Postcrossing Blog

In the 1830s, the United Kingdom and the United States started carrying mail bags by train on their normal routes. Then, some years later, George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, came up with the idea of sorting the mail on the train, while en route to its destination, to save time. The Railway Post Office (or RPO) was born!

A Railway Post Office looked like a normal train car on the outside, but had a unique interior design, with movable cast-iron fixtures that held the mail bags for sorting. These could also be folded if space was needed, as the train wagons tended to get very crowded! They also had their own cancellation stamps used only on board, and a special hook to snatch a bag of mail on the towns where the train didn’t stop. You can a demonstration of its use here.

They became so widespread that in the 1880s, most passenger train routes in the US had their own Railway Post Office, allowing for a very efficient and speedy mail delivery. At the peak of their popularity in the 1940s, RPO’s were in use in over 9000 train routes, covering more than 200,000 route miles. In the next few decades though, the service would slowly decline and be replaced by airmail. The last Railway Post Office, which travelled between New York and Washington D.C., closed in 1977.

Railway Post Offices now live in museums around the world, and on these beautiful pictures by the Smithsonian Institution on Flickr.

Yvonne is a 64 y.o. grandmother in the U.S.A. and goes by FloridaGirl in Postcrossing. She has a soft spot for postcards with maps and nature, as you can easily see in her favourites. Here’s what she has to share with us.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I had saw that someone mentioned swapping postcards in another site. I went searching for where a site would be to do that. I found Postcrossing. What got me hooked was not just the official part of Postcrossing but also the Postcrossing forum when I discovered private swaps and saw that there were so many wonderful cards of places I’ve never seen. The people in the forum were so nice and I started to make friends. Also the cards spurred me to research places that were on the cards. I couldn’t just look at a photo and find it interesting, if it wasn’t clear to me what or where it was, I wanted to find out.
I do continue to do the official Postcrossing exchanges.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love maps, rocks, bookmarks and for years I made quilts but I had to stop quilting. That’s when Postcrossing started. I have maps from many places in the US and some other countries (road maps) and have 5 world Atlases.

I also have a collection of rocks that my parents, other family members or I have found; and, some that I bought, for example, petrified wood from Brasil.

My children have been giving me bookmarks for years, since I read so much. I’ve gotten beautiful bookmarks from other postcrossers.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

That is me at my mailbox in front of my house.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favorite of the animals are wild cats. This is a great card for the tenderness shown by the lions and the fact that I received it as a get well card from a postcrosser who I’ve gotten to know.

I’ve come to love the beauty of the Julian Alps in Slovenia. This just one that showns how beautiful they are.

The Japanese have a beautiful way of showing off their cherry trees.

This one shows olive trees with wild poppies blooming around them. It is one that I think is especially pretty.

Before joining Postcrossing, Yvonne from Cape Coral, Florida, USA, had never sent or received a postcard. Now, she has over 1400 in her collection.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I had heard about Postcrossing from a forum post on Bookcrossing.com. I had visited the front page of the website several times without joining. Since, at the time, I had never sent or received a postcard in my entire life, I wondered who still sent postcards? Apparently the answer is me! I was hooked by about the 15th postcard I ever sent through Postcrossing. Finland, Germany, Brazil, New Zealand, Portugal, and Japan were all very foreign countries to me and I was so excited to be able to exchange postcards with people who lived there. The fact is that 1,400 postcards later, I am still excited to send and receive postcards to and from the common-to-Postcrossing but foreign-to-me countries.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I do enjoy reading quite a bit particularly mystery/thriller type books set in the area where I live. There is a very successful author. Randy Wayne White, that writes specifically about Southwest Florida and many others who set their books in Florida like Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen, Jonathon King, Harlan Coben, Laurence Shames, and James O. Born.

I also enjoy nature photography and concentrate my efforts on the huge variety of birds that call South Florida home either year round, during migration, or during the winter. I also have a weakness for Reality TV shows that involve contests (for example, Survivor, Project Runway, or Top Chef). Here is one of my favorite photos.

After joining Postcrossing I realized that postal stamps and cancellation marks are very unique things. I got my own Mailer’s Postmark Permit so that I can cancel my own mail.

(although I live in they city of Cape Coral, we do not have a Postmaster; as such, my postmark is issued by Fort Myers which is the city that manages our mail)

Lastly, I enjoy volunteering my time. As many of you might already know, I am part of the Postcrossing Team and most of my volunteer hours are dedicated to them. For a local club, I created a website including content and now maintain it. I also record articles for Wikipedia through the Spoken Wikipedia project. I randomly select articles that interest me. The resulting spoken article can be heard online or downloaded.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I have a post office box and have never met the person who delivers my mail to it.

My post office from the outside.

I keep my postcards in plastic tubs sorted by country. When I took this picture I only had two tubs … now I have three almost full ones.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

You can get an idea of the types of postcards that I like in my favorites list but I cannot really pick just one favorite. There have been so many amazingly kind people who have read my profile and have been able to pick the perfect postcard and pair it with beautiful stamps. I do seem to have a preference for handmade or self-made postcards.

If I must pick one to show and tell, then I will pick the one that combined my love of maps (which predates Postcrossing) and self-made postcards (DE-282950). The person who sent me the postcard is a cartographer and she created a postcard out of a map that she had designed!

This next postcard I love because it combined things I love – cats, computers, and humor. It also happens to be the fifth postcard I ever received from Finland (FI-33265).

Zmrzlina, in Pennsylvania, kindly hosted the intrepid mail carriers on their adventures in Pittsburgh. And what exciting days they had, filled with zombies and Andy Warhol… read all about it below!

Little Ana and Paulo started their visit to Pittsburgh with a visit to Pamela’s Diner, in the Strip District. The pancakes here are quite good, as US President Obama will attest. Paulo would have liked a second helping, but we had lots to see, so he took one last bite and off we went.

We did some window shopping in the Strip District, a former warehouse area that is now the home to ethnic grocery stores, funky arts and lots of street vendors. We found one vendor selling tiny little journals, perfect for keeping track of journeys.

Pittsburgh is known as The City of Bridges. There 446 bridges in the city and some of them are beautiful works of steel and magic. Three of those bridges, sitting side-by-side, are called the Three Sisters Bridges. They are each named for a famous Pittsburgh resident: Rachel Carson, the early 20th century environmentalist whose writings started the worldwide environmental movement; Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican-born baseball legend whose charity work helped millions; and Andy Warhol, pop art master.

We took a walk over the Andy Warhol Bridge and visited the museum dedicated to his art. It is the largest museum in the US dedicated to one artist. The postcard selection is quite wonderful, though a bit pricey, and Ana was quite taken with the Campbell Soup pen, though we convinced her it was a bit too weighty to travel the world. After a photo session with Andy, we were off to see more of the city.

Pittsburgh has three major league sports teams: Pittsburgh Pirates (baseball); Pittsburgh Steelers (American football); and Pittsburgh Penguins (hockey). A huge statue of Roberto Clemente is just outside the baseball stadium, PNC Park. Paula and Ana look even tinier sitting on his hand! We were also able to get right up close to the park for a glimpse inside.

On our way to the football stadium we visited another Pittsburgh legend, Mister Rogers. Fred Rogers was the creator and host of a long running children’s television series called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He was a very gentle man with a huge heart filled with love for everyone.

After all that walking we decided it was time to visit another area of town and drove over to Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden. Paulo and Ana were quite fascinated by the extensive bonsai collection and charming miniature railway displays. While posing for a photo, a train engine bumped Ana and she went for a tumble, but have no fear, we were right there and caught her.

For a final view of the city, we went up to Grandview Avenue, one of the best places to see Pittsburgh. Paula and Ana enjoyed the overlook, as well as the ride on one of the two remaining incline trams in Pittsburgh, the Duquesne Incline.

Our last stop was a bit outside the city. We went to the Monroeville Mall, famous for being the setting for George Romero's zombie movie, Dawn of the Dead. Paulo and Ana enjoyed the Zombie Museum at the mall very much. Quite kitschy, but fun.

Such a busy day, and lots of new adventures ahead. Paulo and Ana spent the evening helping Zmrzlina with her Orphaned Postcard Project, and the next morning they posed for a picture inside Zmrzlina’s cute mailbox.

Pittsburgh was so much fun! Where will the little mail carriers go next? :)

PS – Missed their previous adventures? You can follow their journey around the world here.

Good news, everyone! We have received another exciting page from the travel diary of our little mail carriers, postman Paulo and postwoman Ana! They were just in Cape Coral, hosted by yvi-1, and loved every minute of it! Here’s a report of their days in sunny Florida.

We arrived in Cape Coral, Florida, USA on a mild March day and quickly understood what the attitude in paradise was all about. We headed directly for the pool but had to survive all sorts of terrifying wildlife before being able to relax. We grabbed a float and spent the afternoon enjoying the warm sun while gently bobbing in the cool pool water.

Then it was time for the Florida meetup held in Downtown Disney (Orlando) at Bongo’s Cuban Cafe. We were very excited to meet Orphan1965, chimoy, MarthicaAna, and 9teen87. Everyone enjoyed some traditional Cuban fare like mariquitas (fried plantains) and Ironbeer soft drink. We then went on a tour of Downtown Disney where we not only found great postcards in stores but were also able to take a picture with a Disney Princess and a dragon made out of Legos! We stopped by a Lego Paris wedding (was this some sort of foretelling?) and were eager to go on the balloon ride but it was closed.

At the end of the day, we stopped at the USPS mailbox located in Downtown Disney. We helped send the postcards signed at the meetup along their way. While getting ready to leave the Orlando area, we learned that Postcrossing.com had hit the 4 million postcard sent mark! It was very exciting. Unfortunately, yvi-1's local post office did not give her clearance to take pictures inside but we hope to have better luck at our next destination!