Railway Post Offices (R.p.o.) In Canada

Thanks Cynical for those RPO urls. They are quite interesting.

In my collection, there are about 3 or 4 different types of R.P.O. cancels for the Muskoka area alone and 1 or 2 for the Parry Sound area as well.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Bujutsu: for anyone who has Google Earth or geographic information system (GIS) software such as Arcview or ArcGIS Explorer on their computers and is interested in both the abandoned and existing railway lines in southern Ontario I recommend the link below where you can download a KMZ file that these programs can open. You can have an enjoyable few hours with the results and the really keen and observant will realize that there is lots of data layer stuff (e.g., dead post offices) that can be tacked on as information layers.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/sorailmap/

Great Cynical

I will check that site out and again, thank you

Chimo

Bujutsu

I'm giving this thread a bump just to shake the bushes a bit in hopes of seeing a few more rpo cancels, hopefully from the Teeswater-Orangeville run. Failing that the Toronto, Grey & Bruce (T.G.&B.R) and failing that ...

Although I have never been to Windsor, Ontario (I did sleep one night on a pickle (cucumber) grader machine at the Heinz plant in Leamington in the fifties which is close), I believe the address on Rod's letter card (with the Canada Scott#249 and Scott#251?) may now be part of a used car lot based on my google earth search. That being said I am always amazed at how many of the addresses/houses on old cards and letters still exist.

First post YAY !
Had a quick look to see if I had any RPO cancels. and found one. When seen in hand, the cancellation is very faint, but with my microscope camera, the postmark came out super and the stamp completely washed out (stamp is really a bright colour as it should be).

Your pic is great. Welcome aboard.

Terry: thanks for resurrecting the rpo thread with that great image of the St. John-Edmunston rpo cancel on the King George VI Coronation stamp (Canada Scott#237). The line operated in the province of New Brunswick and had an interesting history that can be found at Wiki through the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brunswick_Railway

Edit: the stamp was issued on May 10, 1937 so your cancel missed being "first day" by two days!

Found this North Bay & Cochrane rpo on what I assume is a Canada Scott#105 King George V Admiral.

Welcome to the forum Terryt

That is a nice strike of this RPO cancellation. It was in use from 1933 to 1955. In Lewis M. Ludlow's handbook, it is #MA202 with a rarity factor (RF) of 75. The RF varies from 2.5 to 500, with 500 being very rare and the 2.5 being very common.

Hope this helps?

Chimo

Bujutsu

Nice RPO Cynical.

It looks like a Type 17 in Ludlow's reference book and was in use from 1924 to 1935. For this particular cancellation, the RF is 125. The Ludlow catalogue number is #O-186.

Hope this helps?

Chimo

Bujutsu

Thanks to all for their contribution to this fabulous post.

Somehow, I never really checked my collection with RPOs in mind.

Now you people got me hooked and I will sort through all my stuff looking for them!

So first, a picture of the interior of a mail car that you can see at the Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant, Quebec.
It's C.P.R. 3618, built in 1940 by Canadian Car & Foundry's Angus Shop in Montreal



Browsing through my collection quickly, I found 5 stamps that have clear enough RPO cancels to identify them.
Here they are.
Please, feel free to comment.

Bujutsu, if you have the time or the inclination, I would very much appreciate your feedback. I don't have Ludlow's Handbook for the time being (I will find a copy eventually!) and I'm dying to know more about these stamps!

1) SOURIS C.P.R. SECTION M.C. on Scott#77


2) C.N.RW'Y EMERSON & WINNIPEG R.P.O. on Scott#98


3) MED.HAT & NEL. R.P.O. on Scott#106


4) Not so sure about this one... think it's HAMILTON & PALMERSTON R.P.O. on Scott#191


5) Had to research this one a little bit, it's COR. & LAC. R.P.O., hammer no.1, on Scott#197




I can't wait to have enough time to browse more carefully through my collection!! :)

Cjusz_911: welcome and great colour photo of the mail car and also great mail car stamp images from the western train routes. I especially appreciate the Emerson rpo - great representation of the Red River Valley, once, and still may be, referred to as the "bread basket of the world".

edit: meant to add this link to a paper on train lines in southern Manitoba:

http://www.bnaps.org/philatelic/lane-cpr.pdf

Thanks cynical for the comments and the link!

Here's another one I found this morning.
North Bay & Fort William RPO on Scott#197

Cjusz_911: so far my rpo finds in my collection have been sort of incidental or is it accidental (i.e., found while looking for something else). Starting tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, I will make a concerted effort to go through the collection with a fine-toothed comb.

I found 6 more, but they're either not well centered or with faint stroke, so not very interesting.

But I also found a nice E4 with North Bay & S. S. Marie RPO