The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: thundley4 on May 11, 2011, 02:06:41 PM
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The Northerner (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 08:20 PM
Original message
U.S. Postal Service reports $2.2 billion loss
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. Postal Service continues to hemorrhage money, with a loss of $2.2 billion in the most recent quarter.
The national mail service said on Tuesday that it expects to have a cash shortfall and reach its statutory borrowing limit by the time its fiscal year ends in September. That means the agency could be forced to default on some of its payments to the federal government.
Patrick Donahoe, the Postmaster General, said the service is still seeking changes to federal laws that would allow it to change its business model and potentially save enough money to avoid a default.
"The Postal Service may return to financial stability only through significant changes to the laws that limit flexibility and impose undue financial burdens," Donahoe said in a statement.
Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/10/news/companies/usps_ear...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1079126
Occulus (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. It was, IIRC, part of the major postal legislation passed some years back.
I personally think it was an attempt to artificially drive USPS into the red for the purpose of ultimate privatization. But for that requirement, the USPS would, by all accounts, be in fine financial shape, still "losing" money but still in the black.
The financial health of the USPS should be of no concern, IMO. The USPS is supposed to be a service, not a business. Note that it is BUSINESSMEN that have driven it into the ground, and that's only happened since the USPS was ordered to run itself like a BUSINESS.
The entire legislation ought to be revisited, if you ask me. It's been a bad deal for everyone involved (which was probably the point).
Right, and all the restrictions placed on it to protect the unions have nothing to do with them losing money. :mental:
tammywammy (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. Yes, it does sound like it definitely should be reversed.
I don't use the post office much, but there's nothing like mailing and/or receiving a hand written card. Email can't replace everything. Yesterday my lovely mail man delivered a text book I had ordered used via Amazon. I can't get a text book via email.
Sure you can, ever hear of PDF or ebooks?
Hannah Bell (1000+ posts) Wed May-11-11 12:36 PM
Response to Reply #21
56. it isn't "their" business model. it's the model that was forced on them by congress
in the interest of private corps.
:mental:
Occulus (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 10:18 PM
Response to Reply #23
30. +1000
I can tell you WHY the USPS has too many EAS employees, though. They don't want to promote people who actually work and actually move the mail and actually do a good job doing that because they need those people out on the floor, doing the work, moving the mail, and doing a good job doing so!
USPS will never promote experienced, hard working clerk employees because those are the exact people they need. Lazy workers, complete idiots, and born bootlickers will always get promoted because the USPS doesn't want those people handling mail, where they could make a serious mistake that does actual harm to the customer.
We have an entire shift run by managers who shouldn't be in charge of the cleanup of a puddle of catsick. One of them failed her EAS interview five times, one of them has only ever worked in a different craft and has no automation experience at all, and the head honcho doesn't know what the words "shall provide" mean in relation to a binding arbitration agreement.
Get rid of the bad managers, put competent people in thir place, and USPS would be much better off.
Union rules don't allow for firing incompetent workers, they just get promoted.
Hannah Bell (1000+ posts) Wed May-11-11 12:25 PM
Response to Reply #1
54. no, what is killing the post office was put in motion long ago, when congress "reformed"
Edited on Wed May-11-11 12:35 PM by Hannah Bell
the post office to give business to ups/fed ex and make usps a junk mail service.
Private businesses doing at a profit what the government can't. *charter and private schools*
mailman82 (156 posts) Tue May-10-11 08:50 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. He is right!
I retired in Dec. the pre funding dates back to Raygun. In 1984 he wanted all PO employs on SS. Our retirement was paid for by the new people coming in. That would stop, hence the deal was made so we Civil Servants would not loose what we had already paid in, and that we would have a pension when we retired.
The management has always been top heavy,we could never understand why an office of 120 employees needed 5 supervisors. The harassment was heavy every day. That is one of the reasons I got out. I am not rich but I am getting along well. One reason is I worked mucho overtime so I could pay my house off early.
Sounds like a pyramid scheme.
Thrill (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 08:39 PM
Response to Original message
6. I have no solutions for how to help the post office
especially without hurting the workers
Sometimes jobs are lost to progress.
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If they would just double or triple the rate they charge junk mail distributors, USPS headcount could be reduced by 50%, first class rates could be reduced, and landfill costs greatly reduced.
Just check the volume of mail received by your household, and then compare it to the volume of mail you read before throwing it away.
At my house, I'm sure at least 90% goes into the trash unopened, and junk mailers pay a tiny fraction of what it costs to deliver.
It would be great if it were illegal to put anything in the mail addressed to "Occupant".
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In terms of current operations they are actually doing pretty well, like the auto industry it is the pension overhead that's killing them.
Problem is (As you can tell from reading between the lines to ferret out the background facts, to which the DUmmies seem oddly oblivious) that Congress actually runs the train rather than the Postmaster General.
No organization could possibly succeed with 536 politicians (Them plus the Prez), none of them directly accountable for the outcome and each with his or her own agenda and constituency, controlling what it does and how it's managed.
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Hannah Bell likes to blame the businessmen for running it into the ground, but like DAT says it's congress that is to blame.
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tammywammy (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. Yes, it does sound like it definitely should be reversed.
I don't use the post office much, but there's nothing like mailing and/or receiving a hand written card. Email can't replace everything. Yesterday my lovely mail man delivered a text book I had ordered used via Amazon. I can't get a text book via email.
Wow.... Just, wow....
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tammywammy (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. Yes, it does sound like it definitely should be reversed.
I don't use the post office much, but there's nothing like mailing and/or receiving a hand written card. Email can't replace everything. Yesterday my lovely mail man delivered a text book I had ordered used via Amazon. I can't get a text book via email.
Hand written
mail man
text book
air port
DUmb ass
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pay roll (http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,58851.0.html)
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Tammywammy has been like a duck to water now that she is at the DUmp full-time again.
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tammywammy (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. Yes, it does sound like it definitely should be reversed.
I don't use the post office much, but there's nothing like mailing and/or receiving a hand written card. Email can't replace everything. Yesterday my lovely mail man delivered a text book I had ordered used via Amazon. I can't get a text book via email.
Ever hear of FedEx? UPS?
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For each inefficient unionized postal worker there are 3.5 retired unionized postal workers.
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Thrill (1000+ posts) Tue May-10-11 08:39 PM
Response to Original message
6. I have no solutions for how to help the post office
especially without hurting the workers
If it was up to you DUmmies we'd still be using the horse and cart to get around because the introduction of the motorised vehicle would put all those farriers and other related equine specialists out of work.
That would be unacceptable by DU standards.
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Ever hear of FedEx? UPS?
Actually, FedEx and UPS have agreements with the USPS to deliver some of their more out of the way parcels. Makes sense, since USPS delivers to every address in the US, everyday.
Back during Reagan, the Postmaster General got rid of a lot of unneeded upper management. Postal Service had 1 supervisor for every 5 workers at the time, the PMG pared it down to 1 for 8. Now, it's inching back up to 1 for 5.
The Postal Service at one time had a $9 billion surplus, but like all government agencies, it has to pay all surpluses back to the FedGov at the end of the year. IF it had been allowed to KEEP its surplus, it would still be in the black. (Thanks to "Tip" O'Neil and the rest of the Demonrats in Congress back then.)
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Note that it is BUSINESSMEN that have driven it into the ground,
One minute business are making obscene profits.
The next minute business couldn't pull a profit running bars and whorehouses next to military bases.
I guess it just depends which narrative one needs at a given moment.
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One minute business are making obscene profits.
The next minute business couldn't pull a profit running bars and whorehouses next to military bases.
I guess it just depends which narrative one needs at a given moment.
If you expect leftists to be consistent in any given argument - I'ma bitchslap your ass into the ground.
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If you expect leftists to be consistent in any given argument - I'ma bitchslap your ass into the ground.
I beg to differ. DUmmies are very consistant. They are consistently inconsistent.
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Ever hear of FedEx? UPS?
Yeah, they're great if you want to pay $20 per residential delivery...and if you live in a rural area, just two days a week for FedEx, unless they re-route it through the Post Office.
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Yeah, they're great if you want to pay $20 per residential delivery...and if you live in a rural area, just two days a week for FedEx, unless they re-route it through the Post Office.
....but we were talking about a package purchased off Amazon. I've never received anything from Amazon through the USPS. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it has never happened to me.
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Yeah, they're great if you want to pay $20 per residential delivery...and if you live in a rural area, just two days a week for FedEx, unless they re-route it through the Post Office.
BTW, let's think about what you said here. Sounds like an efficient model of how mail could be delivered without bleeding sums of cash. Run all city to city traffic (bulk deliveries) through UPS and FedEx. Use the USPS for the sorting of those bulk deliveries and then the local routes. Are you saying that it takes more than 2 dollars (about the sum of an average batch of mail) to get my mail to my box, when he's in the area collecting that from everyone? 100 homes would be 200 bucks. He'd spend, what, 10 dollars on gas in that one little area? Not to mention they deliver to a lot more than 100 homes.
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....but we were talking about a package purchased off Amazon. I've never received anything from Amazon through the USPS. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that it has never happened to me.
I really wasn't talking about one particular transaction, because for any one individual transaction you could pick one where the seller was only 30 miles away and argue that USPS, UPS, and FedEx should all be out of business because you could go pick that one up yourself, which adds nothing to the whole argument about whether there should even be a post office. The thread and response to it here is really about whether we ought to even have a USPS and how is should be managed. I have heard far too many talking head fiscal conservatives flap their NYC-centric gums about how UPS or FedEx could replace the whole thing, which is frankly stupid. Their views on it are as uneducated and unrealistic as those of New Yorkers who don't see why people need cars, since they could just take a cab or take the train.
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We've come a long way from 3 cent letters and 2 cent post cards.
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If they would just double or triple the rate they charge junk mail distributors, USPS headcount could be reduced by 50%, first class rates could be reduced, and landfill costs greatly reduced.
Just check the volume of mail received by your household, and then compare it to the volume of mail you read before throwing it away.
At my house, I'm sure at least 90% goes into the trash unopened, and junk mailers pay a tiny fraction of what it costs to deliver.
It would be great if it were illegal to put anything in the mail addressed to "Occupant".
There was a time--although no one here's old enough to remember it--when the post office made two deliveries every day, to each address, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.
It was actually possible for a letter to be posted in one city in the morning, and received in another (nearby) city in the afternoon, the same day.
This twice-a-day service was ended sometime during the 1950s.
The unanticipated consequence of this "efficiency" was that the post office suddenly needed storage room it hadn't needed before (as the mail was always moving, no need to store it), immense square miles of storage room to hold the mail until it could be delivered the next day.
There was a time--although no one here's old enough to remember it--when the post office sorted and delivered long-distance mail via railway train; they actually had guys on the train, sorting mail and putting it into bags or cubbyholes (as needed), picking up and dropping off large bags of mail as the train passed by each town. The mail was always moving, never standing still.
This had largely disappeared by the 1960s, being replaced with sending all long-distance mail via airplane.
The unanticipated consequence of this "efficiency" was that the post office suddenly needed even more storage room it hadn't needed before, to hold the mail for shipping. And because the mail just sat around in airports most of the time, waiting for the next flight, long-distance delivery became slower and more cumbersome.
And then there's this bulk-mailing bit.
Back when I was in college, when first-class postage was 15 cents, I read a book (now long gone; I don't even recall its title) about the postal service, in which it was said that bulk-mailing was subsidized by users of first-class postage, and that if the post office handled only first-class mail, no junk or special rates, efficiencies would be such that postal rates, again at the time 15 cents, could be lowered to eight and a half cents.
Politicians are like primitives, they think things only halfway through. Once they think to a desired conclusion, they stop thinking.
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BTW, let's think about what you said here. Sounds like an efficient model of how mail could be delivered without bleeding sums of cash. Run all city to city traffic (bulk deliveries) through UPS and FedEx. Use the USPS for the sorting of those bulk deliveries and then the local routes. Are you saying that it takes more than 2 dollars (about the sum of an average batch of mail) to get my mail to my box, when he's in the area collecting that from everyone? 100 homes would be 200 bucks. He'd spend, what, 10 dollars on gas in that one little area? Not to mention they deliver to a lot more than 100 homes.
Rural mail is generally delivered by contract carriers, not postal employees. Right now two bucks wouldn't come close to hitting a hundred mailboxes on gas alone around here, let alone the price of actually paying the guy who's driving, who can probably hit only about 30-45 mailboxes per hour. Even in the 'burbs, which sounds like the context you're talking about, since the 13th Amendment was passed we can't make people deliver stuff for the cost of gas alone, and as far as the cost of gas goes, Government mileage figures are based on about twice the average cost of gas per mile, in order to take into account wear and tear on the vehicle.
The USPS does use contract carriers city to city, btw. Their personnel costs are all on the sorting, intake/distribution, and local counter staff end of things, not the long-haul transportation end of it.
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There was a time--although no one here's old enough to remember it--when the post office made two deliveries every day, to each address, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.
It was actually possible for a letter to be posted in one city in the morning, and received in another (nearby) city in the afternoon, the same day.
This twice-a-day service was ended sometime during the 1950s.
The unanticipated consequence of this "efficiency" was that the post office suddenly needed storage room it hadn't needed before (as the mail was always moving, no need to store it), immense square miles of storage room to hold the mail until it could be delivered the next day.
There was a time--although no one here's old enough to remember it--when the post office sorted and delivered long-distance mail via railway train; they actually had guys on the train, sorting mail and putting it into bags or cubbyholes (as needed), picking up and dropping off large bags of mail as the train passed by each town. The mail was always moving, never standing still.
This had largely disappeared by the 1960s, being replaced with sending all long-distance mail via airplane.
The unanticipated consequence of this "efficiency" was that the post office suddenly needed even more storage room it hadn't needed before, to hold the mail for shipping. And because the mail just sat around in airports most of the time, waiting for the next flight, long-distance delivery became slower and more cumbersome.
And then there's this bulk-mailing bit.
Back when I was in college, when first-class postage was 15 cents, I read a book (now long gone; I don't even recall its title) about the postal service, in which it was said that bulk-mailing was subsidized by users of first-class postage, and that if the post office handled only first-class mail, no junk or special rates, efficiencies would be such that postal rates, again at the time 15 cents, could be lowered to eight and a half cents.
Politicians are like primitives, they think things only halfway through. Once they think to a desired conclusion, they stop thinking.
I remember when we got two mail deliveries per day, but it would only be in the week before Christmas. Our small-town mail carriers were on foot, and I guess the additional weight of all the Christmas cards was too much for a single trip. In those days, the avalanche of junk mail we suffer today did not exist.
And it seems to me it was well into the 60s when we were still buying "Air Mail" stamps, and those special envelopes designated for air mail.
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Rural mail is generally delivered by contract carriers, not postal employees. Right now two bucks wouldn't come close to hitting a hundred mailboxes on gas alone around here, let alone the price of actually paying the guy who's driving, who can probably hit only about 30-45 mailboxes per hour. Even in the 'burbs, which sounds like the context you're talking about, since the 13th Amendment was passed we can't make people deliver stuff for the cost of gas alone, and as far as the cost of gas goes, Government mileage figures are based on about twice the average cost of gas per mile, in order to take into account wear and tear on the vehicle.
The USPS does use contract carriers city to city, btw. Their personnel costs are all on the sorting, intake/distribution, and local counter staff end of things, not the long-haul transportation end of it.
Wouldn't that even out in the long run since most people don't live in rural areas, but pay the same AS the people in the rural areas? Also, I'm not saying people should work for free, so I don't know why you injected that strawman. Suggesting that we just keep up with the status quo and keep bleeding tax dollars isn't plausible.
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Also, I'm not saying people should work for free, so I don't know why you injected that strawman.
Are you saying that it takes more than 2 dollars (about the sum of an average batch of mail) to get my mail to my box, when he's in the area collecting that from everyone? 100 homes would be 200 bucks. He'd spend, what, 10 dollars on gas in that one little area? Not to mention they deliver to a lot more than 100 homes. Umm, okay, whatever. :whatever:
Suggesting that we just keep up with the status quo and keep bleeding tax dollars isn't plausible.
True. They need to raise prices to reflect what it actually costs, including their legacy personnel costs.
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And it seems to me it was well into the 60s when we were still buying "Air Mail" stamps, and those special envelopes designated for air mail.
I used to collect stamps, like Fat Che collects ISP numbers, pasting them into albums.
If I recall correctly, the air-mail delivery rate (usually two or three cents more than the first-class rate), was discontinued in 1971.
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Are you saying that it takes more than 2 dollars (about the sum of an average batch of mail) to get my mail to my box, when he's in the area collecting that from everyone? 100 homes would be 200 bucks. He'd spend, what, 10 dollars on gas in that one little area? Not to mention they deliver to a lot more than 100 homes. Umm, okay, whatever. :whatever:
Reading comprehension. I'm referring to a neighborhood. It doesn't take a big area to hold 100 homes. 10 dollars is about right. If you're referring to rural areas, again, most people do not LIVE in rural areas and the costs would average out.
True. They need to raise prices to reflect what it actually costs, including their legacy personnel costs.
Ok DAT, why don't you tell us all your plan to fix the issue, instead of acting like there is no problem. Raising prices isn't a fix for everything. It sounds as if you think there is no bloat in the USPS and that there's no way POSSIBLE that it could be done cheaper. Bullshit.
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In the United States a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the train......From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains; and the Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. In fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_post_office
By the 1880s, railway post office routes were operating on the vast majority of passenger trains in the United States. A complex network of interconnected routes allowed mail to be transported and delivered in a remarkably short time. Railway mail clerks were subjected to stringent training and ongoing testing of details regarding their handling of the mail. On a given RPO route, each clerk was expected to know not only the post offices and rail junctions along the route, but also specific local delivery details within each of the larger cities served by the route. Periodic testing demanded both accuracy and speed in sorting mail, and a clerk scoring only 96% accuracy would likely receive a warning from the Railway Mail Service division superintendent.
In the United States, RPO cars (also known as mail cars or postal cars) were equipped and staffed to handle most back-end postal processing functions. First class mail, magazines and newspapers were all sorted, cancelled when necessary, and dispatched to post offices in towns along the route. Registered mail was also handled, and the foreman in charge was required to carry a regulation pistol while on duty to discourage theft of the mail.
At its height, RPO cars were used on over 9,000 train routes covering more than 200,000 route miles in North America. While the majority of this service consisted of one or more cars at the head end of passenger trains, many railways operated solid mail trains between major cities; these solid mail trains would often carry 300 tons of mail daily.
An interesting feature of most RPO cars was a hook that could be used to snatch a leather or canvas pouch of outgoing mail hanging on a track-side mail crane at smaller towns where the train did not stop.....With the train often operating at 70 mph or more, a postal clerk would have a pouch of mail ready to be dispatched as the train passed the station. In a coordinated movement, the catcher arm was swung out to catch the hanging mail pouch while the clerk stood in the open doorway. As the inbound pouch slammed into the catcher arm, the clerk kicked the outbound mail pouch out of the car, making certain to kick it far enough that it was not sucked back under the train. An employee of the local post office would retrieve the pouch and deliver it to the post office.
At its height, RPO cars were used on over 9,000 train routes covering more than 200,000 route miles in North America. While the majority of this service consisted of one or more cars at the head end of passenger trains, many railways operated solid mail trains between major cities; these solid mail trains would often carry 300 tons of mail daily.
When the post office made a controversial policy change to process mail in large regional "sectional centers," the remaining railway post office routes, along with all highway post office routes, were phased out of service. In September of 1967 the POD cancelled all "rail by mail" contracts, electing to move all First Class mail via air and other classes by road (truck) transport.
After 113 years of railway post office operation, the last surviving railway post office running on rails between New York and Washington, D.C. was discontinued on June 30, 1977.
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Air Mail as a distinct service was effectively ended within the United States on October 10, 1975, however, when all domestic intercity First Class mails began to be transported by air whenever practical and/or expeditious at the normal First Class rate. Domestic Air Mail as a separate class of service (and its rate structure) was formally eliminated by the successor to the Post Office Department, the United States Postal Service (USPS) on May 1, 1977.
Oops, so I was wrong about 1971 being when air-mail stamps were discontinued.
But it seems to me that circa 1971, all mail was being carried via air anyway.
In June 2006 the USPS formally trademarked Air Mail (two words with capital first letters) along with Pony Express.
One wonders why they did that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmails_of_the_United_States
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There was a time--although no one here's old enough to remember it--when the post office sorted and delivered long-distance mail via railway train; they actually had guys on the train, sorting mail and putting it into bags or cubbyholes (as needed), picking up and dropping off large bags of mail as the train passed by each town.
Back in the 50's, the high speed passenger train from New York to Miami used to pass thru the little town of Bethune SC where my mothers parents lived. I remember watching the mail car. Way up the track the mailman on the train would slide open the window on the mail car and look to see if the mailbag was hanging on the post. If it was, he would duck back in the window and then lean back out the window with a hook. The train would be doing 70 to 80 miles an hour when he would snatch that bag off the post. Soon as that bag went in the window the engineer would get on the engines and pickup speed.
I always wanted to put a cannonball in that mailbag. I was a bad little boy.
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Back in the 50's, the high speed passenger train from New York to Miami used to pass thru the little town of Bethune SC where my mothers parents lived. I remember watching the mail car. Way up the track the mailman on the train would slide open the window on the mail car and look to see if the mailbag was hanging on the post. If it was, he would duck back in the window and then lean back out the window with a hook. The train would be doing 70 to 80 miles an hour when he would snatch that bag off the post. Soon as that bag went in the window the engineer would get on the engines and pickup speed.
I always wanted to put a cannonball in that mailbag. I was a bad little boy.
What was the name of that train, John, sir?
It's so rare any more that I run into someone who remembers passenger trains; they were fading out quite quickly when I was a little lad.
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[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hox-ni8geIw[/youtube]
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Reading comprehension.
Or "Writing ability."
It's pretty clear you don't actually understand much of anything about the system in the first place, or its cost structure and legal constraints that drive that cost, but jsut want to bitch about it and fundamentally don't want to pay more than you do already in postage. It's not really worth wasting any more of my time discussing it, given that starting point.
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Or "Writing ability."
It's pretty clear you don't actually understand much of anything about the system in the first place, or its cost structure and legal constraints that drive that cost, but jsut want to bitch about it and fundamentally don't want to pay more than you do already in postage. It's not really worth wasting any more of my time discussing it, given that starting point.
I understand there there is way too much damn bloat in the USPS.
http://membership.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_NewsRelease_07082003c
http://membership.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10116
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110511006716/en/CAGW-Urges-Five-Day-Service-Postal-Losses
http://membership.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12384
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/USPS+Races+Downhill+and+Loses+Money%3b+Postal+Officials+Continue+to...-a0104851390
http://fleetowner.com/news/fleet_usps_attacked_losses/
....but you go ahead and bury your head in the sand and continue to say the taxpayers should pick up the losses due to piss-poor management and operational bloat. :lalala:
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What was the name of that train, John, sir?
It's so rare any more that I run into someone who remembers passenger trains; they were fading out quite quickly when I was a little lad.
There were 2 high speed passenger trains at that time on that segment of the Seaboard Line. One was called The Silver Comet that went to Birmingham Alabama and the Silver Meteor that went to Miami. I think the Silver Meteor was the one referred to as "The Orange Blossom Special". Back then The Silver Meteor didn't make many stops on its trip to Miami.... New York, N.J., Penn., Washington, one stop in Va., two in N.C, one in S.C., one in Ga. and two in Fla..
My uncle Ray was a conductor for Pullman Coaches back then.
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What was the name of that train, John, sir?
It's so rare any more that I run into someone who remembers passenger trains; they were fading out quite quickly when I was a little lad.
As a kid, I went on baseball excursions to Crosley Field aboard the Fast Flying Virginian. $10 for a box seat, box lunch, and round trip rail, but when you get $1.25 for mowing a lawn, ten bucks represents a lot of work.
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There were 2 high speed passenger trains at that time on that segment of the Seaboard Line. One was called The Silver Comet that went to Birmingham Alabama and the Silver Meteor that went to Miami. I think the Silver Meteor was the one referred to as "The Orange Blossom Special". Back then The Silver Meteor didn't make many stops on its trip to Miami.... New York, N.J., Penn., Washington, one stop in Va., two in N.C, one in S.C., one in Ga. and two in Fla..
My uncle Ray was a conductor for Pullman Coaches back then.
I did a google search. I wasn't to far off for 55-60 year old memories.
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I did a google search. I wasn't to far off for 55-60 year old memories.
So you were on the Seaboard Air Line, which ran in competition with the Atlantic Coast Line.
By the time I was around, they'd merged into the Seaboard Coast Line, and their passenger trains were about the only ones still making money.
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As a kid, I went on baseball excursions to Crosley Field aboard the Fast Flying Virginian. $10 for a box seat, box lunch, and round trip rail, but when you get $1.25 for mowing a lawn, ten bucks represents a lot of work.
Damn, I had to look it up.
So you were on the Chesapeake & Ohio.
I'd heard of the Fast Flying Virginian, but couldn't place the road.
The Fast Flying Virginian (FFV) was a named passenger train of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.
The FFV was inaugurated on May 11, 1889, and ran until May 12, 1968. The train was operated on a daily daytime schedule between Union Station in Washington, DC and Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Ohio. The train operated westbound as #3 and eastbound as #4. The train operated between Washington, DC, and Charlottesville, VA over trackage rights from the Southern Railway. In Charlottesville, the FFV joined home rails, and continued west to Ohio. Major station stops included Alexandria, VA, Charlottesville, VA, Charleston, WV, Huntington, WV, Ashland, KY, and Cincinnati, OH.
Charlottesville, besides being a junction point for all traffic going to or coming from Washington, was also where an extension of the train from Newport News, VA was combined. This separate section was labeled in timetables as #43 westbound or #44 eastbound.
The Fast Flying Virginian operated alongside George Washington and Sportsman, being one of the C&O's most prestigious passenger trains. Unfortunately for the FFV, and the majority of American railroads, passenger trains become less popular over time, as the public embraced the automobile and the airplane. By the mid-1960s, the C&O, as with other railroads, depended on mail and express packages to keep passenger trains marginally profitable. That ended in 1967 when the U.S. Postal Service canceled all their mail contracts with the railroads. Instead the USPS preferred to ship mail by airplane or truck. This spelled the end of the FFV, which made the final run on May 12, 1968, after each train reached its terminal destinations.
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Another memory Frank...Mail Buses...back in the 50's and 60's there used to be one that passed our house everynight about 10 pm. The lights in side it would be on and you could see the fellows sorting the mail. Not as glamorous as the train mailcar.
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Damn, I had to look it up.
So you were on the Chesapeake & Ohio.
I'd heard of the Fast Flying Virginian, but couldn't place the road.
I think the Fast Flying Virginian was westbound, and the same train was called the George Washington eastbound. Or maybe vice versa..it's been a few years. I don't remember the Sportsman.
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I think the Fast Flying Virginian was westbound, and the same train was called the George Washington eastbound. Or maybe vice versa..it's been a few years. I don't remember the Sportsman.
You grew up in an area famous for its luxury passenger trains, but that of course was before your time.
There was, for example, the Powhatan Arrow; I forget which road that was on, probably the Norfolk & Western.
The Baltimore & Ohio ran the Capitol Limited, I think, in that same neighborhood.
Over in John's region, surely he was close to the famous Crescent Limited of the Southern, running between New York City and New Orleans.
Also in your area, there were used some of the largest steam locomotives ever devised, but again, that was before your time.
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Surprisingly, Amtrak still offers some long trips with sleeper cars. http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FPage%2FAdvancedSearch&p=1237748590271&cid=1237748590271&show=all&search_included_routes=routes&q=city+of+new+orleans&search_results=25&sr=full
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You grew up in an area famous for its luxury passenger trains, but that of course was before your time.
There was, for example, the Powhatan Arrow; I forget which road that was on, probably the Norfolk & Western.
The Baltimore & Ohio ran the Capitol Limited, I think, in that same neighborhood.
Over in John's region, surely he was close to the famous Crescent Limited of the Southern, running between New York City and New Orleans.
Also in your area, there were used some of the largest steam locomotives ever devised, but again, that was before your time.
My grandfather was a brakeman for years on the Powhatan Arrow, and it was on the N&W.
One of my earliest memories is of my dad taking me to the station to stand beside an N&W engine, a huge steam locomotive.
I remember how the big drive wheel would slip before gaining traction when the train started up. I was really little, no more than four years old or so, but that's the kind of thing that stays in your mind.
I don't know a thing about trains, but I think the biggest engines had to be the ones that hauled coal. Some of the trains would pull a couple of hundred loaded gondolas, and a big coal gondola is about a hundred tons. Today, the same train will have three or four diesel engines.
The railroad is an example of unions at work. In the cab of a steam locomotive, the engineer ran the train, and the fireman shovelled coal into the firebox. After the conversion to diesel, the fireman remained a part of the crew, and I think he still is. I have no idea what the fireman on a diesel locomotive does. Maybe he's the navigator.