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Show ill I: f; J -: i n ra lj "aS-j i i j u 4 ijjjJriJLu-ij'- Problems of the Rwtoffice Department De-partment are Many By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN I 1 A V 10 ynii seen one of Uncle Sum's n railway until clerks In lils nice new Kiis mask? Well, lie isn't pretty, but lie tins to wear It nowadays to keep Jii'ri;yJ up with the times. You see, In that ,r"'n r",il,,'ry ni,t 1"n! "K" ni'r ! f,V J C'hlciiKo the robbers nut only had an Jttfir airplane and four automobiles, nitroglycerine, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, sawed-off shotguns shot-guns anil nutoniatlc pistols but also Kas musks and IfitM bombs. So ten or u dozen robbers had an easy time 111 holding up the 50 mall clerks on a nollil mall and express train on the St. I'aul and KettiiiK away with registered until containing two millions or ho. It was the gas bombs and gas masks that did the business. To be sure, Uncle Sain has rnuk'ht most of the robbers and got back most of the money, but such things make lots of trouble. And Uncle Sum baa plenty of until troubles as It la. Just look at the size of his mull business. lie's gtit something like 60,000 post olllces and more being established every day of the year, except Sundays nnd legal holidays. There are nearly H.'.O.OOO workers In the Post Olllce department and they handle $;i,OO0,(HK),0O0 every year. Anil Undo Sain, not being In the business to make money, has all kinds of trouble In making both ends meet. In the fiscal year of W2H, for example. It cost him over JMO.OOO.OOO and be took In only ubout $532,-OOO.HOO. $532,-OOO.HOO. And think of the things lie has to attend to tumps and envelopes; newspaper wrappers and postal funis; money orders, foreign and domestic; postal savings bunks; first, second nnd third-class matter and parrel post; airplane, railway, carrier and rural route service and so on. Why, Postmaster Post-master (ienernl New has Just been receiving bids for ll.tXHUXXVXHI stamped envelopes and newspaper newspa-per wrappers. The postal savings banks have about $1."HI.IXXIOOO to the credit of depositors. There are 45.1HH1 rural routes and more than 10.000 star mall routes, the latter involving an aggregate annual travel by automobile and wagon of 85,000,-(XXI 85,000,-(XXI miles, l.lttle things like these give a hint of some of Uncle Sam's mall troubles. A thing that keeps Uncle Sam on the .lump every minute In his mail business Is our Increase ill population. pop-ulation. That was from about 1)2,000,000 to 100,-(XX,lXX 100,-(XX,lXX In the ten years. 1!10-20. And an. estimate esti-mate by the census bureau puts our population on ! July 1, I'.i'JI, at H'J.OTS.til t, an Increase of about T.OOO.OtH) In the last four years. And that with restricted Immigration! This means more towns, more post ollices. more letters more everything. This new estimate of the population !so shows that there are now 70 cities having a population of l0O.iX or more, as compared with OS last year. This means that Uncle Sam Is hard put to It to keep up with the procession In the large cities. Ills post otllce faculties have a way of becoming inacleviuate over night. Here's an Illustration. Years ago he built the great federal building In Chicago, occupying a whole block In the loop. It was to be the Inst word In post otlices and the ivasslve pile was out of date before It was completed. com-pleted. In other wortls, Chicago's mall business grew faster than Uncle Sam built. Congressman l'-rltten of Illinois will introduce a bill at the next session of congress to sell the building ami site for approximately $22.OtV.0OO and use the money tor two modern post offices, one on the South side and one on the West side. Another thing that keeps Uncle Sam awake nights is the Incessant. ever-Increasing demand for speed and more speed. Time is money, says the adage; It comes pretty near being literally true In the malls. The experts have calculated that the new transcontinental air mail service saves anywhere from $5.iX to JJv.OAl a day, representing rep-resenting Interest on money transported across the country. Congressman M. Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania goes so far as to hold that the service, serv-ice, by saving three days. Increases our available cash reserve by Jl.VUVO.tVJ each day. He is therefore there-fore sponsoring a bill in congress greatly Increasing Increas-ing Its scope. In the meantime requests for n'.r mail service are pouring In on Second Assistant Postmaster General Henderson for air service. Kven Alaska wants it. It Is no wonder that the Chicago post office was out of date before finished. As the railroads sup-plynt-M the stage and pony express in the transportation trans-portation of the malls. Chicago because it soon came to be the railroad center of the country came to be the mail center. Through it now nun es the mightiest mass of mail matter that Is centralized anywhere on earth. Mall operations quickly outgrew facilities. The situation got so bad in U'U' that a eomUKttee of the railway mail service made a thorough study of the operations at Chicago.. As a result of this study, the necessary facilities were figured out nnd a comprehensive scheme of terminal operation opera-tion was adopted. The plan called for a site conveniently con-veniently located for both railway mail cars and auto trucks; a building of adequate dimensions and design In which to handle the mail economically; economi-cally; nnd an extensive application of mechanical appa rams. The result of all this Is that there has Just been below. The belt is traveling ,ri. ..i'a .iuu i rum that of the tram, ami thus it clears each truckload in time to receive the next load. The conveyors are from 50 to 100 feet in length. They travel 40 feet a minute nnd enrry nil the precnnceled mail going through the bulldinj. The width of the belt Is 4'J Inches and It hns a carrying capacity of 15 pounds per square foot. This would nmount to approximately 25,-000 25,-000 pounds, or 12 tons per hour. Two main conveyors deliver to Inclined conveyors convey-ors which In turn deliver to two primary separation units on the second and third floors. The separation unit on the third floor, which Is 130 feet long, takes care of the mall for the stutPS of Iowa, Indiana, Indi-ana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois Il-linois and Ohio. The sorting sort-ing clerks stand on a plnt-from plnt-from extending between the twr, tiorc of Kelt convpvors. ItZcizzx? ' truck Aim c&m&yazz fVf TtLy 1 completed us a part of the new Chicago Union t, X-SftCT JT' station project, a railway mail terminal building .t gfl-dsaSteSg 1 :. ' f'j whidi Is unique among such structures It is not I ' , .VilJ'A,fJJ?i w!w only the largest exl ting building of its sort, being KjV JkVO JV V S " p 800 feet long by 75 feet In width, with a height of aV' " - 1 6 storle above basement, track leel and sub- ss3T5;32S i s T basement, but contains mechanical conveyors and Mmm ' transportation equipment without an equal in the ? completed, us a part of the new Chicago Union station project, a railway mail terminal building which Is unique among such structures. It is not only the largest existing building of its sort, being 800 feet long by 75 feet In width, with a height of 6 stories above basement, track level and sub-basement, sub-basement, but contains mechanical conveyors and transportation equipment without on equal in the world. This equipment Is capable of handling 8.000 tons of mail each 24 hours. A further idea of the magnitude of the operations carried on in this terminal will be gained from the fact that more than 1,000 clerks and porters are employed In the railway mail terminal department alone. Robert II. Moulton, a Chicago writer, thus describes de-scribes the workings of the new plant, which was visited by mail men from all over the world who are in search of efficiency nnd speed: The mail terminal building extends from Van Ruren to Harrison street, between Canal street on the west and the Chicago river on the east, with n private driveway along the full length on the east side. The building is of the latest fireproof design of steel and concrete, and is furnished throughout with factory-type steel sash to provide the mnxi-mum mnxi-mum light and ventilation. Its floor capacity Is WO.OOO square feet. It Is of the two-level type and is served by platform tracks on the lower level and a teamwny on the street level, the private driveway referred to affording 5S0 feet of clear tailboard space, or enough for 00 street vehicles nt one time. The track level has platform lengths adequate to serve Gl cars, while the basement affords af-fords communication, by means of tunnels, with cars at Union station platforms remote from the mail terminal. Perhaps the most notable feature of this terminal ter-minal Is the system of belt conveyors employed In the building. According to the resident engineer who has been In charge of the Installation of the mail handling equipment, this system is the largest larg-est Installation of its kind in the world. It consists con-sists of 71 belt conveyors, requiring the use of approximately ap-proximately eight miles of belting; 400 tilting trucks of a special design; 1.200 balanced type trucks of a standard type; nnd a sufficient number num-ber of tractors to handle the trucks effectively throughout the building. In addition to these fa- cilitles there are 13 freight elevators, approximately approximate-ly S by IS feet each. The terminal has a variety of functions. One of the most important Is the handling of mail received re-ceived from and delivered to trains at the Uniou station. This consists primarily of the transfer of mail sacks from street vehicles to mail cars nnd vice versa. A great part of the operation's of the terminal, however, consists in the receipt, classification and dispatch of all papers, catalogues cata-logues and parcel post mail originating In Chicago, Chi-cago, as well as mail of these three classes passing pass-ing through the city. While the bulk of the material ma-terial is received in the terminal already weighed and with the postage canceled, a portion of It has not undergone these operations, and to take care of the latter a post office has been provided In the building. Unclassified mail reaching the terminal from the strevt is received along the middle portion of the -irivate driveway space; that from trains, on the basement or track level. Prom these two points of receipt it is delivered to the tipper floors of the building for the necessary work of classification. classi-fication. Formerly parcel post mail originating in Chicago was sacked and loaded Into trucks at business bouses and transported to the mall station. From 25 to "O minutes were required to load a truck and a similar length of nrie needed to unload it. Under the new- system the same work is done in from throe to five minutes at each end of the line thus effecting a saving of close to an hour on each motor truck load. The first step in the system begins at the large business houses or mail onUy concerns. The mail is loaded into six or eight of the small tilting trucks and the latter are conveyed by a large motor truck to the mail terminal " building. Arrived there the ti'.'ing trucks are pulled out of the motor truck, coupled together in trains and attached to an electric tractor, which hauls them to a trough or pit. 50 feet long and 45 inches wide, in the fioor. A bumper at one side of the pit marks the route for the train of tilting trucks and prevents it from slipping into the pit. As the train passes along, employees tilt each -k- (.-.! te contents slide to the feed belt there being three feet of space each for 40 men. They pick from the feed belt the packages intended intend-ed for the different states, and throw them onto t)ie various belts specified for those states. Canvas Can-vas flares at the sides of the belts prevent packages pack-ages from going onto the floor, at the same time deflecting packages to belts and breaking their fall. A separation unit on the fourth floor takes care of the belts assigned to the states of Missouri, Mis-souri, New York, Kentucky, etc. The primary separation system on this floor has the same number num-ber of belts as the system on the third floor, the only difference being that the fourth floor system is 60 feet long whereas the third floor system is 1 -o i , . . -ov icei in leugtn. The final separation and classification of all mail handled by the terminal forces is made at tables on the second, third, fourth and fifth floors, where the mail Is placed In sacks nnd properly marked ready for delivery to the Union station forces on the track floor or the basement, or to the street vehicles on the street floor for delivery to various parts of the city or to other railway stations. Such mail, in sacks, Is handled by means of tractor trains which take the sacks direct di-rect to mall cars. The movement of the sacked mail from the floors mentioned to the track or street floors is accomplished by carrying the sacks, on balanced type trucks, to holes in the floor leading to longl-iii'imal longl-iii'imal ceiling conveyors, five to a lloor, which extend practically the entire length of the building. build-ing. The mail is dropped onto the ceiling conveyors con-veyors through openings, or chutes, in the floors. There are 60 of these chutes. 24 to 80 inches in size, to a floor and they are uniformly spaced. Since it Is not desirable to have the mail sacks drop the full vertical distance of 7 feet from the floor level to the ceiling conveyors, the chutes are each given a quarter turn, an arrangement which permits the sacks to slide within three feet of the belts. Each of the 20 ceiling conveyor helts is also connected with one of 5 double spiral chutes placed in different parts of the buliding. The belting forming the conveyors Is made of four thicknesses of canvas, weighing two pounds to the square yard. In splicing the belts flexible metal lacing is used. The ends of the belts are pulled together by means of clamps nnd the teeth meshed together with a strip of metal Inserted to keep them from pulling apart. The helts travel en rollers of cold-drawn seamless Hteel tubes which range from 314 to S inches in diameter Tills tubing Is spot-welded to pressed steel heads :b.-r support turned steel shafts inch In dl amerer. The shafts are fitted with renewable steel races and there are two roller bearings to roller. This method of Installation hns'been estimated to save some $15,000' a year Operation of the belts is by means of motor-driven motor-driven double-drive pulleys, the main pulley being 30 Inches In diameter nnd provide,! with n auto mutic gravity takeup.' The 71 separate conveyor belts ure driven by an equal number of motors Kverv motor has a control, there being sjs control boards in all. or 2 to each of three floors There are lock buttons at every motor, and every loo feet there are start and stop push buttons' The latter feature is provided in order to prevent the Piling up of mail should a section of the train of conveying equipment in advance be shut off The cost of this system of belt-conveyor transportation transporta-tion alone was half a million dollars. It Is the belief of postal authorities that air cratt will soon occupy as important a place in the transmission of mail as railroads and motor trucks i.h this idea in mind, provision ,as hpen . by which the roof f ,he npw ter;nina, en can be converted into a landing and starting pi,',,; for airplanes and possibly even dirigibles I num ber of foreign governments interested in the pos" sihiluies of aerial mail have already requested frorn the United Stares full information on ,his mature the new station, while others are stud mg the station as a whole with the idea of in- Slm"ar -el post f3cilities in their coun- |