Perhaps you’re saying, ‘But I know how the post is carried now – it’s carried by van, train, boat or aeroplane, finishing up with a postman on a bicycle or on foot.’ And you’re perfectly right. But did you know that letters also travel by means of pigeons, bottles, casks, tin cans, dog sledges, camels, trams, buses, helicopters, balloons, underground railways and rockets?

Let’s begin with the more ordinary ways. Have you heard of the ‘Down Special’? It is a train only for mails and it is one of the many Travelling Post Offices which roar through the night across Great Britain so that you can have your letters by breakfast-time.

It takes seven and a half hours from London to Edinburgh. Sometimes, on the ‘Down Special’, there are as many as eighty sorters working all night as it dashes on its way to Aberdeen. If you ever stand on station platforms collecting engine numbers you may have seen the apparatus that is used to pick up and put down mail-bags as the train tears through the main-line stations at night. But have you ever seen it working?

Even if you happen to be on the spot it is almost impossible to see anything because it is all over in a few seconds as the train rushes through the station at over forty miles an hour. The arms swing out of the mail train, carrying pouches of letters and in a flash these are dropped into a net and the new pouches, which were hanging waiting for them, are picked up.

The actual picking-up is automatic but it needs very clever timing to work the machine. Just think that not so much more than a hundred years ago the mail-coach guard used to grab a pouch of letters from the Postmaster as he leaned out of his bedroom window, and everyone thought that was the last word in speed!

The very first Travelling Post Office started in 1838, but it was a very slow affair compared with the ‘Down Special’ of today. If you would like to see what one of today’s T.P.O.s looks like inside, you can see a picture of one on a French stamp (1951).

Now let’s suppose you are sailing to America on The Queen Mary (which takes 4 days 20 hours from Southampton to New York) and you want to write a letter to a friend in England. If you post it at the Ship’s Post Office, before you reach Cherbourg, your friend will have an interesting postmark for his collection because the letter will be taken off The Queen Mary at Cherbourg and have the word ‘PAQUEBOT’ stamped on it (the French for Packet Boat).

Do you know why it is called a Packet Boat? In the beginning these boats sailing from England to the Continent carried the packet of State Letters (instead of holiday postcards and ordinary letters as they do today). These early packet boats used to be armed with guns because enemy spies were very anxious to capture them and read the state letters and steal any gold or other goods they might be carrying. Today the word ‘Paquebot’ is normally stamped on all letters posted on board ship.

Now we’ve talked about land and sea – but what about air? Well, in 1919, there was a great event in Post Office history. Ten thousand letters, postcards and newspapers were flown in an aeroplane for the first time in Great Britain. The pilot was a young man called Hamel. This was the Coronation Air Post – from Hendon to Windsor in thirteen minutes – celebrating the Coronation of King George V.

The next big change came in 1919, just after World War I, when the first regular air post started between London and Paris. Soon other countries began sending letters by aeroplane and now airmail services run all over the world and the post travels faster and faster – London to Johannesburg (5,600 miles) in two days! But the story of airmails is a long and exciting one; you can read more about it in Chapter 14.

* * * * *

Now let’s have a look at the way mail is carried in foreign lands. What about the frozen north? In cold barren parts like Alaska and Labrador letters are carried in a sledge drawn by dogs, and the postmen have to carry guns to protect themselves from wild animals.

In outlying villages in Finland the postman comes on a sleigh drawn by reindeer. There is a Post Office in Finland that is only open one day in the year – just for the reindeer market! Its name is Gallivare, but if you find an envelope with a Finnish stamp on it and the postmark has a reindeer included in it you will know it comes from there, even if you have forgotten the name. What a treasure this would be for a postmark collection.

Norwegians who live in the towns and villages round the northern fjords get their post only by ship. One ship is enough for a small fjord but it takes more than twenty to collect and deliver mail all round the largest one.

People who live high up in the mountains of Austria and Switzerland get their letters brought to their villages by Post Bus. These sturdy buses climb up the mountain roads to a height of 7,000 feet in the summer. They carry newspapers, goods and passengers as well as letters; there is no other way for people to get their supplies in the remote places. When the horn of the Post Bus is heard, all other traffic gets out of the way; the mails must be on time. There are post-boxes on the buses and places along the mountain roads where the bus will stop, so if you lived in a lonely chalet high up in the mountains you would have to take your letters down to one of these bus stops when the bus was due, and pop your letter into its box.

Letters are carried by lake steamers, trams and trolley buses, by mule and donkey over mountainous roads where no van can go, and across the blazing deserts by camel. They go down rivers – sometimes through jungles  – in all kinds of strange craft.

In Malaya, for instance, where many places can only be reached by river, the postman uses a Sampan to collect and deliver the mail. You can see one of these on a Singapore stamp (1955). What a fascinating collection you could make of stamps showing all kinds of mail carriers – from pigeons and sailing ships to trains and helicopters. Countries are so proud of their posts that – you can find stamps showing everything connected with letters and parcels. Here are a few of the things – just to show you what a marvellous collection you could make:

Post runners (Togo, India, Nicaragua); postmen on elephants (Cambodia) and on camels (Sudan); Moorish couriers on fiery Arab horses (Spanish Morocco); an Arab courier taking a letter from a scribe (French Morocco); Turkish, Icelandic and Chinese postmen; oldtime German and Polish postmen; a post-woman delivering letters in Hungary; postmen on bicycles (U.S.A.); postmen motor-cycling through Ethiopia and Guatemala; a Postillion (the continental word for a mounted post-boy or rider (Saar); trucks stacked high with parcels (Yugoslavia); mails going by horse-cart (Yugoslavia) and by bullock-cart (India); Austrian and Swiss Post Buses; horse mail coaches (nearly every country shows these, and there are some beauties – with two, four and even six horses); mail trains; mail ships; mail-carrying aeroplanes; postmen emptying pillar- or mail-boxes; Chinese and Swiss Mobile Post Offices, and, of course, Post Offices from all over the world.

There are hundreds more, and a story in stamps such as this, beautifully arranged and mounted, would surely win a prize in your Club Competition.

Before we go on to tell you about some of the strangest ways the mail is carried, let’s talk a little about what is carried.

The usual things are postcards, letters, letter-cards, parcels, newspapers, books and printed papers – but did you know that a live cow could be sent by post? Not long ago a farmer ‘posted’ a cow called Flossie by Special Express delivery and it cost him £3 11s. The stamps were stuck on Flossie’s address label and she was delivered safely to her destination. A goat has also been sent, and a Shetland pony called Tom. What a surprise for the postman who had to deliver these amazing ‘parcels’!

Turkeys, chickens and geese are often sent by parcel post, especially at Christmas – but not alive. Sometimes they are not properly packed or labelled and then they are sent to Mount Pleasant, London – the world’s largest sorting office. At the Returned Letter Section there is a department for perishable goods with a refrigerated storehouse, and lost turkeys and such-like are kept there while the staff try to sort out from torn bits of paper whose Christmas dinners they are!

Everything that has lost its label or been wrongly addressed or badly packed goes to the R.L.S., which has a staff of several hundred people. These men and women have to be rather like detectives to find the owners of the strange assortment of things that turn up there – cameras, false teeth, toys, pound notes, gold bracelets, footballs, bottles of poison – almost anything you can think of that does not weigh more than 15 lb. or measure over 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 6 inches. You wouldn’t believe what fantastic things people send through the post – quite against the regulations: white mice and snakes have been known to pop out of parcels. Strangely enough, bees are allowed to be sent but they must be very carefully packed or else you can imagine what would happen to the poor man who had to open a parcel of them in the R.L.S.!

As soon as you have posted a letter or a parcel you can forget all about it, can’t you, knowing that the Post Office will take charge of it and see to its safe delivery? Just stop and think what a marvellous system it is.

The Post Office has always been anxious to become speedier and more efficient, and now it has fleets of red mail vans which, amongst their many duties, carry the bags of letters from the villages to the towns, take mail to and from stations and deliver your parcels. There are also Mobile Post Offices, complete Post Offices on wheels, which can be sent to any part of the country where there will be a large crowd of people, such as an Agricultural or Motor Show. Wherever people are they want to be able to buy stamps and send letters and the P.O. does its best to see that they can.

Now, last of all, let’s talk about some of the very queer ways letters are carried in various parts of the world.

First of all, bottles! Have you ever sent a message in a bottle? We have. We once put our names and addresses in an empty wine bottle and dropped it over the Pont Neuf into the River Seine in Paris. A few months later we had a letter from a French boy who had found it while he was fishing miles away from Paris! This is a very exciting way of sending letters, but the trouble is that you never know who you’re sending them to or even that they will ever be read by anyone at all!

In 1585 Queen Elizabeth I forbade anyone, on pain of death, to open a drifting bottle that contained a message; this must be done by the official Uncorker of Ocean Bottles! The reason for this order was that a letter from Mary Queen of Scots (then imprisoned in the Tower of London) had been found in a bottle on the beach at Dover by a fisherman. The message was for the Duke of Lorraine, appealing to him to organize Europe against Elizabeth.

When Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, it was a big problem how to get secret messages to her. One of her prisons was a house with a moat all round it and a brewery nearby, and some of her friends had the bright idea of smuggling letters to her inside a barrel of beer! The messages were wrapped up in a waterproof bag and pushed through the bung-hole. The brewer delivered the barrel to the house and Mary put her replies in the empty barrel which was called for later. This queer ‘post’ did not last very long; somebody found out about it.

There has never been an official Bottle Post – tides and currents are too uncertain – but a study of ocean currents is made by this means. The British Admiralty supply ship masters with printed forms in several languages to be despatched in bottles. These messages ask the finder to supply information and return it to the nearest British Consul.

There will always be private notes sent in bottles by ship-wrecked sailors and by holidaymakers like you and me who are intrigued by the idea of finding a foreign pen friend in this unusual way.

The Cocos Islands are situated in the Indian Ocean between Australia and Ceylon and the liners cannot teach them because of reefs. Mail is put into casks which are lowered by ropes over the side of the ship and picked up by a small boat. Coloured balloons are fastened to the casks so that they can be easily seen.

Have you ever heard of Tin Can Island? This was the name given to Niuafo’ou, a volcanic island of the Tongan group, because it had its mail delivered in tin tans! These were sealed up, thrown overboard from visiting schooners and retrieved by natives who swam ashore carrying the tins on their backs. They must have been excellent swimmers because quite often they had to go out two miles to collect the tins. One day a native ‘postman’ was carried off by a shark and from that day until the island was evacuated (after the volcano erupted) canoes were used instead.

* * * * *

And now back to England for another strange and wonderful way of carrying mail.

Seventy feet below the busy streets of London is an Underground Railway run by the Post Office. It is the only one of its kind in the world and was begun in 1927. There are six and a half miles of it, carrying letters from Paddington to the G.P.O. and beyond. It travels at about thirty-five miles an hour and it needs no driver; it is all worked by electricity. The bags of mail are sent down from the surface to the eight ‘stations’ by conveyor belt. Mail can go from East to West London in twelve minutes and is never held up by fogs or traffic jams.

Although no official post has yet been sent by rocket, there have been hundreds of experiments. Thousands of letters have soared into the air, some landing safely, some slightly scorched, and many crashing to earth, lost for ever. But who knows, one day there may be an official Rocket Mail.

The first rocket ever to carry letters was launched by an Austrian named Schmiedel in 1931. Then Zucker, a German, tried to send mail from the Isle of Wight to the English coast by rocket in 1934. This crashed. Two years later an American one crashed when carrying 6,000 letters.

These early rockets were fired by explosives and landed by means of a parachute which opened when the missile descended. The letters were carefully sealed in an asbestos cover in the nose. In 1957 the Americans successfully sent five rockets, each fourteen feet long, from Nevada to California. Each carried 1,000 letters in a specially designed fin.

Perhaps in your lifetime letters may be sent to the moon – or even to other planets!

A well-known scientist has prophesied that in a hundred years the earth will be surrounded by a whole family of satellites and that some will have taken over the mailman’s job. He says, ‘They will receive messages radioed up to them while they are over one city, country or continent and play them back while above others.’ A hundred years is a long time! But we can be pretty sure that the mails of the world will go on travelling faster and faster, and that every year will bring new and exciting developments.

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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.

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In March 20, 1980 the Beijing branch of the China Stamp Company (now known as the Beijing Stamp Company) issued a special topical philatelic cover entitled ‘Postal Chops of the Thirty-six Railway Lines Passing Through Beijing’. This was the first such TPO. cover officially issued by the Chinese Post Office and its appearance gave rise to unprecedented interest in Chinese TPO items of all periods.

In spite of the official cover’s value and contribution to promoting research into Chinese Railway Postal History, the cover had three noticeable shortcomings:

(i) It was an officially produced philatelic item and not a postally used cover. (ii) It recorded chops from only a very geographically limited area of China (i.e., areas directly connected to Beijing by railway).

(iii) It did not record chops of all of the railway lines that pass through Beijing and was thus incomplete in even the limited area it was intended to cover. (From a study of the chops on TPO covers in our own possession, it can be proven that, in fact, more than 40 train post offices pass through Beijing.)

“The more one studies, the more one realizes how little one really knows.”
While reseaching modern Chinese railway postal history, we are often reminded of the above quotation. We sincerely hope that this very limited and sketchy article on Chinese train post offices and postal items will serve to promote interest in collecting and researching current Chinese railway postal items.

Below we have listed information on all of the Chinese Train Post Offices which are known to us. The information is presented in three columns, with the first column containine the names of the city post offices responsible for the administration of the respective train post offices, the second column containing the actual names of the train post offices and the third column containing the routes covered by the respective train post offices. The information in the columns is arranged according to the order in which the relevant administering post office’s name appears in the ‘ZHONGHUA RENMIN GONGHEGUO XINGZHENG CHU HUA JIANCE’

The only exception to this order is that, for convenience sake, we have placed the names of train post offices administered by the Beijing post office at the top of the list, before the names of those administered by the Shanghai post office.

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Back in the day, mail was not only carried by rail but in some cases was sorted enroute aboard Railway Post Office cars or cars with an RPO compartment. Since some trains didn’t stop in smaller towns they would pick up the bag of outgoing mail that was on a stand called a mail crane. An iron hook deployed from the RPO car would make the grab. Mail being delivered to the town would be simply kicked out the door at the same time.

Retired employees of the USPO Railway Mail Service are doing the honors here. Because the train is not turned at the end of the demonstration railway they were also making catches on the reverse moves.

(Note the video footage is not necessarily in order shot.)

The car is CB&Q 1923, combination baggage / RPO. Built by ACF in 1914. Power are two F7′s, Metra 308 (ex-C&NW 414) and MILW 118C.

BTW, the car on the end of the train, the “Inglehome” belonged for a time to Univ. of Illinois’s Illini Railroad Club which called it “Chief Illini.”

filmteknik
September 20, 2008

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In the year ending March 1894, we were informed that the number of letters, postcards, book-packets, circulars, samples, newspapers and parcels sent through the Post Office was 2,796,500,000 and that the bulk of this was transmitted by rail.

It is true that in the Parcel Post system the railway has to face a formidable competitor, for the Royal Mail coaches, a revival of the good old times, ply on no less than eight highways out of London, because it is found to be both a cheaper and more swift means of transit for this “expansion of trade” – the Parcel Post.

A writer on railway lore goes a step further and ventures to warn shareholders that the time may come when passengers will be accepted as parcels, having been subjected to an official stamp before embarking on the coacht – they would, in fact, be conveyed at “owner’s risk.”

It i s not generally known that the pneumatic tube plays a very important part of the G.P.O. system, more particularly as a night-messenger, in the newspaper office.

It is claimed that atmospheric air never loiters by the way to play marbles or “cod’em,” neither does the tube puncture or in any way lay itself open to the temptations and various hindrances which meet the experienced Press messenger or thirsting reporter.

The railways advertise, and are more than anxious for your custom. Parcels are collected free of charge, and possibly – not often – delivered in a state of chaos, free of contents.

Speaking of advertising reminds me of an accusation brought against a famous biscuit firm, to the effect that although the managers stoutly denied the charge of thus pushing their wares, it was proven, and that without a doubt, that not only did they imprint their name upon every biscuit, but in addition, made the public swallow it.

The whole world, it may be safely asserted, feeds from its postbag: if these rations are stopped, business, enterprise and progress are at a standstill, or worse.

How many of us picture the weather-beaten driver in charge of either mail coach with its steaming “three in hand,” or the frizzling engine-man in charge of the Travelling Post Office Down Night Mail, upon whose care our morning post depends; and yet it is to these faithful servants of the Government (not public, as they’ll tell you, if you proffer a bent halfpenny across the Post Office counter) that we owe so much.

But our object is briefly to explain the ingenious mechanism which the G.P.O. adopt, upon all the principal trunk lines of the United Kingdom, for the transmission of letters and the like.

The first illustration depicts the stationary post office at Bletchley Junction, the only one of its kind to be found actually on the platform of a station, but being so important a centre for the exchange of mails, the L. & N.W. Ry. Company found it expedient to control an institution of the kind.

This particular company, be it observed, is the Royal Mail route par excellence, providing as it does the special weekly American mail trains, and also the Irish.

The genial post-master stands to the right of our view, and within arm’s stretch we may notice various interesting impedimenta, such as mail canvas bags awaiting their consignment from the sorters’ tables in the centre, tall baskets for the reception of umbrellas, wicker bird-cages, or a pot or saucepan which, like the widow’s cruse, never fails to supply molten sealing wax for the purpose of official stampings upon the canvas letter-bags.

Above we notice the counter part of the station post-office.

This is the T.P.O., or Travelling Post Office, which dashes headlong in the hours of dark from apparatus to apparatus, for the purpose of both delivering and picking up mail bags without a stop; in fact, at Bletchley, where most of our illustrations were secured, the speed is proved to be over a mile a minute: but for all that, the double exchange goes off nightly, and in the case of the weekly “specials,” to which reference has already been made, by day too, without a hitch.

The apparatus at Bletchley has recently undergone a change, and we find that while it has been moved about half-a-mile from its former position, the other side of the junction, we also notice that the apparatus is of the latest and most approved pattern.

Now about the Travelling counterpart of the post office. There may be two or any number ot bogie letter cars on the mail, and these are united one to the other by means of covered gangways giving the appearance of one long saloon.

We notice a net on the exterior of the carriage, and also some iron brackets fastened flush with the side of the vehicle, as is the case when the apparatus is thrown out of action.

More about this contrivance later.

We pass inside the vans, and observe that the whole is lighted by a double row of gas-lamps from the roof. There is an open passage along the centre of each van, while on one side are empty canvas letter bags hanging in thick clusters, and on the opposite side runs a sorting table parallel with the entire length of each car, having at intervals numerous canvas wells for the reception of all halfpenny stamped matter.

Above this table are pigeon-holes innumerable from end to end, piled one above the other. Beneath the sorting table are folding seats, resembling little music-stools, but a letter sorter never had time to test one yet.

Long before this night mail quits its terminus the postal cars become choked with myriads of letters, and the sorters set to work directly they embark to gorge and disgorge both bag and pigeonhole.

If then we are to travel on the L. & N.W., our departure is made from Euston, and it is but a few minutes before Watford is passed, where we find the first apparatus for catching and exchanging mail bags in readiness.

But it is at Bletchley, one of fifty-three stations on the system, where the heaviest bags are both dropped from the postal vans and received; therefore we will accompany the scarlet-coated mailmen who are just starting from the post office, with their canvas letter bags shouldered in readiness for the mile which they have to foot to the apparatus.

It is on the “Down” side where we find all the tackle, the “Up” side merely having a small receiving net to catch the drop from the mail, without giving any thing back in exchange.

We notice as we draw near that the apparatus is out of action, the lofty brackets or “standards” being reversed inwards from the line, and the receiving net closed, the iron barrier which is close to and runs parallel with the rails leaning against another of wooden construction.

The two mail-men have no time to lose, so they set to work at once to enclose the sealed canvas letter bags “in stout leather casings or “pouches.”

The weight of these pouches, when made up, must not exceed 50 lbs.; but then as many as nine such packages can be hung up for the mail nets to sweep off, seeing that each standard provides three spring catches whereon separate pouches can be hung.

One net is sufficient both on the ground and on the mail, as however many pouches are hung out from the stationary standards or even mail van, they are all of them bound to come in contact with the one receiving net.

The standards are next turned round with their precious burdens swinging aloft in mid-air, and the receiving net thrown open and propped up by means of a stout metal cross-bar which bearsthe full brunt of successive blows from the mail-van standards, thus releasing the pouches.

The net itself, of a size known as ten feet (and this is one of the largest to he seen), is of very formidable proportions; and so it need be, when we picture the shock received as the mail, travelling at seventy miles an hour, hurls nightly into the net something weighing quite threequarters of a hundredweight.

The train itself at the moment of the double exchange fairly staggers under the blow, and for the moment seems to halt, for proof of the concussion is readily understood when it is mentioned that the rails, which are laid parallel with the apparatus, require special attention, inasmuch as the line is periodically pulled round out of truth, entirely due to the impact which the long mail car causes (and the net is always at the end furthest from the engine) as courtesies are exchanged.

As soon as the mail comes in sight, within 200 yards of the apparatus the net is sprung by a lever in the car, and this operation is automatically announced by an electric bell, which continues to ring in the postal van until the catch is taken, and the net closed again as a warning to the sorters to give a wide berth to that end of the car where the net is situated, for the huge pouches that comeshooting in and rolling down from the net would fairly damage anybody.

Simultaneously with the dropping of the net, the hinged standards are let down by a cord from the side of the car with the leather-wrapped bags dangling and scudding a few feet above the fast-vanishing track.

The supreme moment then arrives, and mails are exchanged, but with such rapidity that the eye fails to follow the double movement which takes place. Inside the car, you are conscious of a tremor from stem to stern of the saloon, and a bang and a crash.

If you are standing near the ground apparatus, you are conscious of hearing a series of sharp, cracks, above the roar and grinding of the express, almost like the report from a volley of rifles, as one after another the nets pick off their complements, and nothing but the vanishing tail-lights of the mail are left to view.

Properly speaking, the mail vans should always be coupled next the engine, both as a guide to the mail-men in charge of the ground apparatus, and also for safety to passengers.

Horrible catastrophes have occurred before now, when the mail-van, with its net, and appurtenances, has been run in some other portion of the train – that is, anywhere but next the engine. In more than one instance a passinger has leant too far out of the window, when his head has come in violent contact with the huge pouches swaying on the standards of the ground apparatus, whilst if the mail-van had been run in its proper place these pouches would have been picked up before a passenger carriage could reach them.

The sorters, and there may be as many as twenty or more in the night mail, are some of them specialists at their work, while others take it in turns to have a ride as a change from the routine at the G. P. O.

An apparatus inspector who has been completely through the “mill” was telling me of the “sea-sickness” fromwhich at first all sorters invariably suffer. They are for a time completely prostrated, while it takes about three weeks to acquire one’s “mail-legs.”

The overseer in each sorting-car is responsible for the carrying out satisfactorily of all the many operations which require assiduous and unremitting attention. For example, the night mails would seem to afford increased difficulties by way of knowing where and when to, precisely set the van nets and drop the pouches, for, as it has been pointed out, should either ofthese operations be effected before or after the right moment, a long list of casualties may be the issue.

Above, thimbles strap and spring attachment on standard, closed and opened.

However, an experienced sorter can tell by ear to within a few yards as to whereabouts he is, and whether the moment has arrived for exchanging mails, his hearing being guided entirely by such sounds as the peculiar reverberation noticeable when rushing through a cutting, the roar when the mail burrows into a tunnel, or shoots under or over a bridge. It is true that there are other “cues” to act as a tell-tale, such as large white-washed landmarks close to the various ground apparati; but these are only useful for day mails.

It is the inspector’s duty to make a round of surprise visits, both to attend to the apparatus, which frequently requires repairing, and to, perhaps, see that the line adjoining receives some extra ballast owing to its displacement; or again, to see that the mail-men pay some sort of attention to the various regulations drawn up for the safety of both themselves and the mails.

A rather common mistake at one time was to hang up a pouch with its proportionate length sideways, instead of lengthways and parallel with the line. As a consequence, the mail net has struck the pouch, and, ripping up the tough bull hide, fairly scattered the contents and all to the four winds-odd scraps of paper were found for over half-a-mile up the line in too small a portion to make it worth the while of a professional scavenger to collect.

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