No. 3704 was part of a group of 10 cars rebuilt from standard Baggage mail cars in the
3600 series. It has 50' baggage compartment and a 30' mail compartment. BC Rail
bought the car from CPR for work train service but never converted it. In 1988 the car
was acquired for preservation by the West Coast Railway Association. The Mail section
is largely intact and it is proposed to use the rest of the car to house interpretative
displays and exhibits describing the history of the Railway Postal Service.
This type of combination Baggage and Mail car was quite unusual and they were
designed for use on branch lines where the volume of mail was not sufficient to warrant a
full Railway Post Office car. Mail began to be sorted on trains in the late 19th century
when the railways had developed an extensive passenger network.
Railway Mail Service was the elite branch of the Post Office. It took intelligence, manual
dexterity, strength, endurance and an excellent memory to qualify as a Railway Mail
Clerk. An annual event was the Case Examination in which the clerk had to sort 1000
cards with the Post Office name on them into the slot corresponding with their correct
distribution point. The time limit was 1 hour and an accuracy rate of less than 90% meant
no salary increase. Repeated failure led to dismissal.
The Railway Mail Service died with the removal of the passenger trains. Mail, once
sorted on the trains, had to be brought into Post Offices to be processed. It was many
years before postal service regained the standards it had once enjoyed in the days of the
Railway Mail Service.
The Railway Mail Service officially ended April 24, 1971 on the Campbellton NB-
Levis PQ run. For a full account of the Railway Mail Service in Canada read On Track
by Susan O'Reilly.
