See Inside An Abandoned Santa Fe Mail Railway Car In Duluth
Check out history right here in Duluth, Minnesota as you can see inside an abandoned Santa Fe mail railway car.
Back in the day, a railway post office (RPO), was a railroad car that would operate in a passenger service as a way to sort mail while en route, and to speed up delivery.
The RPO was off-limits to passengers and only highly trained were allowed in the car. The first use of mail shipment via trains in the United States is said to be back in 1831 on the South Carolina Railroad. Others say it started on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in either 1835 or 1836. However, the use of the RPO in the US wasn't introduced until 1862.
So clearly there is a lot of history when it comes to the RPO. Duluth Urbex had another great find as apparently there is an old abandoned mail railway car right here in Duluth. It's a Santa Fe car, # 57. I couldn't find much on it, but I did find a cool video about its sister car, # 60 below:
The Santa Fe car, # 60 is on display at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in California. The car was brought to the museum after the last railway service was discontinued in the 1960s.
According to a comment on the above video, the Santa Fe car, # 57 was originally at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The YouTube comment continued to say it was supposed to be used as an additional companion piece to a giant steam locomotive. However, it was used as storage and kept outside. After being vandalized and getting beaten up by the weather, it went to the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad in Duluth.
It's very fascinating to see the difference between car # 60 and car # 57. Check out the video below to see inside of the mail car, currently located in Duluth: