In the days when commuter lines were run by the private raiilroads, may were used to deliver daily newpapers. Sometimes they were handled on the front platform of a regular mu passenger train, and at other times in the baggage section of combines, Indeed, during WWII, the Boston Elevated assigned several Type 4 streetcars to newpaper delivery service, to save gasoline and rubber in reducing the need for newspaper delivery trucks for store delivery in Boston, Cambridge, Chelsie, Revere, Brookline, Watertown, Waverly, Arlington.
Possdibly commuter authorities may wish to look into the possibility of increasing income at practicallyi no expense by offering newpapers this service these days?
South Shore handled newspaper deliveries as late as the late 1970's, but only on a handful of trains that included an ex-IRR express car in the consist.
That being said, I doubt that any transit authorities have either the equipment or the legal authority to handle newspaper deliveries on suburban trains. Also, afternoon newspapers are almost extinct and morning newspapers would need to be delivered to outlying areas at a time when no suburban trains are running.
Dave...virtually every metropolitan railroad had a "paper train" which left the city by 3AM and peddled the papers to the suburbs so that they could be read with coffee and juice by 6 or 6:30 at the latest. That was when each paper had its own printing plant in town with hundreds of men and trucks to move them around. Today's papers are often printed outside of downtown, some even sharing presses. Distribution cut points have virtually dissappeared as have many papers. The concept of today's commuter railroads, with no combines or baggage nor staff, is a remote dream. I'd like to see it, yes, but by today's newspaper standards probably more than by today's railroad standards, it's not likely to happen.
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If transit wanted to "deliver" newspapers today, they could equip their cars with wi-fi so the riders could read the paper on their iPads.
The trend today is for paper newspapers to cease production and for those organizations to market their product on the internet. Tough to distribute the internet via a train of any kind.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The DLW us to load evening news papers in Hoboken on the last car for delivery along the way. Traveing the Morris & Essex from Newark to Convent Station, remember seeing 12 inch bundels tucked away on the last car for delivery. Don't recall ever asking where they were dropped. I know Morristown had two news stores in sight of the station where it would be a quick walk to pick them up.
Also, knew one conductor on the EL (hint if you are reading this old friend, you came to my wedding) who would collect every news paper at the end of the run, tie them up and taken them with him on the last west bound run; pile in the front car. The train crews laught each day at him, but by the end of the week he had his gas money and meals paid for on other folk's dime!
In the 60's at least, the New Haven had a 3 unit RDC train out of Boston to Needham, a suburb. One of the three units was a RDC-2 with a baggage section, and would carry late edition papers from The Boston Record American to the local distributor. The morning editions of the papers all came by truck, but the late edition came on the train. It was about a 4:15 P.M. departure out of South Station.
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My daughter is in upper management at the New York Times and I have friends who work at the Tampa Tribune and Los Angeles Times. All three tell me that printed newspapers will soon be going away, at least on Monday through Thursday. Newspapers will soon experiment with publishing electronically during the week and having print editions only on weekends. As much as I would like to see commuter rail operations find another source of revenue, I'm sorry to say that the future does not look good for the idea. Many commuter rail agencies cut way back on trips on Saturday and Sunday and some, like MARC, do not run any trains on those days.
It is all too true that newspaper publishers are working toward eliminating the paper and print version of their product in favor of push and send email. They don't get it that people don't read newspapers because newspapers don't present and print news but offer fluff'n'stuff instead. If they had held their course of news instead of features, used real repoerters instead of copy writers who just transferred email and faxes to page, and did what newspapers are defined to do, then they would be succeeding in their purpose instead of drowning in red ink. Wether trains would still be delivereing to the suburbs of course is another matter.
In addition to the commuter trains bringing first editions out of the cities daily, there were also the weekend trains, particularly Saturday nights, that took the cities' Sunday papers to the hinterlands, Though some roads had weekday trains leaving Gotham around or shortly after midnight, the Saturday night trains were specially scheduled and equipped to handle the Sunday comics, rotogravuer, and sports sections added to an enlarged news, opinion, and advertising bundle. Some of these trains actually delivered Sunday papers two or more hundreds of miles from town!
I would agree, really newspapers are going away. However, I would like to add that could be a very lucrative market in express parcels. The explosive and trending growth of internet sales will add to volume along with rising gas prices and crumbling public highways.
ComradeTaco I would agree, really newspapers are going away. However, I would like to add that could be a very lucrative market in express parcels. The explosive and trending growth of internet sales will add to volume along with rising gas prices and crumbling public highways.
They had something like that called REA, but it failed decades ago. Amtrak also tried.
Rail parcel service cannot survive today unless attended to by truck at either end. First people want desk to desk service not even door to door. Second, todays hub and spoke models combinig air and truck is more efficient than rail can be except in straight lines.
Amtrak tied that with their ExpressTrak service. Harrisburg was one of their terminals and it was a sight to see the service grow back in the day. However, the service died and was discussed in detail on this forum. If anyone is interested in starting a service, the old Harrisburg yeard is filled with rusting ExpressTrak cars, all Amtrak complient.
Freight railroads, not Amtrak, effectively have recaptured some of the express parcel business, because both FedEx and UPS use intermodel, trailers and containers on flatcars.
daveklepper Freight railroads, not Amtrak, effectively have recaptured some of the express parcel business, because both FedEx and UPS use intermodel, trailers and containers on flatcars.
Excellent point, Dave, because it underscores the need to look at transportation as a system and not several different modes doing theie own thing.
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