Overview

From the 1830s, the Post Office relied increasingly on the overland rail network to achieve an efficient transit of the nation’s mail through the country. The new services carried the famous ‘Night Mail’ – rarely seen by the public – and Railway Post Offices made sure that even rural locations would enjoy a ‘next day’ delivery only dreamed of in the age of the mail coach.

BPMA Assistant Curator Julian Stray presents a history of the overland carriage of mail by rail, from draughty and poorly lit sorting carriages in 1838 to the purposeful late twentieth-century ‘Ladies in Red’.