And when mail was picked up on the fly! Remember riding Kansas City Zephyr to Chicago, and looking out the dome to see the mail being snatched on the fly from the smaller stations that the train didn’t stop at.(This tactic was also tried with air mail, but deemed too dangerous!)In the early days, the mail sacks were not hung on a post, but held up at the right position by, in some cases, young girls and the man in the mail car would hook them as the train sped by. And these were the good old days!Tossing the mail sacks off could also cause accidents, ie someone standing in the wrong place!In one incident, a mail sack tossed of the Empire Builder hit an obstacle and bounced back onto the tracks. Part of the shipment was bank notes being shipped from one bank to another! (No shortage of volunteers to clean up the mess!)
And when mail was picked up on the fly! Remember riding Kansas City Zephyr to Chicago, and looking out the dome to see the mail being snatched on the fly from the smaller stations that the train didn’t stop at.(This tactic was also tried with air mail, but deemed too dangerous!)In the early days, the mail sacks were not hung on a post, but held up at the right position by, in some cases, young girls and the man in the mail car would hook them as the train sped by. And these were the good old days!Tossing the mail sacks off could also cause accidents, ie someone standing in the wrong place!In one incident, a mail sack tossed of the Empire Builder hit an obstacle and bounced back onto the tracks. Part of the shipment was bank notes being shipped from one bank to another! (No shortage of volunteers to clean up the mess!)