CHAPTER BAGGAGE CARS

"Not so many years ago, shipping a valuable package anywhere in the world merely required phoning Railway Express. The public knew the big green trucks with the red emblems and the advertising billboards on the side, for there were literally thousands of them. Perishables, fragile items and things that you wanted picked up at your house would have traveled by Railway Express. REA industrial customers could deal with this single entity that would handle the package through as many modes of transportation as necessary to get through to San Francisco, or Augusta, Maine, or Bremerhaven, Germany. And all of this with the proud claim that no parcel had ever been lost without compensation to the customer, for every Railway Express package was insured." ¹

Today, REA is gone, replaced by the likes of Fedex™ and UPS™, but many of the structures and equipment for REA are still in existence.  

For example, in Washington, D.C., the REA building, located on 2nd St. just down from Union Station, is still in use as an office building.

Washington, D.C. Chapter NRHS also has three former Richmond Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Baggage cars that were used for REA service.  The cars, former RF&P, #171, #174, & #186, are currently being restored, including authentic 1930's lettering Railway Express Agency and RF&P Lettering.  Each car will receive it's authentic RF&P number, the words RAILWWAY EXPRESS AGENCY centered between the doors, and the words RICHMOND-WASHINGTON LINE on the centered letterboard above the doors (the latter phrase is about 25 feet in length).

In the future, additional information about the Railway Express Agency and our historic baggage cars will be added here.

A Riveting Job...

Chapter Member Jim Lilly applies gold paint over the stencils on the letterboard of Chapter's REA Car RF&P #174 on September 18, 2000 at the Chapter's facility (DOVER PARK) in Jessup, MD. The stencils, which have the holes for the lettering cut in them, have to be applied around each rivet in the painting area, making the task of painting just one side of one car take about sixty man hours.

** Photo by Mark Piotrowski