This book tells the history of transporting mail by train, including the development of travelling post offices and dedicated mail trains, and the opening of an underground railway under London‘s streets to overcome London’s traffic when delivering the city’s letters.

Starting from soon after the Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened in 1830, Peter Johnson tells the history of transporting mail by trains.

With copious illustrations, the book describes what prompted railways to be used for transporting mail, why and how travelling post offices developed and grew into dedicated mail trains, and how the Post Office overcame London’s traffic by building its own narrow-gauge, automatic railway under the city’s streets.

Published in September 2022 by Pen & Sword Books and written by Peter Johnson, this soft-cover book measures around 181 mm x 254 mm, has 296 pages, 200 colour and black-and-white illustrations and maps, and a published price of £35, but at the time of writing, it is available from Amazon for £25.06.

The book has two parts describing travelling post offices and the Post Office’s underground railway.

Part 1, with 170 pages, describes the history and development of the travelling post office. An excellent map provides a vivid illustration of the many dedicated mail services and how some stations were obvious hubs where mail could be transferred from one service to another.

The following chapters describe the apparatus used to pick up and drop off mail while trains were travelling at speed, the history of the various travelling post office services, what types of vehicles were used, and accidents involving mail trains.

Part 2, with 31 pages, has chapters describing the history of London’s underground Post Office railway and how it operated.

There are 19 appendices with 75 pages of facts and figures ranging from Bag Tenders, stock allocations, and construction estimates for the Post Office railway, to postmarks used on letters posted directly onto mail trains and Post Office railway vehicles acquired by heritage railways.

Taken from the Apparatus chapter, the pages below show equipment used to collect mailbags from lineside apparatus and to collect mailbags dropped off from passing trains.

In some ways externally similar to ordinary railway carriages, travelling post office carriages resembled conventional sorting offices, as seen in the top left photo below, the only difference being that on mail trains, post office staff sorted letters while the trains were on the move.

Travelling post offices allowed letters to be posted directly onto the trains upon payment of an additional fee. Instead of being postmarked with the place where they were posted, letters were postmarked with the name of the service on which they had been posted. The pages below show typical samples of such postmarks.

The photos below are taken from the extensive appendix describing technical data of the Post Office railway. In normal service, the railway operated automatically, but maintenance was carried out by battery-powered trains.

One of these is shown on the left below, where the cramped space provided for the driver can be seen. The trains used third-rail electrification as on the Southern Region of British Rail, but inside the depot seen on the right there were no third-rail power tracks, hence the image at the top right showing one of the cars connected to an overhead power supply.

The author is a British railway historian who has written over 20 books and articles on narrow-gauge railways, in particular the Ffestiniog Railway.

Mail by Rail continues his portfolio with a well-written and copiously illustrated book that provides an incisive insight into the history of transporting mail by rail.

A detailed history of the apparatus used to exchange bags with ground staff whilst a train is travelling at speed includes the fascinating story of a live kitten being sent by mail in a box accompanied by a bottle of milk with a tube through the cork.

The chapter on travelling post office services lists every service that ran, including the dates when each service commenced and ceased, and any noteworthy events in between.

It also describes every type of vehicle each railway used, as well as the disagreements between the railways and the Post Office over the costs of altering vehicles to the Post Office’s requirements.

Also how, after World War II, the Great Western Railway prioritised the manufacture of fish vans over travelling post offices.

The book is a testament to the author’s huge amount of research and would be a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone interested in sending mail by train as well as stamp collectors. Despite its cover price of £35, it merits a rating of 5/5.

The book is available to purchase from Amazon and Pen & Sword Books.

We would like to thank Pen & Sword Books for providing RailAdvent with a copy of the book for review.