, 1891-06-21
ON THE FAST MAIL.
Flying Trip With the Postal Clerks
From Here to Ogden.
Quick Eyes, Hands and Trusty
Memories Vigorously Used.
Tons of Mail Matter Speedily Yet
Carefully Disposed Of.

the sacred recesses of the mail cars.
Without the open Sesame" Of a permit
from some dignItary Of the railway mail
service the Interior of a postal car is for
hidden ground and without such creden-
tials no one is permitted by the mail
clerks 10 enter. Armed, however, with a
permit from Chief Clerk Nichols, of
Cheyenne, a LEADER reporter enjoyed
the hospitality OF Clerk in Charge w. y.
Earhart and his crew recently, on the run
from Cheyenne to Ogden.
The term fast mail is no misnomer.
''Thunderbolt' trains, Lightning ex-
presses and Flying Dutchmen" are
popular names Tor fast trains, but some
are fast in name only, and make no better
time than more modest trains with but a
schedule number to designate them. But
the fast mail is not one of this kind.
From the time the Unbelievable is opened
at Cheyenne until the journey is ended,
speed is the prime object of every en-
gineer.
Up grades or down grades, long curves
or short curves, snow sheds, tunnels,
bridges or ~trestles cut no figure in com
parison with maintaining the schedule or
making up time.
A ride on the fast mail gives one the
impression that it is the only train on the
line. Freight and passenger trains give
~ ahsnluta right-oE NAV
Wondering passengers 10 Pullmans.
when side tracked upon some divide,
miles from nowhere, ask: Conductor,
why are we waiting here2" THE last
mail is due" Is the reply. Presently it
does come right to the second on the
schedule. No courtesy is shown the
SNOWY train of Pullman coaches BY slow
ing up to pass, but the fast mail flashes
by as if disdainful Of the ordinary task of
carrying passengers,
The train is made up of two mail cars,
a storage car for through mail and a short
coach which carries a few through passen-
gers. A big locomotive with six-foot dri-
vers whirls this train along with a speed
only limited by the carrying condition OF
the road-bed.
The run over the Union Pacific is but
a part Of the general fast mail service from
New York to San Francisco, but as the
run from Cheyenne westward is over the
heaviest grades on the whole journey and
as on this part of the route the most i'm.
portaut separation of the mail is made,
the journey is a notable one and full OF
interest.
When the tram leaves Omaha six mail
clerks are at work in the two cars. Forty
TO fifty tons of mail matter is no unusual
load to start out with and to this every
station on the line contributes more or
less as the train proceeds. The men
work steadily and unremittingly all the
way from Omaha to Cheyenne. East OF
Omaha all that has been done in the
rapid runs from New York to Chicago
and Chicago to Omaha and on the various
mail routes converGinG to these points
has been the distribution of the mail into
packages and pouches for the various
Western states and the mail fur Oregon,
Idaho, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado,
Wyoming, Utah and Washington may be
said to be in bulk. On an average run
l, 100 packages OF letters and 300 sacks q
papers are ''worked'-that is separated
and distributed and placed in packages d.
rected to the various lines OF railway
which will take them quickest to their
destination. Letters for each town are
tied into packages and labeled. Besides
the ordinary mail are several hundred
registered letters to be put off at small
stations, forty or fifty registered pouches
for larger offices, like Cheyenne, Ogden.
San Francisco and Portland, each pouch
containing several hundred registered let
ters and packages. BY the time Chey-
enne Is reached mail for Wyoming, Ne
braska and Montana has been worked"
for the towns, functions, railways, stage
and distributing postofices of these
From Cheyenne westward are six
One goes to the meeting point
with the east bound fast mail near Rock
Springs, one runs to Laramie, two run to
Huntington. Ore. leaving the main line
at Green River and two run to Ogden. The
Ogden crew makes six round trips a
month or 70, 600 miles a year. The clerks
running to Huntington make three round
trips or $1,000 miles a year.
An immense amount of work is per-
formed by the clerks while speeding along
from forty to fifty miles an hour. On
the run FROM Cheyenne west the mail for
Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada and
Utah is separated and distributed. Over
thousand packages of letter mail and
several hundred sacks Of papers are some
times handled. Coming east the work is
arduous. Mail for Kansas, Ne.
braskR, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vir-
.ginia, Wyoming and Colorado is dis
tributed and made up for postofices and
mail routes and for other states is made
up IN packages for the states.
If separating and distributing the
mails were all the duties of the crew the
work would be comparatively easy, but
mail must lie made up for every postofice
along the line of the road. The train
at but few OF these points the mail
sack being thrown from the tram and the
incoming mail caupht with the 'scatcbar -
an iron hook working on a swivel catching
the mail sack which is hung on a crane
near the line Of thu track The rag;s,r,