Mail By Rail - Feasable?

Deseret News courtesy MSN

Fair Use:

.The United States Postal Service began implementing changes on the first day of October, and it may impact mail delivery across the country.

The USPS said its service times for first-class mail and periodicals will have slower service times. And there will be a price increase for mail being shipped during the holiday season.

While not so noted within this captioned article, other reports have noted that the handling time for first class mail "coast to coast" will increase from the previous three days to now five.

These changes were recently announced by Trump administration holdover Postmaster General DeJoy.

Now this relaxed handling time standard leads me to wonder; is there again a place for handling first class mail long distances, either in trailers or containers, again by rail? Is it "worth it" for the roads to pursue this business now that the new five day standard is reasonable for railroad service? Could railroads offer the USPS a rate to make it "worth their while"?

Enquiring mind is "wondering".

Mr. Norman,
I wondered the same--whether the slowdown was about taking mail off planes and putting it on....trains? trucks? The latter seems ready to take up the slack. The former, not so much.

I was about to go "really, in 2021?" However, upon further inspection I see this is in the freight forum, not Amtrak (plenty of mail via Amtrak threads on this site). USPS is in managed decline at this point.

USPS did say they are extending delivery windows (slower). The only thing I could see working are containers or trailers of non-expedited pkgs going longish distance between large hubs. For instance Chicago -> Atlanta or NYC -> Denver. Don't know if USPS has enough volume for the class Is to be interested. Esp. since Amazon in-housed most of their delivery at this point (they were using USPS fairly heavily for a bit for regular shipping (not 1 or 2 day)). Long distance trains could have significantly lower labor costs (conductor and engineer) vs a string of unionized USPS truck drivers.

These days I only use USPS for their smallish flat-rate boxes if I don't care about the delivery window.

Most of the USPS hub to hub trucking appears to be contracted out, so don't assume union labor rates in any comparisons. There's also container handling and drayage to consider vs. dock to dock delivery by truck.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

I would be amazed if USPS shipped by rail. Trying to think of a possible situation if there is one.

Mr. You, I deliberately avoided placing this topic on any Amtrak or passenger rail related forum. While not knowing your age, mine is quite publicized here as 80. "I was there" residing on line of the largest mail handling train on the System - #3-4, for the "s^*tshow" that Amtrak handling of US Mail became. In theory "on paper", it should have worked, but in practice, Amtrak train crews were not "culturally qualified" to walk a train at 3AM in 0dg weather to find a parted air hose. That is part of the duties of a Conductor (and Assistant).

This may be better to state in the passenger rail forum, but what if amazon had a partnership with Amtrak? I could definitely see the passenger railroad turning a profit with a shipping company as large as them. Most passenger trains got their revenue by carrying mail anyways.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 8:18 am Mr. You, I deliberately avoided placing this topic on any Amtrak or passenger rail related forum. While not knowing your age, mine is quite publicized here as 80. "I was there" residing on line of the largest mail handling train on the System - #3-4, for the "s^*tshow" that Amtrak handling of US Mail became. In theory "on paper", it should have worked, but in practice, Amtrak train crews were not "culturally qualified" to walk a train at 3AM in 0dg weather to find a parted air hose. That is part of the duties of a Conductor (and Assistant).

Mr. Norman, I am fairly new to this forum and was not aware of your age. You are in fact more than twice my age.

Not surprised Amtrak was bad at it.

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:34 pm This may be better to state in the passenger rail forum, but what if amazon had a partnership with Amtrak? I could definitely see the passenger railroad turning a profit with a shipping company as large as them. Most passenger trains got their revenue by carrying mail anyways.

Amtrak is never getting a deal w/ Amazon. They don't have the:
- equipment
- experience
- network coverage
- reliability a client with high expectations like Amazon demands

Is amtrak even allowed to ship freight? Private common carrier railroads have freight rights on the lines Amtrak owns.

I'm glad you're here. Mr. You; for I think you have much to contribute; along with common sense and a willingness to learn.

The Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 (RPSA70) - the enabling enacted legislation that put Amtrak in business, enabled Amtrak to handle Express, but Freight was simply beyond the Act's scope.

Biggest problem out there; "Daddy, what's Express"?

Well Amtrak tried to stretch that one "a bit too far" and during the 1990's turned the Long Distance trains into "Mixtos Diario" or Mixed trains. #3-4, Chief, might have the usual eight
passenger cars seen today, but tacked on the rear were 20 - even 30, Box, Container. and TOFC ("Piggyback") cars.

The railroads justly (IMHO) cried foul, this business was causing serious delays to the trains, and the service was hardly reliable. By 2002, it was "just one more Amtrak flop".

To me it seems "those tuning in late" around here really have no knowledge of the whole initiative and fiasco.

Maybe the TCS Roadrailer trailers could make a comeback for this sort of thing? Maybe fill them with mail and put them on the back of a priority intermodal train or an Amtrak train like they used to back in the 90s?

Pensyfan19 wrote:This may be better to state in the passenger rail forum, but what if amazon had a partnership with Amtrak? I could definitely see the passenger railroad turning a profit with a shipping company as large as them. Most passenger trains got their revenue by carrying mail anyways.

Amazon only partners with successful companies. They'll sell services to anyone, and they'll sell anyone's crap, but when it comes down to THEIR name and upholding service level agreements with customers, they're quite selective.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

I will admit I do not know much about "mail by rail." I do know it used to travel primarily by passenger trains until the postmaster general yanked almost all of it off in '67. I do know that the Super-C, the "world's fastest freight train," ran for nearly a decade entirely propped up by the USPS mail contract. I do know that Amtrak bent over backward to serve USPS in the late 90s and early 2000s only to fail in traditional Amtrak fashion.

I also know that shipping companies such as UPS, FedEx, and even Amazon use rail quite heavily. If USPS were guaranteed the same "70 mph, high-priority, hotshot, pity the poor dispatcher who puts it in a siding, Z or Q train" service that the private carriers get, then perhaps rail could be a viable option. 5-day travel times seem quite conducive to the kind of high-quality intermodal services railroads do currently provide. If the goal is to make USPS less costly to operate, then rail looks all the more advantages due to its cost advantage over air and trucks.

Here is a question: Has USPS used freight rail (non-Amtrak) at all in the past 50 years? To me, it seems they had entirely phased out the use of rail by the late 70s.

@Shortline614 I believe Amtrak advertises the ability to carry small amounts of mail and other things in the baggage cars of their trains (to a very certain extent) but I’m not sure if they do this or have ever done it.

At least until I retired in 1990 Conrail was handling TOFC trainloads of mail other than first class (parcel post, magazines, etc.) with trains symboled MAIL- with a numeral. However, if USPS wants UPS-type service they'll have to pay for it, and it appears that with the present drive to bring down costs (and the service as well, if necessary), USPS will look for the lowest bidder, and it won't be a Class I hotshot service. My take is that DeJoy's policy will be to go with the low bidder, and if that slows down the service, splendid! fits right in with the program!

When air mail (two words at that time) was introduced there was a 67% surcharge (5 cents instead of 3) for an air mail stamp; this was discontinued about the time the Post Office Department adopted the policy of air above 500 miles, truck below, around the 1960's and dropped rail handling altogether (shifting sorting facilities from major rail terminals out to airports while they were at it). Don't know whether they're considering anything like that now, but it might boost revenue a little.