Snow trains carry people who want to go skiing. They leave early Sunday morning, wait all day on a siding at a station near a good skiing place, and come back in the evening.
You can’t always be sure ahead of time exactly where the train will stop. The snow may melt fast on one mountainside, so the railroad has to send the snow train to another place where the skiing is still good.
A snow train has a baggage car that is fixed up like a store where you can buy or rent any kind of skiing equipment. It also has a diner where you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner or have hot soup when you get cold.
For long trips to deep-snow country, you start Saturday night in a sleeping car and get back early Monday morning.
AT THE HEAD END
At the head end, a streamlined train has several cars that are different from passenger cars. One of them is built for the people who work on the train. It has berths where they sleep, shower rooms, lockers for clothes. The stewardess and the conductor may have offices there, too. (The men in the engine crew, of course, don’t stay with the train. They change at division points.)
Some trains take a Railway Post Office car along at the head end. It does the work of a small post office. Regular mail clerks in the car sort letters and cancel the stamps. They toss out bags of mail at stations where the train doesn’t stop. At the same time, a long metal arm attached to the car reaches out and picks up mailbags that hang from hoops beside the track.
The men who work in the Post Office car have learned to be very accurate and fast. They need to know the names and locations of hundreds of towns and cities, so they can toss each letter into exactly the right sorting bag.