Whilst we tend to concentrate on the movement of people and freight, there are other uses to which rail has been put in London – notably the movement of mail.
Earlier this year the British Postal Museum & Archive began work on the preservation of some early rolling stock elements of the now-disused Post Office Railway. The last remaining unit of the original 1927 rolling stock – a green mail car, and an example of the 1930 motive stock were brought to the surface at Mount Pleasant Mail Centre and moved by road to the museum store in Debden where work can now begin on its preservation.
It appears to have been an interesting – and complex – lift. The units were pushed from the car depot beneath Mount Pleasant to the access shaft, and from there were brought to the surface by a mini-crane into the depot’s yard. The 1930s motive unit was seperated into three parts for this, with both being lifted independently. They were then followed by the green metal 1927 car.
Once on the surface, all three units had to be lifted over a storage building onto a flatbed for transportation to the museum store.
Both the motive unit and the mail car are now at the store in Debden, with preservation and restoration work likely in future.
Pictures of the move can be found below, all of which come courtesy of the British Postal Museum & Archive. The museum store is occasionally open for public tours, which are well worth taking when the chance arises. Details of dates can be found on their website here. A few more pictures can be found in the Archive’s photostream.
The first 1930 motive unit in the shaft
The first motive unit is hoisted
The shaft is cleared
The first motive unit close up
Raising the second motive unit
The mini-crane used, with the second motive unit
Curator Chris Taft waits with the 1927 car
The 1927 car is raised
The 1927 unit close up
Destination Labels on the 1027 car
Lifting the 1927 unit over the surrounding buildings
Loading the motive units
Motive units on the lorry at Mount Pleasant
I worked on MailRail for 6yrs, 90/96,and I feel privileged to have worked on such a unique system…. Fond memories
@ Mr L B Mike
I spoke to my postman just a week ago about this, and the amount of mail he carries each day that actually has a ‘real’ postage stamp affixed to it.
He said that apart from birthday cards, he generally only has about four ordinary letters bearing stamps, on his entire round these days. Everything else is junk mail, pre-printed, or post office type gold package labels
I was an engineer on this system 1963-69.Fabulous & exciting environment for a 16 year old onward. Massive skills -learning base & one of 200 + other engineering apprentices in Post Office Engineering London-wide. This starting point served the nation as a superb springboard into other branches of engineering .Many went into the computer industries as a result.Edward.
Could you ride a bicycle inside the tunnels?
[I’ve snipped the rest as we really don’t want to burrow down that tunnel of discussion. I understand that the track is still in place throughout the system, so no, bike riding would not be possible. LBM]
@ LBM – track definitely still there. There was a recent excellent BBC4 programme by Alan Johnson MP about the Post Office. It included a visit to Mail Rail and he had a ride down the tunnels for the first time. Unfortunately it’s just gone off I-Player but I dare say it will get repeated – everything does these days.
By sheer coincidence I was rooting through my photo archive ealier today for some stuff to scan and found some slides from my one visit to Mail Rail back in the 1980s. I’ll put them in the LR Flickr Group when scanned – may take a while tho’.
@Mr beckton
Some of the tunnels have a diameter of only 7 feet. To get sufficient floor width for a 2ft gauge track, the floor-to-ceiling height is somewhat less. Mind your head!
Dr R B
However, there is a huge volume of parcels – much bigger than there used to be.
IF it could be extended to Willesden, as was once proposed – would it be economic to re-open it?
Um, err ….
First two photos on line on the LR Flickr group, 3 more to follow later today. From a visit / open day in March 1989.
@Greg: perhaps it could be used to remove all the construction spoil as well? Have tipper trucks only run from work site to nearest sorting office, Spoil Rail then takes it out (e.g. Silvertown, near the dangleway) where it is transfered to barges and carried away by river…
Since the mail rail topic has been revived, this link is a useful reminder of operation in 1993 as filmed by Fred Ivey, a well-known observer of matters LT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRBrUwhdio
Listen especially to the narrative recorded from 3 min onwards. As best described in the link but to remind: ” Fred took his video camera with him on a visit organised by the London Underground Railway Society to the Post Office Railway at Mount Pleasant Mail Centre in 1993. This automatic railway ran between Paddington and Whitechapel sorting offices with stops at Bird Street, Wimpole Street, Rathbone Place, New Oxford Street, Mount Pleasant, King Edward Street and Liverpool Street. The railway closed on 30 May 2003.
@Southern Heights (Light Railway), 7 November 2015 at 14:59
perhaps it could be used to remove all the construction spoil
A Rail-Veyor system could be just the job: https://youtu.be/1XkioFHJgDA
@MT
Good ole Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Outside the town are many nickel mines, which left such desolate, vegetation-free slag heaps that they were used to train NASA astronauts for their moon walks in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
@LBM – but presumably,like the slag heaps in Joburg, re-mined in the ’90s because the price of metal had risen so far?
[Not that I know of, but as this mineral mining is continents off-piste, we can pick this up off-line… LBM]
@Southern Heights (Light Railway) Better still convert the dangleway into a spoil removal facility!:-)
I was lucky enough to work on the Post Office Railway from 1970 to 1973 , starting as an improver on the engineering staff . Supberb training system for apprentices in those days . Such a varied working environment, from the automatic railway , accommodation services , not to mention the state of the art ,in those days, automatic letter franking machines above ground . Fantastic experience , loved it .
@George Crawford
Great to hear of your experience on Mail Rail. I’m looking forward to the Postal Museum opening this year, which will have new Mail Rail trains that the public will be able to take a short ride in.
I heard that Crossrail had managed to damage / destroy the mailrail tunnel somewhere around Paddington due to it being missing on their site investigation drawings. Can anyone confirm this and was the damage repaired ?
@JohnM
I did a quick Google for this but didn’t find any confirmation. However I did find this interesting article from December 2016 describing the system, the modern incarnation, with a brief mention of the Crossrail tunnels having to work around Mail Rail.
I know that LU/Crossrail accessed the Mail Rail tunnels somewhere quite near the depot (rather than the other end) to do some advance ground consolidation/grouting. As a Quid Pro Quo, LU gave some consultancy to the museum planners on how they might get the Mail Rail attraction working.
If anyone is interested, the Postal Museum is now recruiting for Driver Operators for the Mail Rail http://postalmuseum.org/connect/about/work-with-us/ !