Post-Offices on Wheels (1929)

This article, by Cecil J. Allen, M. Inst. T., was originally published in Collins’ Railway Annual in 1929. It is most informative and should be of great interest to Travelling Post Offices and railway enthusiasts. The photographs are splendid, as is the drawing of TPO sorters, at work. A lovely cameo of times past…

THERE must be few of us who do not like to find a letter awaiting us on the breakfast-table in the morning. It is, indeed, a characteristic of the Britisher to love sending and receiving correspondence. Nothing else could explain the remarkable fact that every year the British Post Office is called upon to handle over 6,000,000,000 letters, newspapers and circulars. Parcels make a good second, as there are roughly 140,000,000 of them to be dealt with annually also. In these vast transactions the railways of Great Britain are called upon to play a vital part, for some 80 per cent. of these letters, and fully go per cent. of the parcels, pass over the railways on their way from senders to recipients. So it is that, in dealing with the mails, Post-Offices which make long journeys on wheels are needed in addition to the Post-Offices on land with which we are more immediately acquainted. It is the purpose of this article to enable you to see what goes on in one of these wheeled Post-Offices.

Picking up the mails. A train travelling at full speed photographed in the act of taking the mailbag from its standard.

A great deal of mail matter is carried in the luggage-vans of ordinary trains – as you have often noticed, doubtless, when travelling – but the heaviest mail consignments, which pass chiefly at night, require special accommodation. For Post Office use, therefore, sorting-coaches are built, designed not only to carry the mail-bags but also to enable their contents to be sorted on the journey. In addition to this, in order that the mail trains may not have to be stopped at every station where it is desired to receive or deliver the bags, these coaches are fitted with apparatus for exchanging the mails when the express is travelling at full speed. This is the most exciting of all the operations connected with the travelling Post Office, as you will see presently.

Inside a Travelling Post Office. Sorters busily at work putting each letter in its proper “pigeon-hole” – a job at which there is no time to waste.

In the majority of cases, the mail sorting-coaches are attached to ordinary express trains, by which you may also travel as a passenger. You can find a couple, for example, on the tail of the ” Night Scotsman ” of the L.N.E.R., which leaves King’s Cross at 10.25 in the evening for Edinburgh, and two more on the 8.25 p.m. from King’s Cross for Edinburgh. The morning and evening ” Irish Mails ” out of Euston. L.M.S.. at 8.30 a.m. and 8.50 p.m., also carry sorting-coaches, as well as other trains over all parts of the country, too numerous to mention. But in some cases the mail business is so extensive as to require the running of a special mail train, by which passengers are not carried. The Great Western Railway, for example, runs a mail train from Paddington to Penzance every night, and another one from Penzance to Paddington.

Sorters at work inside a Travelling Post Office.

But the most remarkable of these trains, without a doubt, is the “West Coast Postal,” of the L.M.S., which for many years past has left Euston terminus every night on the stroke of 8.30, conveying to Scotland the main night mail from London and all the Midland and Western counties of England. It carries a staff of forty, all of whom-except, of course, the guard and the engine-crew-are Post Office officials, and there is no possibility of the outsider getting on board unless he has first of all obtained the permission of the Post Office. This is only given in special circumstances, as in such a hive of activity “passengers” are decidedly de trop. But we will assume that it has been our good fortune to obtain the coveted permit, and that about eight o’clock in the evening we have arrived at Euston.

A clue to the whereabouts of our quarry is readily given by the stream of red Post Office motors which is now passing steadily into the station. Following this we find ourselves at No. 3 platform, where the “Postal” is already in position ; it has been there, indeed, since 7 o’clock, as there is much work to be done before starting time. There are, in all, twelve coaches. At the front end there are four or five ordinary vans ; then comes a string of the special sorting-vans, easily distinguishable by the big steelframed nets which each coach carries neatly folded on its side; and then a couple of ordinary vans bring up the rear. All the doors throughout the length of the train are wide open, and the motors are disgorging their contents pell-mell into the train, amid a babel of shouted destinations. Willing hands in the vans are receiving the bags, and passing them to the sorters.

Sorting the letters, according to their innumerable destinations, is already well under way. Going into the nearest sorting-coach, we see that down the whole length of one side there is an enormous rack, consisting of hundreds of pigeon-holes. Below the rack, about waist-high, there is a broad shelf on to which the mail bags are emptied. Alongside the shelf, facing the rack, half-a-dozen busy men are standing. Every few minutes a fresh mail-bag is opened, turned upside down, and its contents poured, in a great stream, on to the shelf. The letters are tied up in bundles, and we see one of the sorters seize a bundle, and begin to toss the letters, one by one, into the rack in front of him. Each pigeon-hole represents a different place, and the speed at which the letters disappear is almost incredible thirty, forty, fifty, sometimes even sixty to the minute. From time to time full pigeon-holes are emptied, their contents are crowded into mail-bags, which are duly labelled for their respective destinations and hung upon a formidable array of pegs which lines the opposite side of the coach.

The Christmas Mails. A heavy load of mails awaiting the Post Office train at the busiest time of the year.

The same feverish activity is going on throughout the whole of the sorting-coaches, but it is far from sufficient to keep pace with the increasing spate of mail matter which the Post Office motors are now hurrying up and discharging every minute. The floor of each van is now packed with mailbags, and in some of the coaches you may literally wade knee-deep in correspondence. Last of all the ” late-fee ” letters come dashing up ; and all having now been safely garnered in, on the stroke of 8.30 the Post Office ‘official in charge of the train gives the signal, the guard blows his whistle, the “Royal Scot” locomotive at the head of the train answers with a raucous shriek, and we move out on our 540-mile journey to Aberdeen.

What has now been received in the way of mails, together with other big consignments which will come in when we stop at Rugby and Tamworth, will keep the staff on the train fully occupied until Crewe, where postal trains from all directions will converge on the ” West Coast Postal,” and another vast collection will come pouring in, to be exchanged with some of the already sorted mail. But there are other similar exchanges to be made, at stations of lesser importance than those I have just mentioned. Much time would be lost if the ” Postal ” were to be stopped in her proud career at every point where it is desired to receive or to deliver mail-bags. This is where the mail apparatus, to which previous reference has been made, comes into use.

Outside a Travelling Post Office. Showing a mail-bag suspended ready for delivery, and the net extended for collecting.

We have not been travelling for much over a quarter-of-an-hour when, in one of the sorting vans, we see an official roll open one of the big sidedoors. Next he pulls over a lever on the side of the van, and immediately an electric bell begins to ring. It is a warning signal to the staff working in the coach that an exchange is about to take place. Peering out of the door into the darkness, we see that the net on the side of the coach has now been extended wide, and that its capacious mouth is open, as though to swallow some Gargantuan meal. We are not kept long in suspense. Suddenly there is a thunderous bang. A heavy black object comes hurtling in and is thrown by the impact from one side of the van to the other-a sufficient explanation as to why that warning bell was necessary! The lever is immediately put back, closing the net again, and the door is shut, while attention is paid to the black bundle, which proves to be a mailbag strapped up in a stout leather pouch. Without such protection, it could never possibly stand the tremendous buffeting it has just received. Soon its contents have been emptied out, and are in the hands of the sorters.

So, while we are hurrying on through the night, postmen from various towns and villages, all laden with mails, are converging on the railway shortly before the “Postal” is due to pass. Each one has as his objective the permanent apparatus which has been erected at the line-side for the purpose of the exchange. This consists of a big net, made of very stout rope, and, alongside it, a tall metal standard, or pair of standards, bent over at the top. The standard is arranged to swivel, and the postman, after strapping up his bags in the leather pouch and after hearing the approach of the “Postal” signalled by an electric bell in his little cabin, climbs the ladder up to the standard, hangs the pouch from the bent arm, and swings it out towards the line. Presently the “Postal” is heard ; in a few seconds she is thundering by. A leather-bound “V”-rope stretched across the mouth of the carriage-net has neatly “collared” the pouch off the standard and it has disappeared into the train. Some of these “collections” are very heavy. At Bletchley and Nuneaton, for example, where several line-side standards have to be used, it is customary to catch from five to seven pouches at once, which come into the sorting-coach one after another with a succession of those resounding thuds!

In the same way deliveries are made off the train to the ground apparatus. Each sorting-coach is fitted with a couple of arms, which are normally folded flat into the coach-side, but are swung out at right-angle to the coach when required for use. The bags for delivery are also enclosed in leather pouches, and then-through the open door of the van-are hung on these “traductor” arms ; then, as the carriage-net is opened, the arms are swung outwards. At precisely the moment that the postman’s bags come hurtling into the sorting-van, so the bags of sorted matter is just as neatly caught by the ground-net, and the exchange is complete. The whole operation has been carried out, very likely, while the train is travelling at sixty or seventy miles an hour, or more. Possibly the most interesting sf all the exchanges is that connected with the Irish mail. The “West Coast Postal” does a certain amount of sorting of Irish letters, and it is necessary from time to time to transfer the bags of sorted matter from this train to the “Irish Mail” express, which follows 20 minutes later. At stations where both trains stop, such as Rugby and Crewe, this is done easily enough. But at one other point, the sorted letters are delivered by automatic apparatus off the “West Coast Postal” to the ground apparatus, taken from the ground-net there by the postman on duty and hung up on the ground-standard, from which, a few minutes later, the “Irish Mail” collars them as she passes! That is to say, mail-bags are passed from one train to another without the stoppage of either!

On arrival at Crewe, half the postal staff on duty on the train say good-bye to the remainder and alight, as they are going to work their way back to London the same night on the up “West Coast Postal.” Their places are taken by a number of Glasgow sorters, who came down from Glasgow on last night’s “Postal,” and are now on their way north again. The official in charge of the train, with the remaining half of the London staff, however, are going a long way farther yet, as their spell of duty does not end until the Border City of Carlisle has been reached, after 7½ hours of this concentrated labour. Preston is the next stop after Crewe, and the “Royal Scot,” which took over the train at Crewe, has now to surmount the 915-ft. summit of Shap, before hurrying down to Carlisle, and making up in the descent any lost minutes from earlier in the journey. For strict punctuality with the “Postal” is vital.

At about a quarter to three in the morning the rest of the tired London postal staff are stepping off the train on to Carlisle platform, ready for bed and some well-eamed sleep. More Scottish sorters come on, and join their Glasgow friends, and at 2.54 in the very “small hours” the “Postal” is away north again. At Carstairs the through sections for Glasgow and Edinburgh are detached, and it is but a “ghost” of the 12-coach express which left London that is now left for the journey to Aberdeen ; so much so, indeed, that at Stirling a couple of passenger coaches are attached to these two remaining vans to keep them company, and passengers are now allowed to travel on the “Postal.” So the “Postal” goes on, stopping at Perth and then having a non-stop run to Aberdeen. At eight minutes to eight in the morning the tail of the “Postal” is at rest in the Granite City. And so great is considered to be the importance of the postal traffic, that the “West Coast Postal” has made the 540-mile journey from London in nearly an hour less than the fastest of all the passenger trains.