London Post Office Railway



The Post Office Railway, also known as Mail Rail, was a narrow-gauge driverless private underground railway in London built by the Post Office to move mail between sorting offices. Inspired by the Chicago Tunnel Company, it was in operation from 1927 until 2003.

Geography
It ran east–west from Paddington Head District Sorting Office in the west to the Eastern Head District Sorting Office at Whitechapel in the east, a distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km). It had eight stations, the largest of which was located underneath Mount Pleasant, but by 2003 only three stations remained in use because the sorting offices above the other stations had been relocated.

Recent history
A Royal Mail press release in April 2003 revealed that the system would be closed and "mothballed" (i.e. removed from active service) at the end of May that year. Royal Mail had earlier stated that using the Post Office Railway was five times more expensive than using road transport for the same task. The Communication Workers Union claimed the actual figure was closer to three times more expensive but argued that this was the result of a deliberate policy of running the system down and using it at only one-third of its capacity. Despite a report by the Greater London Authority in support of the continued use of Mail Rail, the system was taken out of use in the early hours of 31 May 2003.

Some of the former Mail Rail trains have been preserved at the Launceston Steam Railway.

Rolling stock
The London Post Office Railway used various types of rolling stock during its history. The first stock was delivered in 1926 with the opening of the system. All stock used has been electrically powered.

Electric locomotives

 * 1926 Electric Locomotives &mdash; Original locomotives

Electric units

 * 1927 Stock &mdash; Original stock
 * 1930 & 1936 Stock &mdash; Replacement stock for 1927 Stock
 * 1962 Stock &mdash; Prototype stock
 * 1980 Stock &mdash; Replacement stock

In fiction

 * The Post Office Railway features in the novel The Horn of Mortal Danger (1980). In the novel, there is a connecting tunnel between the Railway and the secret railway of the North London System. The only other known connection is in the disused tunnel between Highgate and the disused Cranley Gardens.


 * The railway appears in the film Hudson Hawk, but rebadged as the 'Poste Vaticane' of Vatican City. Bruce Willis (as Hawk) stows away in one of the mail containers.


 * A mail train system closely based on the Mail Rail is used in Charlie Higson's third Young Bond book, Double or Die.

Similar railways
In 1910 a tunnel railway merely 450m long, opened in Munich, Germany as a connection between the Munich Main Station and the nearby Post office. The tunnels were damaged in World War II, restored in 1948 and partially rebuilt in 1966 to allow for the first Munich S-Bahn tunnel. Operations ceased in 1988.

Other underground post railways existed in Lucerne, from 1927, and in Zurich, from 1937 until 1981, both in Switzerland.