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Travelling Post Office 

TPO at the Colne Valley Railway
TPO at the Colne Valley Railway
TPO interior
TPO interior
British Rail TPO vehicle NSA 80390 on display at Doncaster Works open day on 27 July 2003. This type of vehicle, based on the British Rail Mark 1 coach, was the final design on TPO vehicle used in the United Kingdom.
British Rail TPO vehicle NSA 80390 on display at Doncaster Works open day on 27 July 2003. This type of vehicle, based on the British Rail Mark 1 coach, was the final design on TPO vehicle used in the United Kingdom.

A Travelling Post Office (TPO) is a type of mail train where the post is sorted en-route.

Contents

Carriage of mail by train

Following an agreement in 1830, made between the General Post Office and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), mail had been carried by train in Great Britain, between Liverpool and Manchester, via the L&MR.[1] The passing of the Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act 1838 required railway companies to carry mail, by ordinary or special trains, as required by the Post Master General; however this act did not set the charges for such services.[1]

These special trains eventually became Travelling Post Offices (PTOs). TPOs were employed in many British Commonwealth countries;[2] and the Army Post Office had its own TPOs.

TPOs were equipped with letter boxes so that mail could be posted whilst the train stood at a station. The post-marks from TPOs are valued by philatelists.

History

Mail was first sorted on a moving train, in January 1838, in a converted horse-box, on the Grand Junction Railway, England. It was carried out at the suggestion of Frederick Karstadt, a General Post Office surveyor.[3] Karstadt's son was one of two mail clerks who did the sorting.[4] In 1845 the service was extended via Derby to Newcastle upon Tyne by the Midland Railway; and soon after reached Scotland.[5]

The first special postal train was operated by the Great Western Railway between London and Bristol. The inaugural train ran on 1 February 1855, leaving Paddington station at 20:46, and arriving at Bristol at 00:30. In 1866, apparatus for picking up and setting down mailbags without stopping was installed at Slough and Maidenhead.

Post-privatisation of British Rail

After the privatisation of British Rail in the mid 1990s, British TPOs were operated most recently by Rail Express Systems, and their successor EWS. On 9 January 2004 Royal Mail decided to suspend transporting mail by rail. However, Royal Mail reversed this decision over the Christmas season that year; and began operating some TPO trains with EWS's competitor FirstGBRf, then known as GB Railfreight.

TPO vehicles

TPOs are formed of several different types of vehicle:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Simmons, Jack; Biddle, Gordon (1997). The Oxford Companion to British Railway History From 1603 to the 1990s, 1st Ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211697-5.  Pp 303-304.
  2. ^ Poole, L.G. (1969). "The Travelling Post Offices of Victoria: 1865 - 1912", In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, June, 1969, Pp127-139.
  3. ^ White, John H., Jr. (1978). The American Railroad Passenger Car. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, p 473. ISBN 0-8018-1965-2. 
  4. ^ Johnson, Peter. (1985). The British Travelling Post Office. Surrey: Ian Allan Publishing, p 13. ISBN 0-711-01459-0. 
  5. ^ Billson, P., (1996) Derby and the Midland Railway Derby: Breedon Books

External links
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