MP Heavyweight RPO cars

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  • October 31, 2015 at 5:22 am #5579
    benjamintickell53
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    MP had a series of heavyweight baggage-mail cars which had been renumbered and repainted into Jenks blue in the early 1960s. These cars, with some slight variations, were in the 1000-1028 number series. They had a 30-foot railway post office section in one end of the car and a 39-foot baggage section in the other end. 24 cars were listed in the March 1965 Official Register of Passenger Train Equipment, but retirements quickly dropped that number to 19 cars in the 1966 ORPTE, 6 cars in March 1967 and 3 cars in March 1968.

    Jim Parker caught several of these cars in the St. Louis coach yard in 1965. Can anyone provide details on where these cars were assigned? I never saw them operate in regular RPO service on any of the trains through Little Rock.

    Bill Pollard

    PS – also check out the wealth of details in the photo labeled 1221 (1021). On the third track over is a 60-foot postal car, still in blue and white. The car to the right of this car is painted in Jenks blue, but has Missouri Pacific on the letterboard, an example of one of the early transitional Jenks scheme variations. Further back, the RPO-baggage near the shop is one of four Budd baggage-mail cars 370-373, and even further back is one of the Budd dome cars 590-592.

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