nearly realized as in this bureau of the Post-Office Department even at that period when the initiatory steps now being applied to other departmental machinery were considered all but Utopian,–a system consisting of a probationary period preceding appointment, and promotion from grade to grade, based upon a practical and thorough system of examination, had long since been developed up through an experimental stage to a well-grounded success. The complexity of the postal system, continually varying in detail, demanded a uniform system of giving information, and a corresponding test of its operation. The system of distribution for each State is compiled in tabulated form in a book or sheet, known as a “scheme,” for ready reference when on duty, or study when off the road. In thickly-settled States, where numerous railroads cross and re-cross each other in the same county, it is necessary to have the names of the post-offices arranged alphabetically; opposite the name of each office is given all its methods of supply and also the hour the mail reaches that office. In more sparsely-settled States the schemes are arranged by counties; this is done where the majority of the offices in a county are supplied by one or two lines, and the exceptions, which are only specified in detail in the scheme, by other lines or a number of post-offices. In this case the clerk memorizes the supply of the excepted post-offices particularly, the disposition of the remaining post-offices in the county being the same; it is of the first importance to be properly informed in which county an office is located, and the line supplying the principal part of that county. A name prefixed with “north” in one county may have the prefix of “south” in another, or a similar name in a remote county. These schemes are compiled at division headquarters, and the general orders are revised almost daily, informing the clerks of changes affecting the distribution, and also instructions as to other duties. From the schemes mentioned, lists of distribution are made and time computed applicable to each line or train of the States for which mail is selected.

To return from this preliminary digression to the examinations. These examinations are of the most practical character and serve to develop the mental abilities and intelligent understanding of the clerks. To clearly understand the method, the clerk should be followed step by step from the time of his probationary appointment into the service, through the probationary period and his examinations as a full-fledged clerk. After a month’s service on a line, the clerk is assigned a day and hour for his examination; here is laid the foundation for future usefulness, the intelligent understanding of a service, acquired by continual study and inquiry, that gives to all occupations that peculiar zest when understandingly rather than mechanically followed. A single State, with the least number of offices, that in the course of duty he will be required to assort, is selected at the first; it is not expected that it will be memorized understandingly, or the location of each office fully known at once, but it forms the basis of inquiry, and develops either future excellence or mediocrity, or total incapacity. The room in which these examinations are usually conducted (excepting when a clerk on a route in a remote part of the division is the subject, in which case he is visited by the examining clerk) is kept quiet, and nothing that will distract the attention allowed. He is placed before a case containing one hundred pigeon-holes, or more, each the width of an ordinary visiting-card, and sufficiently high to contain a large pack of them. Cards are then produced, upon each one of which is printed the name of a post-office, comprising a whole State. The cards are distributed into the case by the clerk being examined and the number of separations made as required when on actual duty in the railway post-office. The number of separations varies according to the connections due to be made; when the line is through a thickly-settled country, the separations are made in fine detail. In the State of Massachusetts there are seven hundred and seventy-two post-offices; and the number of separations made by one line is upwards of eighty. On the train it is necessary to make many (what are known as) direct packages that the examination does not call for. Account is taken of the time consumed in “sticking” the cards, and questions asked to test the knowledge of connections. A large number of questions are asked relating to the Postal Laws and Regulations, as affecting the Railway Mail Service; these latter questions vary in number from fifty to one hundred. When practicable, during the probationary period of six months, one examination is held each month, taking a different State each time.

The results of these examinations are placed on record, and at the expiration of the probationary term, this record, together with the list of errors in sending mail, are forwarded to the Honorable William B. Thompson, General Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service, in Washington, District of Columbia, with a recommendation that the clerk be permanently appointed or dropped out of the service. These examinations are held at intervals among all the clerks to test their efficiency, and as an incentive to study, to keep fresh in their minds the proper disposition of the important mails passing through their hands. In these examinations a good-natured rivalry exists, and a vigilant eye is kept by the clerks that their line shall make as high an average per centage, or, if possible, higher than any other. The percentage of correctness rarely falls below seventy-five; an average is generally made of ninety-five per cent. The list of errors made is closely scanned by better-informed clerks, and no stone left unturned by them to clear their record, and to satisfactorily settle disputed points. These discussions and inquiries are invited, not only that all may feel satisfied with the result, but also that much valuable information is frequently elicited from the clerks, who in many cases are situated advantageously to see where practical benefits may be attained.

During the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1882, there were 2,898 examinations of permanent clerks held, and 3,140,630 cards handled; of this number 208,736 were incorrect, 512,460 not known, making a correct average per centage of 77.05. This record does not include that of probationary clerks. This constant watchfulness, it can readily be seen, redounds to the benefit of the public and results in the most expeditious methods of forwarding the mails attainable. In some cases a test of reading addresses of irregular or difficult legibility as rapidly as possible is given, but this idea has not been generally adopted. The query naturally arises, Is there no incentive to study other than to make a good record? There is; for upon this basis, together with a knowledge of a ready working capacity and application–both great considerations–are the promotions and reductions made. Those in charge of lines are fully cognizant of the status of the men, bearing on all points. The clerks in the service are classified, those on the small or less important routes according to the distance. Our attention, however, is drawn particularly to the trunk lines. The probationary appointee is of class 1, receiving pay at the rate of eight hundred dollars per annum; but at the expiration of his six months’ probation, if he is retained, he is paid nine hundred dollars per annum, and placed in class 2. The number of men in a crew on a trunk line making through connections is governed by the quantity of work performed, and generally consists of four men, excepting the fast lines, New York to Chicago and Pittsburgh, where more than one mail-car on a train is required. With four men in a crew the clerk in charge is classed 5, and others successively 4, 3, and 2, and paid at the rate of thirteen hundred dollars, eleven hundred and fifty dollars, one thousand dollars, and nine hundred dollars per annum. In the event of a vacancy in class 5, the records of examinations and errors made in the performance of work are scanned, the relative working capacity of the eligible men in class 4 considered, and a copy of the records, with recommendations, forwarded to the General Superintendent. The gap caused by the retirement of one of class 5, and filled by one of class 4, necessitates promotions from classes 2 and 3, and also a new appointment into class 1, probationary, and after that period is passed into class 2, thus preserving a uniform organization.

The selections for promotion are made from the clerks on the entire line. Thus it will be seen that a graduated system of promotion exists, based upon merit and competitive examination, and which to the fullest extent is practical and theoretically satisfactory to the most exacting civil-service reform doctrinaire. The general supervision of the Railway Mail Service is under a General Superintendent, the Honorable William B. Thompson, located in Washington, District of Columbia. It is divided into nine sections, with offices in Boston, New York City, Washington, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Cleveland, and is respectively under the superintendence Messrs. Thomas P. Cheney, R.C. Jackson, C.W. Vickery, L.M. Terrell, C.J. French, J.E. White, E.W. Warfield, H.J. McKusick, and W.G. Lovell,–men who have risen from humble positions in the service, step by step, to their present positions of responsibility.

It is an erroneous impression that prevails in certain quarters that the forwarding of mails over the various railroads is arranged by postmasters; the especial charge and control of the reception and dispatch of mails is under the Superintendents of the Railway Mail Service, who, in their turn, are responsible to the General Superintendent, who, in his turn is responsible to the Honorable Second Assistant Postmaster-General.

It will readily be seen by the foregoing sketch that a clerkship in the Railway Mail Service is far from being a sinecure, either mentally or physically. As the country increases in population and the system becomes more complex, it is found to be important to the public that the clerks should be insured against removal except for the following reasons: “Intemperance, inattention to or neglect of duty, incapacity for the duties of the office, disobedience of official instructions, intentional disrespect to officers of this or other departments of the government, indecency in speech, intentional rudeness of language or behavior towards persons having official business with them or towards associates, and conduct unbecoming a gentleman.” In several annual reports the General Superintendent has urged upon Congress that some provision be made for pensioning disabled clerks. This would seem to be only fitting justice to the clerks, who hourly incur a risk of either limb or life.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...