Until a consolidation forced by the government in World War II, there were two active telegraph companies--Western Union and Postal Telegraph. Certainly W.U. was the larger of the two companies, but Postal Telegraph had a significang share ot the market.
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The contracts between the railroads and Railway Express (later REA Express) ordinarily prohibited the railroads from carrying for their own account most commodities (newspapers were an exception), reserving such shipments to Railway Express, and that meant REA terminal delays at both ends. Perhaps there was an exception for the (20th) Century (Limited).
REA Expeess, as it was known by then, failed for many other reasons. There service got slow and unreliable on many routes, and their rates kept going up and up.
The sending of all first class mail by air is largely a red herring.The main delays, then as now, are in the sorting and processing of the mail, not the transportation. They at one time did have a separate handling channel for air mail and special delivery mail, but the rates to special delivey kept going up to prohibitive levels. They did send a messenger out specifically with special delivery mail.
Air mail special delivery service was somewhat inconsistent and unreliable, as was the air freight serivce of the air freight forwarders such as Emery, Pacific Express and Airborne, as well wa the air freight servicd of the airlines themselves--certainly nothing like "When it absolutely, posivitvely has to be there overnight, a claim that FedEx usually livea up to.
The batch processing they now use (with automation--many letters are never handled by a human being until they reach the letter carrier at the destination--mean that many route that were once overnight are now two day delivery. Examples are between Oklahoma City and Dallas, and between Lawton, Oklahoma, and Wichita Falls, Texas. Lawton and Wichita Falls are considered part of the same TV market, and generally one marketing area. Outside the Lawton main post office is a mail box marked especially for Wichita Falls mail so it czn be hzndled separarely overnight, the usual routine would otherwise provide only second day delivery between these two metropolitan areas about 40 miles apart.
FedEx now has FedEz Ground, the former Roadway Package Systems, and FedEx Freight, for larger shipments, by aquiring a regular motor freight line
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
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