How The Post Office DESTROYED Passenger Rail скачать в хорошем качестве

How The Post Office DESTROYED Passenger Rail

How The Post Office DESTROYED Passenger Rail Subscribe: ‪@legendarylocomotives‬ In September 1967, a single decision made in Washington quietly destroyed the foundation of America’s passenger train system. With no warning and no transition period, the Post Office Department cancelled all of its mail-by-rail contracts. First-class mail would now move by airplane. Everything else would go by truck. For the railroads, this was a financial earthquake. For companies like Santa Fe, the loss of mail contracts meant tens of millions of dollars in revenue vanished almost overnight. What most people never learn is that passenger trains in the United States were not kept alive by ticket sales. For decades, many trains lost money on passengers alone. What made them viable was mail. The Railway Mail Service, established in the 19th century, was not just transportation — it was a moving postal network. Mail was sorted on board fast-moving trains by highly trained clerks who memorized thousands of routes and worked under dangerous conditions, often carrying weapons to protect valuable shipments. At its peak around 1915, the system employed about 20,000 clerks, operated nearly 4,000 mail cars, and covered more than 200,000 miles of track. Railroads invested heavily in special cars, terminals, and high-speed “Fast Mail” trains. Even famous passenger services like the Broadway Limited or the 20th Century Limited depended financially on postal contracts to survive. Everything changed in the 1960s. ZIP codes and automated sorting machines made it possible to process mail in centralized facilities instead of on trains. After a massive collapse of the Chicago post office in 1966, pressure to modernize reached a breaking point. In September 1967, the Post Office pulled the plug on rail mail entirely. The consequences were immediate. Railroads filed to abandon passenger routes en masse. By 1971, the government was forced to create Amtrak to save what remained. A century-old system quietly died, not because people stopped wanting trains, but because a government agency found a cheaper way to move paper.