Mail Trains

Central to the prompt delivery of the nation's mail is its efficient transit throughout the country. From 1830, the Post Office relied increasingly on the overland rail network to achieve this, with Railway Post Offices, Sunday Sorting Tenders and District Sorting Carriages among the services introduced. More important lines carried the famous 'Night Mail' carriages, rarely seen by the public, other than those seeking out the late-night facility of posting directly into the side of a mail train. All these were supplemented by additional services enabling even rural locations to enjoy a 'next day' service only dreamed of in the age of the mail coach. This book provides a history of the overland carriage of mail by rail, from draughty and poorly lit sorting carriages in 1838 through to the purposeful late-twentieth-century 'Ladies in Red'.