Rail Mail (Germany)
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The railway mail in Germany replaced the transport of mail by mail riders and stagecoaches . It was the backbone of mail transport throughout the entire period of the Reichspost . Even after the Second World War, the Deutsche Bundespost and the Deutsche Post of the GDR used the possibilities of the railway. The travel times of the often scheduled long-distance trains or those that run as a separate (freight) train were published in a special postal rate book. After reunification, the postal reform that had already begun and the emergence of sorting centers on the outskirts of the cities, the transport of mail was switched to trucks.
historical development
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The Baden Postal Administration used the new transport railway already immediately after its commissioning in 1840 to accompany carriage of postal items. Baden railroad posts, with the post being reworked by post conductors, ran from April 1, 1848 on some trains departing from Heidelberg . As long as Baden had its own postal service (until December 31, 1871), the management of the railway postal service was initially the responsibility of the post offices in Karlsruhe , Basel and Constance , and later of the three railway post offices in Karlsruhe, Mannheim and Constance.
Prussia
On November 3, 1838, the law on railway undertakings appeared in Prussia . Section 36 reserved the postal administration to use the railways for the transport of postal items. The introduction of the new forwarding procedure, the rail mail service itself, took place on May 1, 1849. Eight “Post-Speditions-Ämter” were subordinated to the “Post-Speditions-Bureaus” operating on the trains . The heads of these offices were initially postal secretaries, later postal directors (in the 1950s, the offices were headed by officials of the higher or higher service, depending on the scope of their business). On January 29, 1856, the shipping offices and the bureaus were given the names "Railway Post Office" and "Railway Post Office" . A railway postal inspector was appointed to supervise the Prussian rail mail service on April 1, 1850, but his position was retired in 1854; his official business was transferred to the district postal inspectors .
With the Prussian Small Railways Act or the "Law on Small Railways and Private Connection Railways" of July 28, 1892, Paragraph 42, in addition to small railways and other things, also required tram companies to provide services for mail delivery.
Hamburg
In Hamburg, collected mail was transported by tram from 1917 onwards, and from 1920 on the lines that passed Hamburg's central post offices (Stephansplatz and Hauptbahnhof) had mailboxes on the vehicles for individual mailing. This service was offered until 1958.
Literature:
- Erich Kuhlmann: Post and tram in Hamburg, Postgeschichtliche Blätter Hamburg 1978, issue 21
- Hermann Hoyer: The Hamburg tram, car park, 1st part 1894 to 1921, Hamburg 1977, VVM
- Harald Krieg, Thomas Kahlbom: Mail delivery with the Hamburg tram, Norderstedt 2005
Other German countries
German Empire
Reich territory
After the constitution of the North German Confederation came into force on July 1, 1867, a reorganization of the postal system also came into force. After the North German Federal Postal Administration started its work on January 1, 1868, the railway postal service was only operated by railway posts of the North German and the Royal Bavarian Postal Administration. On April 1, 1868, the railway post offices were established. When the German Empire was founded in 1871, the German postal administrations , which had already largely been united in the North German Confederation , with the exception of Bavaria and Württemberg, were merged into the Reich postal and telegraph administration . With section 4 of the law on postal services in the German Reich of October 28, 1871, the facts of section 36 of the railway law were retained. On January 5, 1875, the terms " Bahnpostamt " and " Bahnpost " were generally introduced. On December 20, 1875, a new law appeared under the title "Law, concerning the amendment of § 4 of the law on the postal system of the German Empire of October 28, 1871". It was briefly referred to as the "Railway Postal Act".
In the first few decades, the processing of mail in the railroad posts was exclusively in the hands of middle-class officials ; Civil servants in the simple service only performed ancillary services (opening and closing the bundles of letters and bags , stamps, etc.).
In 1871, however, the civil servants of the ordinary service were also given a part of the railway mail business, in particular the distribution of normal and registered letters, to be dealt with independently. The so-called "Schaffnerbahnposten", d. H. Railroad posts occupied only by civil servants. To distinguish them from them, the railway posts in which civil servants were active were given the name "Official Railway Post". With the law on "Obligation of the railways of minor importance for the purposes of the postal service" of May 28, 1879, rail mail was also introduced on branch lines and on July 28, 1892 the special regulations of the Prussian were introduced. Small Railway Act applies to all small railways in the Reich. The duties of the Schaffnerbahn Posts were gradually expanded; they not only ran, as they did at the beginning, on the less important trains, namely on secondary lines, but also on important routes. The separation had lost its importance and was finally dropped in 1922; since then there has only been the uniform designation "Bahnpost".
Around 1914, a total of 2,400 rail mail cars were in use in Germany, employing around 8,000 people.
On March 31, 1920, a state treaty was concluded between the German Reich and the eight German railroad states, with the effect of April 1st, the state railways becoming Reich property. At the same time, the uniform train number system was introduced according to the overall timetable of the former Prussian State Railways.
As a result of the inflation, the Reich Ministry of Post decreed restrictions on the rail mail service on November 16, 1923, after the railroad announced extensive restrictions on passenger train traffic on November 12. On June 13, 1924, the Reich Post Ministry authorized the Oberpostdirektiven (OPD), to which the railway post offices (BPÄ) were subordinated, to independently re-establish railway posts on less important main lines as well as on secondary and small railways.
After the Reichstag passed the “Reich Post Finance Act” on March 18, 1924, which replaced the old postal law on April 1, the post office was removed from the state budget and became an independent state-owned company. Thereupon the free of charge of the services of the Reichseisenbahn to the Post was abolished by § 13 of the law on the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft.
German protected areas and colonies
A railway post service, albeit a very limited one, was gradually established in the earlier colonies and protected areas. In East Africa in 1903 on the Usambara Railway and in 1912 on the Tanganyika Railway . In Cameroon in 1911 on the Manenguba Railway . In Kiautschou 1904 on the Schantung railway . On Chinese territory ( Deutsche Post in China ) there was also a German rail mail service on the Schanhaikwan – Tongku – Tientsin – Beijing route. All these railway posts were accompanied by natives.
Germany after 1945
Under file number Pr / II / 2a 1-2450-0, the German Central Administration for Post and Telecommunications announced in a telegram that mail traffic between the four occupation zones would be restored. At the Deutsche Bundespost, the Posttechnisches Zentralamt (PTZ) and at the Deutsche Post der GDR the Institute for Post and Telecommunications (IPF) played a key role in the development of the vehicles used as rail mail cars .
With the introduction of the winter timetable in 1952/53, all railway lines in the GDR were redistributed to the BPÄ and also a transfer of rail mail matters from the management offices to the BPÄ.
For faster delivery, overland mail was only roughly pre-sorted according to direction and brought in bags to the rail post offices, which passed them on to the rail mail cars that were attached to passenger trains. Up to 20 post officials (post conductors, later rail mail attendants) sorted the letters and newspapers according to location during the journey. The staff had to have good geographical knowledge.
The bags with the respective local or line mail were then unloaded at the stop for on-site forwarding or for onward transport to other rail mail routes.
The mail thrown into the letter slot of a rail mail car during a stop at a train station was postmarked in the car with a rail post stamp. Compared to the day stamp, it was oval in shape and contained information on the course (e.g. Cologne – Berlin), the train number and the date. In addition, there was a special rail postmark with the addition “Subsequently canceled” for items that were delivered by the rail post office and whose stamps had not yet been canceled. Letters with railway postmarks, especially from rare branch lines or special journeys, are very popular with collectors today.
There are different types of rail mail cars depending on their equipment: letter rail mail cars for the exclusive processing of letters, parcel rail mail cars for the exclusive processing of parcels and all-rail mail cars for the processing of letters and parcels. There were also parcel trolleys that were only intended for the transport and processing of parcels, mail compartments in rail cars that were also used for other purposes, etc.
At the end of the 1950s, rail mail was restricted to letter card closings and newspapers by train staff (E-transport) and newspapers by train staff (Z-transport).
As everywhere in the sorting company, the introduction of postcodes made sorting much easier. As of the 1969 summer timetable, the letter train posts were no longer available and the GDR's postal code noted a new structure, whereby there was no longer any E or Z transport, only everything ~, parcel ~, loading ~ and transport rail mail. As of the 1970 summer timetable, the responsible BPÄs were identified in the postal code with the first number of their postcodes, e.g. B. BPA 1005 Berlin, BPA 4005 Halle, BPA 5005 Erfurt, BPA 7005 Leipzig.
Another relief was the use of roll container systems, which were used across the board and in standardized form , especially at Deutsche Post in the GDR.
Rail mail cars were set on regular trains; these were mostly express trains . Sometimes the wagons were also switched between trains. A yellow flag attached to the car ( vehicle signal Fz 2) signaled to the driver that people were in the car, so that he had to be careful when maneuvering. There were also trains that consisted entirely of rail mail cars; with the Deutsche Bundesbahn they operated as express goods trains (Expr), later also ExpressIC, with the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR as luggage / express goods trains (Gex). Due to the often existing proximity of the post offices to the train station, the trains with the rail mail cars were coordinated with the delivery times of the postman, so that in smaller towns, for example, the mail bags with the letter post for the respective location were unloaded early in the morning with the first train. Mail for other locations, on the other hand, could only be sorted during the day and delivered to the last evening train at the latest.
Germany from 1989
Until 1997, special Post InterCitys operated in Germany at speeds of up to 200 km / h. Letters and parcels were sorted during the journey. The railway mail service (for letter post) was discontinued at the end of May 1997. One reason for the discontinuation was that sorting was taken over by new automated letter distribution centers , some of which were planned without a siding . In addition, the existing German night airmail network could be used. The German Post AG said the German railway was not in a position to the desired timetable slots to hold.
Three years later, the Deutsche Post "rowed" back again after it became clear that the trucks were not able to take over all the mail traffic. Although the railway no longer transports letters, the post is no longer sorted during the journey, but the transport of parcels and parcels is now carried out in Post or DHL containers , both in pure Post container trains (" Parcel InterCity ") and in " normal “container and combined traffic trains (see also containerization ). For individual, particularly urgent shipments, you can take them on the train as a courier service. Increased prices and taxes on diesel fuel as well as the truck toll in Germany (since 2005) have influenced the competitive situation between rail and truck. Due to the strong increase in Internet trade (as of 2013) , the number of parcels and parcels has risen sharply, while the number of letters has declined in view of fax, e-mail and other forms of electronic communication.
Discarding letter bags
Until the beginning of the 20th century, mail bags were dropped at stations while the train was passing through. Letter bags could not weigh more than 6 kg. They were thrown sideways in the direction of travel of the train "with moderate exertion" . When reaching the dropping point, the engine driver gave a signal with the steam whistle . The officer present on the platform to accept the bags carried a lantern with frosted glass panes in the dark, one of which was marked with the inscription "POST". This inscription was held against the train. Since accidents or damage to the mail items often occurred when the mail was dropped, the procedure was discontinued in 1900 by the Deutsche Reichspost , Bavaria followed on May 1, 1904. In Germany, mail hooks were not used.
Railway postmark
The first rail postmarks were produced in a wide variety of forms. There were single-circle and two-circle stamps, stamps with octagonal frames. In the area of the North German Confederation we find the so-called Prussian three-liner. With order no. 93 of the first department of the Reichs-Postamt dated September 21, 1883 the introduction of oval course stamps (stump oval) with train numbers according to the railway timetable was ordered. In 1906 the introduction of a new oval stamp (pointed oval) was ordered. However, this decree only came into effect for new railway lines, or the stump oval stamps should be replaced by the pointed oval stamps when they were worn out. In contrast to the stump oval stamps, which had plug-in types for the date and train number, the pointed oval stamps were adjustable with type wheels. For some routes, the introduction of new ones lasted until around 1930. According to order no. 155 in the Official Gazette 20/1931, the stamps used by the railway posts were referred to as "route stamps". Another change occurred in September 1933 when the Reich Post Central Office declared with message 427 482/1 that all stamps with route information are designated as route stamps, specifically as "rail post stamps" for railway posts.
Postcard transported by train on the Bodenheim – Alzey railway line (stump oval stamp) and then on to New York , in 8 days, in 1904
Postcard with railway postmark (pointed oval stamp), route Itzehoe – Wrist , route length only 21 km
Museums
Many mail wagons are kept in working order by railway associations .
- The Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Bahnpost e. V. operates a rail mail museum with its fully equipped rail mail car in Losheim am See and also uses the cars in historical special mail trains or lets them ride on special trains on museum railways.
- 13 historic rail mail cars from all eras of the Museum for Communication are parked in the Augsburg railway park . A rail mail car from 1926 can be viewed alongside other mail vehicles
- Many former rail mail cars survived as disco, bar and baggage cars at the rail transport company .
See also
- History of the railways in Germany
- Post-U-Bahn Munich
- Post tram Berlin
- Apron car
- Kursbuch (Germany) #Postkursbuch
- Rail Mail (Switzerland)
literature
- Joachim Deppmeyer, Klaus Kirsch, Peter Wagner: Brief typology of German rail mail cars . Transpress Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-613-71215-6 .
- Railway mail wagon archive . Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Bahnpost e. V. (series of 25 issues so far).
- Archive for German Postal History
- Peter Schmelzle: Post by rail. 150 years of rail mail in Germany. Anniversary edition of the Deutsche Post AG, Bonn 2006.
-
Manual dictionary of the postal system , published by the Federal Ministry for the postal and telecommunications system,
- 2nd completely revised edition, Frankfurt am Main 1953.
- 3rd completely revised edition, Volume 1, Berlin 1971.
- Jürgen Jänecke:
- The transport of mail by rail from May 27, 1990 to May 27, 1995 between the traffic area West (VGW) and the traffic area East (VGO) and the rail posts within the VGO .
- The railway postmarks of the Deutsche Post offices on the territory of the GDR from 1945 to 1995 .
- The last rail mail from Berlin to East Prussia in 1945 .
- Franz Vierling (Ed.): Rail mail cars, shunting locomotives, railroad systems for postal traffic. The service at the Deutsche Bundespost, guidelines for training; Volume 9, Part 1 - 3 - Published with the support of the Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications, Hamburg and Berlin 1966.
- Schneider: The letter delivery service, vol. 83 of the collection "Post and Telegraphy in Science and Practice". RvDecker's Verlag (G. Schenck), Berlin 1926
- Meißner, On the history of the Imperial Railway Post Office 10 in Cöln (Rhine) and the railway postal system in general. Carl Georgi University Book Printing Company, Bonn (undated)
- Archives for mail and telegraphy
- 1888 pp. 70, 116
- 1899 p. 587 ff
- 1912 p. 254 ff
- 1927 p. 297 ff, p. 327 ff,
- 1931 p. 173 ff
-
German traffic newspaper
- 1879 pp. 161 ff, 177ff
- 1891 p. 238
- 1899 p. 231 ff
- 1924 p. 121 ff
- Karl Sautter : History of the Deutsche Post. Part 3: History of the Deutsche Reichspost (1871–1945) . 1951; P. 135
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system; 2nd Edition; P. 74.
- ^ Herbert Körting, "Railways and Postal Services in Thuringia", Archive for German Postal History, Issue 1/1988 of the Society for Dt. Postal history e. V., Central Office Frankfurt / Main, p. 8.
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system; 2nd Edition; P. 74.
- ↑ Tram and post
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 19.
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 21
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 9.
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 9.
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 9
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system; 2nd Edition; P. 74.
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 32
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 36f.
- ↑ Wolfgang Lotz, "Deutsche POSTGeschichte Essays und Bilder", Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann GmbH Berlin, 1989, page 277
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 10
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system; 2nd Edition; P. 74
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 88
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 95
- ↑ H.Körting, pp. 85f
- ^ Post course book 1984
- ↑ Parcel InterCity: offer will be doubled . In: Eisenbahn-Kurier , No. 345, June 2001, ISSN 0170-5288 , p. 9.
- ↑ a b Report mail back on the train? . In: Eisenbahn-Kurier , No. 300, September 1998, ISSN 0170-5288 , p. 6.
- ↑ Deutsche Bahn: ic: kurier - delivery on the same day. (Accessed July 17, 2016)
- ↑ November 20, 2013: Deutsche Post's parcel business sets a new record (more than a billion deliveries for the first time) , growing Internet trade - Post subsidiary DHL invests in parcel centers .
- ↑ Concise dictionary of the postal system; 2nd Edition; P. 23
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 32
- ↑ H.Körting, p. 32
- ^ [1] Railway Postal Museum