Railway Express Agency

The Railway Express Agency had its origins in the overland stagecoach and pony express services that linked the eastern and western U.S. prior to the building of the transcontinental railroad. In the railroad era, express companies worked with the railroads in handling door-to-door freight shipping. By 1914 there were seven major express companies, and these were consolidated by the Federal Government during World War I into the American Railway Express Agency. In the late 1920s a group of U.S. railroads purchased the company and changed its name to the Railway Express Agency, Inc. It had a monopoly on the shipment of freight on railroads and was obliged to ship all manner of goods, including motion pictures, circus animals, and hazardous materials. In 1960 the company adopted the trade name REA Express. In 1961 it formed a trailer leasing company called REA Leasing Corporation, and in 1965 it joined with Seven Arts Associated Corp. and Travel Theaters, Inc., to form REA Express-Seven Arts Transvision Inc.

By the mid 1970s the company's profits were decreasing due, in part, to the domination of the railroad companies, high inflation, and a decline in express shipments. In 1975 it filed for Chapter XI bankruptcy.