I still have more questions than answers 21 Sep 2020 05:36:28pm
I recently got this cover. The cancel is a bit of a mystery to me. Instead of a city it reads Emergency No. 6. The bottom of the dial appears to read West Division. It was sent on October 20. I can not make out a year. It does look like it went by rail,(TR81). The back has a Broad Brook, Conn receiving cancel that is also dated for October 20 and again the year is not clear. Does anyone have an idea what this is? Of course the seller listed this as scarce, but I really have no idea. I see very common items listed as rare or scarce online every day.
The TR81 "trip" designation was only used for mobile post offices. As this cover predates the start of the Highway Post Office which Tim refers to this can only be an emergency rail route.
So far there has not been an authoritative answer to the original question in this thread, as I had hoped there would be. The cancel appeared to be from a Railway Post Office (RPO) so I contacted Dr. Frank Scheer, curator of the Railway Mail Service Library asking what it represented. Here is his reply:
"First Division Railway Mail Service (RMS) had several postmarkers that read "Emergency" and a number in place of a RPO route. These spare hand-stamps were assigned to a clerk-in-charge when the original postmarker was lost or damaged, or for a new route before the replacement postmarker arrived.. "TR 81" refers to the train number of the Railway Post Office which postmarked this letter. If the sender's return address appears on the back of the envelope, that can aid in identifying which Railway Post Office route this letter was posted. If other information is desired, please contact the Railway Mail Service Library at RMSLF@RAILWAYMAILSERVICELIBRARY.ORG "
If there are additional markings or addresses on the reverse of the cover, the original poster may contact Dr. Scheer and, perhaps, receive more information.
FF
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