The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-07-15
Private Lines Now Connect
at Many Points With
Government Planes.

Washington.-Recently the Arst
east-bound flight of the latest air mail
route, linking New York to Texas. was
completed in 20 hours, clipping full
DAY from the fastest rail service. After
connecting at Chicago the route in
Guides Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Okla.
mona and finally the terminal at Dali
las, Texas. This air mail service has
Deen called the latest; but reports
from Hartford, Conn, already an
nounee a still newer effort, this time
to link aerially the cities of Boston
and Bangor, Maine.
AT the rate air mail services are
springing up all over the country
and all over several other countries
the honor of being the --latest" is in
deed an Insecure and impermanent one.
Some of these lines spring up so quick
ly and are so readily accepted by the
public that they attract scant atten-
ton outside of the immediate local
ity of their operation. Thus an air
mail service has been in full swing for
more than two months between Elko,
New; Boise, IDAHO and Pasco, Wash. /;
and another line operates between
Miami, Fort Myers, Tampa and Jack
sonville.
The Colonial Air Transport operates
a postal and express service between
Boston and New Jersey, giving Boston
the benefit of the New Jersey and
New York Chicago service, just as st.
Louis already enjoys it by a branch
line through Peoria and Springfield.
The government, through the Post Of
fee department, has so far been re-
sponsible for the amazing growth of
air mail trunk lines throughout the
country; but in future it will be the
privately owned lines that will take
the initiative in building subsidiary
branches extending to every part of
the country.
Fresh Impetus Last Summer
A great impetus was given to the
air mail service last summer when the
government let contracts for four
feeders to the transcontinental route,
including three north-south trunks and
overnight service between New York
and Chicago. The north-south extern
sions included routes between New
York and Boston, Chicago and St.
Louis, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City,
Elko and Pasco, Minneapolis Paul
and New Orleans via st. Louis and
Memphis; Pittsburgh and New Or
leans, and Chicago and New Orleans
via Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville
and Birmingham.
More and more cities of all sizes are
being put on the transcontinental
route, New York to San Francisco.
These cities connect by plane with
some point on the transcontinental
route or else forward their letter and
parcel post mails by train for connec-
ton at some center on the route. Last
June Des Moines, Iowa, and Sacra-
mento, Calf, were placed on the
route. Both east-bound and west
bound planes stop at these points t
take on and leave mail, and thes'
cities in turn become centers for othe
cities outside the air mail route:
Late last year II bids were re
ceiyed by the Post Office department
for the operation of eight routes, in
Guiding the Los Angeles-Seattle route
the Salt Lake City, the New York
Boston route and four others. 1t was
said that the new air service would
directly connect 90 important cities
nv air mail routes with the 16 cities
which have been receiving similar
service on the transcontinental air
mail route for more than year. In
addition to these, 1t was believed that
MANY other cities would enjoy the ad-
vantage of speedy transmission of
mails nv combining the air routes and
the railway mail services. The con-
tracts for the eight new routes called
for an extension of the air mail serv-
ice of 1862 miles, and require about
900 900 miles of flying yearly on the
six round trips per week scheduled for
each route.
Following the lead Of the govern
ment in extending air mail connections
On a nationwide scale several pio-
neers have already started privately
owned mail, passenger and freight
ines and this development is looked
to with unfeigned enthusiasm