Highway Post Office Bus (photo)

By the 1930s, a significant decline in railroad passenger traffic had caused a subsequent decline in the use of railway train crews for transporting and processing mail. To fill the void, the postal service began using highway buses instead on some routes. This is the first Highway Post Office bus, which began service on February 10, 1941. Manufactured by White Motor Company of Cleveland, OH, the bus operated between Washington, D.C., and Harrisonburg, Virginia. Although the bus in the Postal Museum's collection was decommissioned in the 1960s, the Highway Post Office service ran until June 30, 1974.