The term highway post office refers to brightly colored red, white and blue

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es used to carry mail to multiple areas over wide distances. Due to withdrawal of many

railway post office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...

(RPO) trains from service, the U.S. Post Office Department decided to experiment with distribution of mail on large buses equipped similarly to RPO cars. On February 10, 1941, experimental service started on the

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

& Harrisonburg, Virginia HPO. It was a success from the start, but due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, expansion of the service was delayed for several years. After the war, the service increased rapidly, with more than 130 routes established between 1948 and 1955. As this service was somewhat enmeshed with the RPO service, its value decreased as RPOs were abolished. The last HPO service to operate in the U.S. was the Cleveland, Ohio, and

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

HPO, which was discontinued in 1974.

Sources

* Wilking, Clarence. (1985) ''The Railway Mail Service'', Railway Mail Service Library,

Boyce, Virginia Boyce is a town in Clarke County, Virginia, United States. The population was 749 at the 2020 census, up from 589 at the 2010 census. Geography Boyce is located in western Clarke County at (39.093118, −78.059190), along U.S. Route 340. ...

. Available as an MS Word file at http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/articles/THE_RMS.DOC United States Postal Service Postal vehicles {{postal-stub

See also

Sources