Government regulations required Railway Post Office cars in 1910, and the RF&P owned five. American Car & Foundry built this car in 1916. Some of the first steel cars were postal cars, and they were important revenue sources for the railroad. The elimination of the postal cars caused some of the less profitable passenger trains to be eliminated. This car was one of the last cars removed from service by the Post Office Department in 1970. Mail Service personnel used a complicated system to sort and dispatch mail to various stops along the rail. Inside the cars, clerks sorted mail in a series of bins and trays, placed it in bags, and hung the bags on steel racks ready for dispatch. For towns where the train did not stop, staff shoved mail from the train while it sped by the station, while a metal crane extending from the train simultaneously retrieved mailbags hanging from a metal arm at the station.
