Can you send letters on a train?

Question

i will be riading an amtrack train from chuogo to tx. and i wont to send a letter to my friend s bak home.

Answer 1

depends on where you are, like in a underground tunnel or something

Answer 2

i think the postal service has a train system so i guess it depends on the type of train you want to send the letter on.

Answer 3

Ask the conductor, most trains will carry mail, your letter will arrive at its destination with a special railway frank.

Answer 4

Yes you can the train has mail drop off stops

Enjoy your train ride

Answer 5

I'm sorry to have to disagree with the folks who replied that you can mail a letter from on board a train, but they are incorrect:  There is no mail pickup from Amtrak trains.  You'd have to find a mailbox at the station when you arrive.  If there's a stop along the way long enough for you to get off the train, you could find a mailbox in the station building.

As to whether a train attendant might take a letter for you for posting, I couldn't say, but it seems unlikely.  He or she would have no greater access to a mail box than you would as a passenger.

In the old days mail was handled on passenger trains in the U.S. (the RPO program), but that service was cancelled years ago.  Many trains had an RPO car as part of the train consist, and it usually had a slot where folks could slip in letters.  The mail was generally sorted en route between cities.  More recently, Amtrak had a contract for a while where they carried some mail, but it was in sealed cars, and wasn't sorted en route.  At present, all US mail is carried on airplanes and in trucks.

If you'd like to know more about the Railway Post Offices, here's a wikipedia article:

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

Answer 6

there are no actual mail slots on any trains anymore.  the old railway post offices were discontinued in the 1960s.  when amtrak was carrying mail, it was sealed, ie from post office to post office, amtrak didnt sort or touch any mail inside the containers.

if you want to have a letter mailed from a city enroute, your best bet is to simply give the mail to the ticket clerk at the ticket counter or on the platform, or find the mailbox if one is around.

some notes about this - most small stations, like normal il, springfield il, texarkana, longview tx, etc, only have 1 agent on duty during a shift, and that agent has to be loading/unloading baggage at the baggage car too, and the train is usually only stopped for 2-3 minutes.  best to either stay on the train, or talk to the conductor in advance to give your mail to the conductor who can pass it off to the ticket agent while doing baggage and boarding.

other bigger stations, such as st louis, little rock, dallas, may have 10-20 minute stops, so there may be time for a quick run into the ticket counter to find a mail box or ask the ticket clerk to put it with their daily mail.  these stops would tend to be stops for smokers to get off for a puff too, and extra things such as refueling engines or conductor crew changes may or may not be occurring.  again, best to ask the conductor in advance as to what will be going on, and dont stray too far from train, you have to make sure that you stay close by to hear the reboarding whistle and get back on train.

the conductor or ticket clerk isnt going to run a letter to the post office for you or buy you stamps, but if it is all ready for mailing, we always take people's mail and just put it with our station mail.  the postal carrier comes by every day to drop off mail too, and to pick up any mail that we have going out.  so it is not any extra work for the ticket counter to get it to the postal carrier since the carrier is coming to us.

of course, this is not really an advertised service, and we are not really able to take other things like packages and stuff...but to help people out, we'll take a few poscards, letters, bill payments, etc that people work on while on board and then want to get mailed from somewhere else.  but most people just hold on to their mail until they get to their destination and then mail it, and that would be preferable.

the conductor on board the train would be the one to converse with first, be nice, say please, dont be demanding or insistant, just that you want assistance in getting something mailed from the next station possible, whether it is you yourself putting it in a mailbox or getting it handed off to the ticket clerk somehow.

as note, other train attendants such as dining car, cafe, sleeper and coach attendants, all ride the train end-to-end, and dont leave the train en route, so do not ask any of them.

the conductors change along the way, every couple of hours, and the conductor also communicates with the ticket clerks along the way, and also have to know the territory better, such as platforms and towns and crossings and so on.  so the conductor would be the best one to ask for info, but not to actually mail it for you.  the conductor can be your go-between for you and the ticket clerk/station.