I would like to know if sometimes the mail cranes were located in places not near stations, like towns that had no stations and if so where, road junction near town or?
In a word — no.
The mail would not have been left unattended amd mail would not have been picked up or dropped off without the station agent being on duty.
Picking up the Mail - 2 by John B Charles, on Flickr
Besides picking up, generally a pouch was kicked off with local mail to be delivered. It would not have been left unattended. The clerk in the above photo is just about to kick the bag out the door. The station agent was responsible for collecting the pouch and securing it until pickup by a postal employee.
The mail clerks carried a list of open stations.
Regards, Ed
Technically, a "station" is the sign next to the railroad track that proclaims that fact.
A "depot" is a building for passenger service.
I suppose you could have a station with mail service without a depot. Of course, there'd have to be an official person on hand to load the crane and pick up the mail drop.
I expect if there's a mail drop, there has to be a post office. And the postmaster would likely do the job--load the crane, pick up the drop.
Post offices tend to be in villages, towns, and on up.
If there's no depot, I guess the mail crane could be placed where it was convenient for the postmaster. And that might be a distance from the station (station sign).
Ed
In searching for photgraphic evidence I seem to remember about a post master standing next to a grade crossing where ther was no depot, waiting for a train to come through his rural hamlet to snatch and, throw the mail, I went to two books by O.Winston Link. One is "The Last Steam Railroad in America" ISBN 0-8109-3575-9 and "Steam, Steel, and Stars", ISBN 0-8109-2587-7. Both books are reasonbly priced and focus on the Norfolk and Western Railway in the 1950s, when steam still ruled. Mr. Link was a pioneering and avid use of the synchronized flash for lighting his night photography. He concentrated his interests in the area west and north of Roanoke, in Virginia and North Carolina. His style was not just the train but, the overall scene from everyday life in that region. One of his famous photographs is, a Y-6 led freight train passing by carloads of people at an outdoor drive-in movie. Another, picturing just the locomotive's drivers, is shot from the living room of a woman watching TV.
Another of his favorite subjects featured in both books is, N&W's Abingdon Branch which was served by a mixed train using a coach as a caboose and, transport passengers. The mixed also had a baggage car with a 15 foot RPO for mail.
Based on your posts, a lot of your modeling seems to focus on the southern U.S. The scenic approach of these books is broad enough to see how dense railroad infrastructure was in those days. The Abingdon Branch was ripped up long ago but, modeling inspiration is heavy, from signs at bridges warning trespassers not to walk on the bridge or right-of-way, to all the trackside sheds and shanties we no longer see.
No. I did not find the photo I was looking for.
If the postmaster on the road mentioned above was "throwing" the mail onto the train, there was no mail crane.
Here's a pretty neat article about a mail crane:
https://www.peweevalleyhistory.org/mail-by-rail.html
Note that a postmaster (or perhaps another postal employee) hung the mail sack and pickup up the dropped one. NOT a railroad employee. Thus it would appear the mail crane was the property of the postal service, and not the railroad. With all of this, I expect the postal service had a bigger vote about placement of the mail crane than the railroad.
It comes to mind that if the depot and the post office were separated by a goodly distance, and both were quite near the railroad tracks, that the crane might be placed closer to the post office than the depot.
A "push" towards placing it near the depot is that the depot is manned, providing some security (though I am sure the postmaster is expected to have eyes-on for both the pickup and the drop!). Also some shelter for the postmaster in inclement weather.
But I just don't see a mail crane placed out in the middle of nowhere. That will take a bit of 'splainin'!
I have the soft cover book, "Remember the Rock." It's a collection of mostly Iowa area Rock Island photographs made by Phillip R. Hastings. On page 3 is a picture of the Corn Belt Rocket picking up mail at Malcom, IA on July 3, 191. The depot is in the background and is derelict. There is no longer an open agency there.
I also have a reprint of the 1925 General Roster for the Rock Island. It lists mail cranes at stations, some of which were not open agencies. There is also a list of 5 locations for "Mail Cranes between Stations." "Out in the middle of Nowhere" as it were.
A link to the 1910 General Roster shows 19 locations. A link to the 1929 shows only 2 locations left between stations. Most likely the gradual reduction is due to small rural post offices being closed as roads became improved.
1910 link. Wayback Machine (archive.org)
1929 link. Page 158 159 (archive.org)
I would say the more modern the era being modeled, the less likely of finding a mail crane between stations, out in the middle of nowhere. It would be possible to find a mail crane where there is no open railroad agency. Maybe not a remaining depot structure.
Jeff
7j43kThus it would appear the mail crane was the property of the postal service, and not the railroad.
Seems like the B&O "owned" their mail cranes:
Track_Detail_Mail-Crane_B-O by Edmund, on Flickr
And perhaps the Pennsy, too:
Track_Detail_Mail-Crane by Edmund, on Flickr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qZV7sSz_iA
Thank you all very much, you gave what was needed. As a side note one pic showed a whistle post too that was very near the crossing, answers another of my questions. So many of these neat things just did not exist on the line I was near as a youth.