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
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.
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