It wasn't just the United States Post Office Dept. employees (in RPO's) that were armed onboard. There was another kind of head-end car called a "Messenger" car. These looked pretty much just like baggage cars, but differed in that they had lights (thus batteries and axle-hung generators), a toilet, and perhaps a small desk and chair for the messenger who rode in the car. He would lock himself in at the start of the trip and was armed with a pistol.
These cars were always marked with a 5-pointed star on the side of the car near the car number. Every messenger car was treated as if it were a loaded passenger car because one never really knew is there was someone in there or not. So every coupling action was made passenger-style (stopping 10-feet short of the car, then creep in to make the hitch). I presume messenger cars were staffed by the Railway Express Agency rather than the railroad, but I do not know for certain.
I also don't know how widespread they were across North America, but I know the New Haven had 65 messenger cars in 1956 (out of a fleet of 409 baggage/mail storage/RPO/messenger cars).
Read a story that Milwaukee Road sectionmen out in the mountains were allowed firearms for a brief period. A sectionman was talking on a block phone when all of a sudden he started screaming and the phone went dead. A while later he came back on the phone and said while talking he had turned around to find a woozy black bear behind him. It seems a car load of grain was derailed and was just shoved out of the way and left along the ROW. The car was broken open, allowing moisture in and the grain fermented. The bears got into it and became a little inebriated from eating the grain. I think it was in Richard Steinheimer's book "The Electric Way across the Mountains."
Jeff
Yes, Post Office employees on mail cars did carry sidearms back in the old days, but remember they were Federal employees and were in a different category. This came about due to a rash of mail car robberys that occured back in the 1920's. The US government even went so far as to station Marines in the mail cars. Then Secretary of the Navy Edmund Denby (a former Marine himself) made it plain, "I want the mails to get through, or a dead Marine in that mailcar!"
The Marines eventually left to do other things, but the armed posties stayed.
Those who've been there have told me, if you're out in the Alaskan boondocks without some kind of a firearm you need your head examined!
I can't imagine a rail MOW gang in Alaska going six miles out of town for an estimated nine hours worth of right-of-way repairs in late May and not one of the crew having a sidearm or a rifle. Not after the first scare, anyway.
Didn't the posties have weapons in the day while sorting mail on the rails?
ALL:
We all know that railroad police have guns, but were there any instances where signal maintainers or track department employees carrried handguns or rifles for protection from snakes, bears, etc.? I asked a retired special agent friend and co-worker of mine and he did not know of any that he was aware of. Maybe in the old days, this was gone off the record.
Ed Burns
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.