Ear on Chicago; What's the Rush?: The Post Office at Christmas Time

We're standing down a track level of the Chicago Post Office where incoming mail is being taken out of trains and loaded onto small carts. And this is the story of the Chicago Post Office at its busiest time of the year, Christmas time. Bob Schultz is going to be our guide for the program. He is the Postal Service Representative of the Chicago Post Office. We're standing along a track here where there are hundreds and hundreds of carts loaded with sacks of mail. Now as the mail comes off of the train, it's loaded onto these carts and the carts are hooked up as the train is hooked up and then along comes a little motor and pulls it away. Where does it go? Well, there are several places that goes here. So in the first place, many of these particular little trucks are taking up to the seventh floor where a primary separation is made of the mixed parcel post mail. Many of them are loaded from a particular train going to another train. This train is on the opposite side of this platform, which are actually the only handling that we do would be the handling of the transporting it from one train to another to reach its destination. What's that loudspeaker? Well, that is a speaker which is used to call the various supervision on the floor asking him disposition of certain

types of mail. Well, now what we're primarily interested in is to find out about two things. First of all, first class mail and second parcel post. So assuming that this is both first class and parcel post, let's trail, we'll say a letter but we'll actually take a sack of mail and trace where it goes. What about first class mail? Where should we go to pick it up next? Well, we would leave the platform here and travel up to the eighth floor where millions of pieces of first class mail is being processed through this office. Now we'll go up by elevator, but how will the mail get up there? The mail itself, first class mail is also taken by elevator to what we call eight and a half or a mezzanine floor being made ready at that point for process. Well, we will come back here again, but we will pick up the parcel post and I don't think that goes exactly the same place or the same way as your first class mail, does it? No, it doesn't. You see, the item that we handle in the Chicago Post Office necessarily means that an entire floor is used for a primary separation of parcel post and an additional floor is used, which is the

sixth floor of this building for a secondary operation of parcel post. So actually, in parcel post, we would have two floors not counting the city separation of parcel post. All right, our next stop now is the eighth floor, right? Right. That's right. Okay, let's go. Well, before we go up to the eighth floor, we have stopped off at the second floor platform. Now, we just recorded a brief interview concerning the arrival of mail by Train. But obviously, in a place as huge as the Chicago Post Office, everyone would know that mail comes in here by many different ways. Train probably brings it in from out of town, is that right? That's correct. On this particular platform, we have various trucks that pull in, as you can see. Most of them are from our outlying postal stations where the postal patron in the neighborhood deposits their mail in their local branch post office. The branch post office then transmits that mail down here for further processing. And also, you will note that many firm trucks

are lined up here, depositing mail of the large mailing firms in Chicago, who bring their mail directly to the post office to expedite the handling. Well, now we have a truck which is just about ready to pull in. And all of this sound you're hearing will describe to you in just a moment. But first of all, let's record the sound of that truck just about ready to pull in to the platform here. All right, the truck is backed up to the platform now, and the tailgate will be open at just a moment. And now I want to discuss just briefly about what's going to happen here. After the tailgate opens, we can see inside of the truck that there are many packages of mail, sacks of mail, and so on. But strangely enough, some of the mail is brought in, but looks to be cages. I never knew that you have cages for mail. Well, actually, our term for those cages, as you say, are cargo tanners. Many of these large mailers to prevent depositing their mail at the post office in mail sacks and the re -handling, because we would have

to empty them. They deposit their mail in these cargo tanners in their own plant, which holds many, many sacks of mail. As they are unloaded from these trucks, as we are witnessing now, they are moved over here to the other side of the platform and put on a conveyor belt. This conveyor belt, in turn, then moves this mail along at a rapid speed, as you can see, to our seventh floor, where we are going next to see the primary separation of all this mixed parcel post. Now, that chain you heard was the dropping of the tailgate. Here comes the truck. Let's follow it right on over. Package after package going onto a conveyor belt that will run all the way up to the seventh floor. It's a wide conveyor belt, about four feet or maybe three feet wide, and package after package being dropped on

from these small trucks that came out of the larger truck over there at the platform. Well, I think we are ready now to go up to the eighth floor, where we originally started and had to get interrupted here just briefly for the second floor, second floor platform story. So let's go up to the eighth floor. Now we have arrived at the eighth floor, which is called the primary letter section. A few moments ago, you heard us talk about the sacks of mail that came off of the train. From there, they were put on little carts, moved over to an elevator, and then brought up to the eighth floor. We're standing just about a third of the way down on the eighth floor, and way down at the other end are the sacks of mail coming up on the elevator. After they come off of the elevator, the sacks are dropped onto a conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt moves up to what they call floor eight and a half. Now, what happens up there, Bob? The men on eight and a half receive this mail, and they deposit it on a small platform above each of these particular shoots that we are viewing. On that little platform, they separate the mail that

should not come down here on these where we call a buzzer for cancellations, such as flats and bulk mail, third -glass parcels and so forth, that get into these first -class pouches as received. Then, they will deposit that mail down this shoot for these people to pass through these canceling machines. Now, the purpose of this operation is to cancel the mail, is that right? What does it mean? To put a date and a postmark or a time or an hour on each letter. In other words, this is all raw mail. It hasn't been stamped at all anywhere. That's correct. You will find mail here for every city in the United States and probably the world. Now, there are 22 shoots. The shoots are about 15 or 20 feet long. They come down from what is eight and a half. Actually, eight and a half is not another floor. It's only a platform, but the conveyor belt moves along there. Then, the mail is dropped down the shoots and down here to what I'll call a sorting table. It looks like it is a table, but I don't know whether they're sorting the mail. What are they doing there? The operation that's being performed here is actually a facing operation. Putting the letters in these particular slots with the stamps and the addresses all going one way so

that when it gets over into the separation unit, the person picking up a handful of mail will have it all correctly faced for them. Bob, I'd like to walk over here to table number five and shoot number five. The girl standing out here on the edge of the table is working with the mail as it comes down. I'd like to ask her just a few things about what she's doing. First of all, let me describe that she's grabbing one letter, individual letter after another. Some of them, of course, are Christmas cards at this time of the year. And the letters are placed in three small slits. And at the bottom of that slit, our chop, if you want to call it that, is another conveyor belt, moving at a very rapid speed. It moves down to the machine that we're going to talk about in just a moment. Could I ask you exactly what these three different troughs or slits mean? I mean, you put one in one over here to the left, one in the middle, and one over here on the third side. The first one is for the small mail, the next one is for the larger mail, and the next one is for the

long mail. Then you get large packages, which has to be thrown over in the trough to be hand stamped. And you get enveloped with money in it that has to be thrown over because it clogs up the machine. In other words, this trough right in front of you, once in a while you throw a big package, it's too thick to go through the machine. That's right. Are with coins in it. That's right. And the coins close up the machine. The machine has to be cut off, and a man has to come and clean the machine out and whatnot. So that's where they instruct us to be sure and watch the mail and pick it up one at the time and place it in the machine. So we'd be sure to get it right. How do you know there are coins in the letter? You can feel it. You can feel a coin in any envelope that they put on the table. Very easy to be detected. Well, I can see now that she's talking. She's still sorting the mail. Well, she's putting in a long mail in this left shoot. The one in the middle is not so long, but rather only wide. And then the small postcards and letters go into this third little shoot. Now, down at the end of

this conveyor belt is the machine that Bob told you about just a moment ago. Bob, do you want to walk down to this machine if we can? Right, and we'll go down there and talk about that. We'll walk about 15 feet away, and here the mail is reaching the machine that is being stamped. Now, listen to it just a moment. What's going on here, Bob? Well, actually, this is the end of this line where these people are depositing this mail, and it's being canceled. This is actually where the postmark is being placed on the letter mail. You'll notice this humming sound that's coming from this table. That is where the actual machine got its post office term a buzzer, and that is what we call this particular machine. If you'll notice here, many of these pieces of mail are handled individually, piece by piece. That's why we have stressed so many times for the people to bundle their mail and separate it local from out of town. It would avoid much of this individual handling. I'd like to pick out a letter here, just

any letter. This one is addressed to New York City. It is not stamped yet, and it will be stamped in just a moment. Now, I'll put that one back, and look over here at one that has been stamped. Just pull anyone out of here. Here it is. Chicago December 11, 11th, 30am, 1956, Chicago, Illinois. There's a five on there. What's the five mean? Now, that's the number of the cancelling machine that this particular letter was canceled on. The one that I had, the raw piece of mail, was addressed to New York. This one is addressed to Chicago 37, Illinois. I'll put this back over here. Now, Bob, what happens after this operation here? Well, this young lady, after she cancels this mail, it places it in a tray so that the addresses all remain the same way. From here, it is moved across the aisle into what we call a primary separation. Well, Bob just mentioned primary separation, and we have walked actually through the primary separation department, over here to where it's being placed in categories of states, and actually broken down, especially for Illinois,

into cities. Bob, I think, first of all, tell me about this primary separation. Now, I see a long tray, a long aisle of trays, where girls are sitting and separating mail. There are a large number of these, I'm not sure how many, but it looks like about 25 or so. Now, what are they doing there? Well, actually, the area consists of about three quarters of a block, you. These girls are sitting here, separating this raw mail, as you spoke up before, and they're breaking it down to the various states in the country, with a few exceptions, where some of the larger cities we hold out right on the primary such cities as Detroit, New York, and Chicago Zone, and Unzoned, and so forth. After these girls finish breaking this mail down by postmark, the cases are cleaned out, and they're brought over here into this area where we're standing and deposited in these gurneys, or canvas tubs, as you might call them. Each one of these tubs, as you notice, aren't labeled for a particular city or state. In front of us, we have Illinois A to L and M to Z. Why do you have that A to L and M to Z? Well, actually, here, the volume of mail that comes through the Chicago Post

Office, this being one of the largest post offices in the world. We handle a tremendous amount of mail for Illinois, therefore, in order to make this separation, we've divided this section into two units. There are, oh, about 150 feet of these gurneys, along here, maybe 100 or so, and above each one is a multi -colored board. For example, above the one we're looking at right now, it has on its Oak Park, Evanston 21 and 29. Minnesota 15, Texas 2, Florida, Green 28. Down at the bottom, there's Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Dakota. All on number 16, Iowa is number 14, New York City is 27. Well, I won't go through the entire list, but what does this board mean? Actually, it's a directional board for these employees that are working on the primary separation. As we mentioned, after they have filled the separation case, they clean out, as we call it, and they come out to this center

aisle in order to dispose of that mail, so they don't walk around looking for a particular gurney. This tells them in what direction it is and what number the gurney is. Now, as we said, Bob, the gurney is filled with mail. It's actually a small canvas cart. The cart is moved over here to another department. Let's walk over just a few feet, Bob. Well, now, when these gurneys reach over here to this department, which is just to our left, about 15 feet away, we won't actually walk over there. What happens over there? Well, as the mail receives in these gurneys, it's a mixed mail for a particular state on this side of the operation. Now, what's done here is the mail is separated to the various cities within that state. It is tied out, a label is placed on the bundle. It is thrown into a pouch. The pouch is labeled, and then it is removed from the pouch rack and sent down these spiral shoots into the train or platform operation to dispatch it to its particular spot of destiny. Well, and this is just about the last operation, actually, before it's set out to its destination. That's correct for first -class mail. Of course, we have another unit over here, which you can see, which is an air mail

operation, which we can later show you where the helicopter leaves the roof and takes this mail to the airfield from this building. Yes, I want to see that. By the way, I hear some bells. It sounds like a hospital. What are the bells for? Well, there's no significance for Christmas there. Actually, what it is, is they're calling the various supervision to the phone on this floor. And this is really a busy time of the year, isn't it? This is our busiest time of the year. We have asked the people of Chicago land to deposit their first class and their Christmas gifts by this weekend. And if depositing by this weekend, we can assure them delivery before Christmas. Well, now our next stop is to look at the partial post because we said early in our program that we were going to discuss how the partial post is separated. Where is that done? Seventh floor? That's right, one floor down. All right, let's go down there. I'm not quite sure whether you could make out that sound. With a sound of

packages dropping off of a large conveyor belt into a spiral shoe. Here it. Now, those packages have come from large sacks of mail, which were brought up on elevators from down below. You heard us describe the arrival of partial post packages here at the post office by truck. As it came off of the truck in those cages that I call, I call them cages, they were in loose packages and they weren't tied up in sacks. Those packages were then placed onto a conveyor belt. We have now reached the point where the conveyor belt comes. Came all the way from that lower level of the building, almost in the basement. Actually, it is a basement part of it, isn't it Bob? That's the track level now, that's right you. A railroad track level. And then it was placed onto the conveyor belt. And now here comes the conveyor belt upstairs, over to our right. But over here to our left, where you hear the package is dropping, are the packages that come in sacks and they're brought up from elevators.

Now, I see the Chicago Postmaster Carl Schroeder standing over here and I'd like to talk to him briefly about some of the things that happen here in the partial post apartment. We'll leave Bob Schoels for just a few moments. Mr. Schroeder, first of all, how about this partial post operation over here in the conveyor belt? Where do they go? There's a tremendous number of packages going up there constantly every hour. Well, they're going now, as you will notice, they're going up an incline and we'll meet another belt and slide into what we call storage bins. And those storage bins will hold that mail until we are ready to process it through what we call the battleship. That is the primary separation of the partial post mail. Now, once again, this mail has not been separated at all. It's a raw mail coming into the building. Has it been stamped at all? It's all stamped and canceled. I see. Now then, the next place we'll go is over here to the storage bins, then by

the... Let's walk over to the storage bins. All right. Mr. Schroeder and I are now standing on what is known in Post Office terminology here in Chicago as the bridge of the battleship. Off to the left and off to the right. Looking down from here, we can see some more conveyor belts. Now, if I've ever seen a place which has automation, Mr. Schroeder, it certainly is the Chicago Post Office. Everything seems to be operated by conveyor belts, very little handling by the employees. Well, that's true. Up to this point, this mail now, as you have pointed out, all the mail that has come into the building, converges all together up to this point and goes into these storage bins where it doesn't stay more than 10 or 15 minutes at the most. And then it goes on these other belts that are here before your eyes and will go what we call up onto the top of the battleship and be given a primary separation. And we will go to that in just

a moment. Why do you call it a battleship? Simply because it looks something like this. We are standing on a bridge here. It contains a control panel that keeps all of these various belts moving. At whatever speed the operator thinks they should move, dependent upon the ability of the number of men taking the packages and sorting them at the far end on the upper level of that battleship. Yes. The conveyor belt that we talked about a few moments ago actually is at a level that about where we're standing. And it's off to the left of us and then off to the right further away than the storage bins. And the packages drop down into the storage bins. When the bin gets about filled up, then they raise the bin and the packages are thereby dumped out onto this lower conveyor belt where it goes down for separation. Now, why do you have the leather straps which hang out over the opening to the storage bin? That is to retard the speed of the packages as they fall so that nothing gets hurt. It just is a short one -and -a -half foot drop there as you notice. And those belts

act as fingers and delay and soften the blow as they fall. Now, how does the storage bin know when it should belch out its packages once it gets full? There is an operator right behind you that has this control panel and he, by punching these various buttons, controls the flow of mail onto the belts here that go up on the upper level of the battleship for final sorting. Could I talk to that gentleman just before you? Sure may. Go right ahead. Could you tell me what these lights mean up here? There's a series of red lights, some of them on, and some of them off. For example, here are two off. What do those mean? Each red pilot light on means if the conveyor is operating. When there is no red light, no conveyor is operating. What about this one right here? Where is that conveyor belt that we could see? That's to the left of us. How far down? Oh, about 30 feet. Well, how do you know when to start up the conveyor belt? Well, if there is mail in the storage bin, that is the one they'd want to start. Well, I know, but

do you wait until it gets filled up or... No, no, I start out of any time. But you have to know just when to start it and when to stop it. Oh, that's right. I see. Okay, what's your name, sir? Michal Schee. What's your first name? Andrew. Andrew, okay, thanks, Andy. You're welcome. Now, back over here to Mr. Schroeder. And as he said, it goes down to where they separated way down at the end of this battleship. How many employees do you have, Mr. Schroeder? Well, at the Christmas season, we double our forests, and we'll have about 43 ,000 people working in Chicago. On a 24 -hour basis? On a 24 -hour basis, around the clock. Post office never does close down here. Never closes, that's right. All right, suppose we go down to where they're separating the bag. Not only. Well, we've come to the other end of the battleship, and when they say it looks like a battleship, they're right. It's a long, well, it's about a two -block, long area. It's not so wide, but it has these continuous, maneuvers of the conveyor belts. Everywhere you look

at the post office, there's a conveyor belt moving either a package of first -class mail or parcel post packages or something like that. Now, this conveyor belt we just talked about started from the other end, the bridge end of the battleship in other words. It's moving in front of us right now, and we've put Carl Schroeder to work. He's throwing the packages off of the conveyor belt up into the slots where they are supposed to be. They're separated here, and they'll move on to another conveyor belt down to another separation. Now, what have you got there in your hand? Pick one up here. Here's one right here, it goes to Hayward, California. California is right over here. It took the package and thrown over into the California. Well, it's the Kent Washington, that goes right out there. There's one going to Ann Arbor Missingham that goes right down here under our feet. Well, now, how many different separations like this do you have? Up here, there are 16 different separations. 16 different slides going to 16 different places on the next floor down where it breaks

a little finer. As the conveyor belt moves by us, it's certainly packed with packages. Big ones, little ones on top of each other, the conveyor belt is completely filled up. And as it reaches the very end down there, I suppose it's empty. It's empty, there's no doubt about it, yes. Well, then we have the package. Everything has been sorted and separated, it's on that belt, as far as we can separate it at this point. Now, where do these conveyor belts go after it's once separated? Well, the packages will go down to the next floor, and then they separate to the fine point of directs to cities, to states, and to terminals all over the United States, and as a matter of fact, to all parts of the world. Well, we've reached the point then, Mr. Shorter, where we have first -class mail arrived at the post office and delivered, at least delivered on truck out to the other various post offices. Partial post is ready to be delivered, it's all sorted. Our story is almost complete, except for one thing. We did mention, Bob Schultz mentioned that there are

air mail packages and air mail letters that have to be delivered out of here, and they go in a new way. Well, it's comparatively new, isn't it, the helicopter? Yes, we deliver from here to the airport by helicopter air service, all air mail, all of it. Can we go up and take a look at that helicopter? Let's go. It's up on the roof of the building. Is it cold up there? It's cold, you'll need your coat and hat. All right, we better get it. We've now reached the roof of the building, and we're standing out in the open country, so to speak. The helicopter, the whirly bird, is just about ready to arrive. He's hovering about 100 feet off the ground, now down he comes, at a very fast rate of speed, listen to him. The pilot

sits in a little bubble, the windmill still continues to roll, and there go the boys out with two carts loaded with air mail. Mr. Schroeder, how often do you have this helicopter arriving here? It makes 18 trips a day. And how long does it take him to get out to the airport? About eight minutes. Take a lot longer, of course, by truck if you had to do it that way. 40 minutes by truck. So that he takes now these sacks of air mail and delivers it to the airport, and from there it is delivered out of the airplane. That's right, and then he will pick up the load and bring it back. Well, I see your house, I'm incoming mail coming in now. That's right, you notice that they're loading what, they're load one truck, and then unload the other. Certainly doesn't take you very long to get the mail unloaded and then load it again into the helicopter. You notice a three man doing the job there. They can't leave the man stand here too long, he only stands here about two minutes. That's a very efficient operation, that fellow that's piloting that helicopter must be a very good pilot. He's terrific, he's one of the, he and several others on this particular

team are some of the finest helicopter pilots in the United States. Well, the mail is now loaded onto the helicopter, and it's being taken off by the pilots, and here it goes. Up in the air. He's going to turn around at the other end of the building, and now he's coming back. Gigi operates that thing like a little motor scooter. Turns around on a dime, he's about, only about four feet off the ground, and here he comes for the takeoff. He's heading out towards the south, and will turn west after he gets out about a mile or so. The helicopter is on its way to the airport. And Mr. Schroder,

I think we have completed our operation here at the Chicago Post Office. It's been very interesting, and at times very exciting to see how Christmas time rush hours are handled at the Chicago Post Office. And we want to thank you and Bob Schultz for helping us out on the program. We're very happy to have you as I guess. Thank you very much, sir, and Bob, thank you. Thank you very much, you. And that's the story of Christmas time at the Chicago Post Office. This is Hugh Hill speaking.