After seven weeks, the Trafford Post Office finally moved out of the Trafford community center and into their new fully-functioning temporary office.

The new facility is a modified trailer located in the parking lot of the the old office. Despite being a tentative operation, postal customers can do anything at the new location that they could at the old office.

“The city was very helpful in letting us use the community center,” said Wil Srofe, acting postmaster for Trafford. “I’m glad we’re open for business. We can do anything anybody would need here.”

The Trafford post office was destroyed by an electrical fire in late June. The trailer was supposed to come just a few days after the fire, but workers discovered it needed repairs after bringing it out of storage at an old airmail facility in downtown Birmingham.

When it arrived, postal workers set it up in less than a day and painted fresh parking lines in front of it. Although he’s been with the Trafford post office only since the beginning of the year Srofe said it’s hard to see the burned building as he walks into the trailer in the morning.

“One of my mail carriers was in tears when she first saw it,” he said. “She’s been here 20 years, and it was her second home.”

Srofe said the postal workers did a good job working out of the community center, but that it was also a relief to be working in the new facility.

“One of the best things is that we have room for our P.O. boxes,” he said. “At the community center, people could only check them during business hours, and many were only able to pick up mail in the evenings. Now they can access them 24 hours a day.”

The post office has about 160 P.O. box customers, and Srofe said he is trying to make the transition as easy as possible for them. The P.O. boxes are one of the few things that actually survived the fire, and Srofe made sure customers kept their original P.O. boxes.

“There’s a little damage to them, but they’ve been sanitized and you can’t smell smoke on them or anything,” he said. Srofe said the feedback from the postal customers was nothing but positive. Debit and credit cards can also now be used thanks to some computer equipment that survived the fire.

“We’ve got a lot more room than I thought we’d have,” said Srofe. “It’s not been too bad.”

The postal service does not own the old post office building, so Srofe is unsure of its fate. He said the owner has expressed interest in rebuilding, but he is currently talking with his insurance company.