By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator
By the mid 20th century the Post Office Department’s Railway Mail Service (RMS) had been moving and processing mail across the country for almost a century. The service had long shown that having men sort mail while on board moving trains helped speed mail service. But by the end of the Second World War, train service was declining, taking the railway mail train cars with it. More and more mail was being moved aboard aircraft.
Postal officials wondered if there was a way of taking the sorting expertise of the men riding the RMS trains and combining it with the speed of airplanes. The Post Office Department worked with a few airlines to put that combination in motion and the Flying Post Office was born.
Unfortunately, it was harder for clerks to stand and move in the airplane than on moving trains, and the amount of mail that could be sorted during those speedier airplane flights was too small to make the system practical. Interesting in theory, but useless in practice, the Flying Post Offices didn’t move beyond the experimental stage.
This is a proof for the cachet art used on envelopes carried on the October 1, 1946, American Airlines demonstration flight of the Flying Post Office. The art is labeled “DEMONSTRATION FLIGHT, FLYING POST OFFICE” above the sketch of an airplane in flight. Below the airplane are the words, “En route, Los Angeles, New York – Boston, U.S. AIR MAIL.” The American Airlines emblem is located below the nose of the airplane.
Interior of a Trans World Airlines (TWA) Skymaster aircraft equipped for onboard mail sorting and routing. The clerks on board this flight were (left to right, foreground), Melvin G. McBride, General Foreman, and Louis A. Dunn, Superintendent, from the Wilmington, Delaware, post office.
By the mid 20th century the Post Office Department’s Railway Mail Service (RMS) had been moving and processing mail across the country for almost a century. The service had long shown that having men sort mail while on board moving trains helped speed mail service. But by the end of the Second World War, train service was declining, taking the railway mail train cars with it. More and more mail was being moved aboard aircraft.
Postal officials wondered if there was a way of taking the sorting expertise of the men riding the RMS trains and combining it with the speed of airplanes. The Post Office Department worked with a few airlines to put that combination in motion and the Flying Post Office was born.
Unfortunately, it was harder for clerks to stand and move in the airplane than on moving trains, and the amount of mail that could be sorted during those speedier airplane flights was too small to make the system practical. Interesting in theory, but useless in practice, the Flying Post Offices didn’t move beyond the experimental stage.
Comments