Travelling Post Office
During the 1990s, the Royal Mail, Britain's main customer for TPOs, ordered 16 four-car British Rail Class 325 electric multiple units to replace locomotive-hauled counterparts in handling parcels.
Accordingly, the night of the 9/10 January 2004 saw the final TPO services run in Great Britain, with the carriages themselves used then sold for scrap or to preservation societies.
[1] It quickly became apparent that the railways were providing a much faster method of conveying letters across the country than traditional horse-drawn coaches.
[1] According to industry periodical Rail Magazine, the first Travelling Post Office (TPO) carriage emerged during 1838, and credited George Kastadt, a surveyor employed by the GPO, with the concept.
[citation needed] Prior to 1885, it was common practice for TPO carriages to be added to consists of normal passenger services.
[1] Internal space was limited and prioritised for the principal purpose of sorting mail, thus measures to enhance staff comfort was typically more of an afterthought.
Initially, toilets were not even provided, although this position was reportedly reversed after the accidental death of a postal worker while relieving himself at the rear of a TPO.
[7] TPOs were usually equipped with letter boxes, enabling people in stations to post mail whilst the train was stationary.
[1] They were only referred to as TPOs for the first time in 1928, prior to this, the common term for mail carriages had been Railway Post Offices (RPOs).
However, it was during the BR era that the transportation of mail by rail acquired a negative reputation for unreliability due to services frequently experiencing delays, typically resulting in late arrivals.
[9] The final mail drop from a moving train using automatic apparatus was carried out on 4 October 1971 at a location just north of Penrith.
This reorganisation under its own management team led to a new focus of its operations on the specific needs of its primary customer, the Royal Mail (RM).
[1] Seeking to rejuvenate rail mail, RES devised a £150 million strategy that focused on long-distance services that worked in conjunction with a central hub based in London at its heart, known as Railnet.
Furthermore, RM commissioned ABB to manufacture 16 four-car British Rail Class 325 electric multiple units, which were designed specifically for the transport of pre-sorted mail.
Accordingly, the final TPO services departed King's Cross, Euston, Liverpool Street and Paddington stations on 27 September 1996.
[8] However, Royal Mail did restore the movement of some already-sorted letters by rail in time for the Christmas season that year, contracting with EWS's competitor GB Railfreight to resume bulk transfer services along the West Coast Main Line between its mail terminals at London (Willesden), Warrington and Glasgow (Sheildmuir) using the dedicated Class 325 electric multiple units that had been in operation since 1996.
