REA Express - Last Hurrah!

[Anonymous]

I was an "Expressman" recruited by REA during its last Hurrah (mid '60) and quickly elevated to a Corporate level position at 219 E 42st NYC. Looking to link up with anyone who was an "Expressman" or is otherwise interested in sharing some interesting information about this company which at the time had a truck fleet larger than the combined fleets of Bell Telephone, 5 major terminals in NYC  alone,  including one that was a completely automated system one entire city block in size, and the ONLY transportation company that a private individual could make a shipment to ANY address in the "Free" world on One Bill of Lading. On my first day on the job as an "Expressman" I loaded 200 sugar barrels of lobsters on a trailer in Damarascotta Maine and two years later took a trip to Maine as a Corporate representative which generated a  5 column editorial in the Portland Press Herald about that trip and the message that was delivered to Lobster shippers. REA's demise was a precursor of the ultimate plight of American Railroads.

[KCSfan]

Many of our younger readers do not realize that the Railway Express Agency was the combined UPS and FedEx of its day. At one time stations at even the smallest of towns that might only have mixed train service displayed signs showing they offered both REA and Western Union telegraph service. REA was owned by the railroads and provided basically LCL and package service between any two points in the US served by passenger trains with pickup and delivery by truck in larger towns and cities. REA even operated a fleet of Pullman Green painted wood sided refrigerated cars for the LCL shipment of fruit and produce. As a boy I well remember seeing whole 12 car trains of REA reefers carrying strawberries on the ICRR from Hammond, LA to Chicago during the height of the spring strawberry harvest in Louisiana. These were headed by high stepping IC Pacifics and ran as extras on a faster than passenger train schedule since they stopped only for engine and crew changes. REA shipments were carried in passenger train consists and the wholesale discontinuance of passenger trains in the 1960's spelled the death knell for the Railway Express operation. Up to this time UPS had been largely a big city and suburb parcel delivery service. It was only as the REA service declined did they begin intercity service to fill in the void and expand to their present day scope of operation.

Mark 

[rji2]

At the larger stations, REA had full-time employees, but in the smaller places, the railroad's agent was paid a commission to handle REA business.  He had to make a separate accounting to REA and took his commission out of collected funds in cash.  I worked as a clerk at one station in Tennessee that handleed a substantial REA traffic, and the railroad agent drew a commission of such magnitude that he paid me and two other clerks a "salary" to assist him with express.  Among other shipments, local grocery stores would receive bakery products from a large bakery (Dolly Madison was one) centrally located in a large city more than 100 miles away.  Freshly baked in the early morning, it would go out on the local passenger train for delivery before noon.  Baby chicks were also frequently shipped by REA to farm supply stores.  Auto repair shops needing an unstocked part could get overnight shipment from a warehous by REA.  I once worked at Agent at a small station on a branch line that had mixed train service only two days a week.  REA, in that case, contracted with a truck driver to haul express shipments to and from the stations on that branch line daily, connecting with a full-time REA agency at the junction point of that branch line.  REA had a simple tariff.  As I recall (it's been a good many years, obviously) it had what were called "square rates."  The country was divided into large squares, and those large squares were subdivided into smaller squares.  If you billed a shipment from Tennessee to a point in Illinois, the rate would be calculated from the large square where shipped to the large square to which it was destined, based on the kind of commodity, and it's weight.  If the shipment was being billed within the same large square, then you had to figure the rate from a subsquare to the other subssquare.  (I hope I made that clear.)  Shipments could go either prepaid for collect.  The waybill was glued directly on the package, if possible, or glued to a large tag which was arrached with wrapped wire.  The waybill was folded so that part of it could be detached from the glued portion, and on which receipt for the shipment could be obtained.  It was then submitted for accounting, along with a printed form for listing both collect and prepaid charges, and calculation of commission, if it was a commission agency.

[daveklepper]

A regular Railway Express business was campers going to and returning from camp.   Their truck would pick up my trunk about a week before our special train (or special cars on a regular train) left Grand Central, the trunk would be at the foot of my bunk bed, like an Army foot locker would be number of years later, at the time out chartered buses would arrive at the camp from the railroad station.   Similarly, I would pack my trunk before leaving camp, and the REA truck would drop off my trunk at my home a week after returning from camp.

[Anonymous]

KCS fan You have a lot of REA blood in your response, if not a full fledged Expressman then you are one by adoption . Your recollections are very true. I might ask you to go back and remember the FGE out of Florida ( Fruit Growers Express) . That was the primary way for the citrus crop to get to market from Florida and as for the Strawberries, train loads were moving out of the West coast in my day. You see I was the Northeast Reagional Quality Control and Safety manager for REA and my first priority was the elimination and reduction of CLAIMS for damage or loss to traffic. Consequently I worked with those two shippers extensively. One of our biggest challenges was to catch the dishonest strawberry shipper who had turned over to us Strawberries already TOO RIPE to make the trip and then have them reconsign the rail car two or three time in its cross country move so that by the time they got to me in NYC they were all rotten and the shipper filed a claim with REA.  You also mentioned the ICRR which was the company that our President Bill Johnson ( he hired me) went to when he left REA EXPRESS about 1965. IC was then the most profitable RR in the country, it owned all the key right of ways for movement of rail traffic North to South and East to West. Do you remember the term BPA ( Branch Package Agency) that was the small commission office that didnt have enough business for a full time Agent. Nice hearing from You. I could talk for weeks about my experiences with REA.

[Anonymous]

Dave I started in Damarascotta Maine and if you went to camp on coastal Maine in 1964 I probably delivered your "foot locker" to you and then picked up when you were done to return it to your home. Thing that always puzzled me was " how come it was 60 pounds when I delivered it and 105 pounds when you took it home?"  You see we had a special tariff rate and it was the same cost no matter what it weighed. You guys must have made mountains in NY with all the rocks you took home.

[daveklepper]

I am older than that:    Camping train trips:   1938-1945   GCT (NYC) - Concord, New Hampshire (reverse mmovement at Lowell, MA).  1938-1944 sleepers on the State of Maine.  1945, coaches GCT - South Station, Boston Elevated to North Station (trnasfer at Washington St-Sumner St.), and B&M coaches to Concord.  Returning, Concord to Clairmont Junction in B&M second-hand PRR P54's, coaches in Day White Mountains Express to GCT.  1946:  Jersey City to Port Jervice.  1947, 1948, 1949:  GCT - Portland, ME, going, sleeper on State of Maine, returning, coaches to North Station, elevated to South Station, parlor car to New York (I-5 4-6-4 to New Haven on the front one of the these years)   1950:  Hoboken-Scranton (DL&W) then to Carbondale, PA with D&H power (reverse movement at Scranton, D&H provided a 2-8-0, DL&W a 4-6-4 going and 4-8-4 returning)

 

One of most camps activies is arts and crafts.   So kids buy copper, clay, wood, etc. and make something useful(?) or pretty(?) of it.  And pack it in the trunk to bring it home.   Then they win prizes at athletic contests.   Sometimes the prize can be a canoe paddle!   Then in the middle of the summer they find they need things that didn't get packed.   Like binoculars.   Or a camera.   Their parents send to it to them and it returns in the trunk.  They can also buy books and magazine which they are relunctant to throw out.

[daveklepper]

Correction.   Both in 1944 and 1945 sleepers were in short supply.   The 1944 trips to and from camp were using the Day Express, the State of Maine equipment running in reverse each day with the Pullman's sold as parlor seats, but we rode unairconditioned straight back New Haven coaches, older than the American Flyers but in good condition.  Going through Northampton Mass on the return I saw a B&M Birkshire with that strange feedwater heater.