Railway Express Police Badge Coffee Mug

From www.railphotoexpress.biz Railroad police and Railway Express Police in the United States goes back to the beginnings of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. In the mid nineteenth century, the number of Federal Marshals was insufficient to police the vast railroad network. Through his detective business, Allan Pinkerton met George B. McClellan, the president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad and Illinois Central Railroad, as well as its attorney, Abraham Lincoln. With Lincoln's encouragement, Pinkerton began supplying detectives for the railroad. Railroad contracts were a mainstay of Pinkerton's until The Railroads and The Railway Express gradually developed their own police departments in the years following the Civil War. After the founding of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in 1863, Pinkerton's and the new railroad police agencies were used to crush strikes of railroad workers and fight railroad and train robberies. Another major concern was pilferage by employees, especially the passenger conductor,and the Express Company men who had the greatest authority and freedom on passenger trains and collected ticket and express fees. Allan Pinkerton in 1855, created the North West Police Agency with $10,000 given for the cause by several Midwest railroads.