"Nick Leverton" wrote

obrail I could put a letter in the posting box on the side of any TPO
well after midnight, provided it was going in the right direction :-)
/obrail

and you'd get it postmarked with the date a day before you actually posted
it, as TPOs set their date stamps on the date when the journey began, and
didn't change them at midnight. There were occasions when a new stamp issue
came out - some people would buy the new stamps as soon as they came out at
the 24 hour post office that used to exist at Trafalgar Square, drive to
Rugby (this was soon after the M1 opened) and post letters with the new
stamps in a London-bound TPO. They would be rewarded with a 'day before
first day cover'.

Peter

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 07:36:52 +0000, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 13/03/2014 00:21, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Optimist wrote:

Just be grateful that we still have deliveries to everyone's front door,
six days a week, across the whole country, at a standard price. In years
to
come, we'll look back in amazement at that level of service. Most other
countries no longer offer it.

I'd rather cut deliveries down to three or even two a week if it would cut
the
cost of postage.

Sadly it probably wouldn't. And with online shopping such a key part of the
Royal Mail's business there'd be fierce opposition to reducing the speed of
delivery or else a decamp to incompetent couriers.


Why use incompetent couriers when there are plenty of competent ones
available.

I find the courier firms are far superior to RM for customer service. They actually answer the
phone when you ring the number on the card to say they have a package for you but you were out. They
will leave in the porch or elsewhere if you wish.

RM put a card through the door instead of trying to deliver the package, when you ring they don't
answer, they won't leave items to be collected at the local post office but at an inconvenient depot
on an industrial estate.

In message

, at 16:23:21 on Wed, 12 Mar 2014, Recliner
remarked:
In 1970 I could post a letter at the main post office in Oxford up to
midnight and it would be delivered in South East London at breakfast time.

And now you can send an email, text, tweet, IM, DM, usenet post, etc,
usually for little or no charge, and have it delivered anywhere in the
world in seconds. With that sort of competition, no-one's going to pay for
the huge network of people, sorting offices and vans that would be needed
to maintain the old style of physical mail services, that delivered locally
in hours, from a previous era.

Vans? It was all bikes and Shank's pony. Even today a lot of postmen buy
their own cars and use those to get to their delivery patch earlier,
Royal Mail doesn't buy them vans. (Let's not get confused with
Parcelforce).
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:28:01
on Wed, 12 Mar 2014, remarked:
Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a
minimum of around three hours later than before. This is why people
think they aren't getting as good a service any more.

Because technology has overtaken them. Get real!

Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 17:28:01
on Wed, 12 Mar 2014, remarked:
Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a
minimum of around three hours later than before. This is why people
think they aren't getting as good a service any more.

Because technology has overtaken them. Get real!

Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.

Doesn't it have something to with potties now being full-time workers? In
the past, they finished their postal rounds as early as possible so they
could go on to their day jobs. Now, they come back and do another round (or
have another consignment delivered to them).

In message

, at 04:32:07 on Thu, 13 Mar 2014, Recliner
remarked:
Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a
minimum of around three hours later than before. This is why people
think they aren't getting as good a service any more.

Because technology has overtaken them. Get real!

Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.

Doesn't it have something to with potties now being full-time workers? In
the past, they finished their postal rounds as early as possible so they
could go on to their day jobs. Now, they come back and do another round (or
have another consignment delivered to them).

They still finish by about 2pm though (unless they have overtime doing a
second round for an absentee).
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 04:32:07 on Thu, 13 Mar 2014, Recliner remarked:
Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a
minimum of around three hours later than before. This is why people
think they aren't getting as good a service any more.

Because technology has overtaken them. Get real!

Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.

Doesn't it have something to with potties now being full-time workers? In
the past, they finished their postal rounds as early as possible so they
could go on to their day jobs. Now, they come back and do another round (or
have another consignment delivered to them).

They still finish by about 2pm though (unless they have overtime doing a
second round for an absentee).

But it explains why deliveries are much later now than the previous first
post (of two or more). Effectively, they work an eight hour day, starting
at about 6:30am in the local sorting office.

Graeme Wall wrote:

I'd rather cut deliveries down to three or even two a week if it would
cut the
cost of postage.

Sadly it probably wouldn't. And with online shopping such a key part of
the
Royal Mail's business there'd be fierce opposition to reducing the speed
of
delivery or else a decamp to incompetent couriers.

Why use incompetent couriers when there are plenty of competent ones
available.

Cost and the buyer rather than the sender is the one who experiences the
problems. For me the main annoyances are the need to put yourself under
virtual house arrest when expecting a delivery and it still doesn't come,
the inability to put together a decent flat delivery service (some of them
don't even know how to buzz the reception or phone the number supplied), the
failure to come at the times stated, the remote depots that are hard to
reach on public transport and have terrible opening hours, the ludicrously
excessive requirements for ID and proof of address when you can get in, the
premium rate phone numbers and the fines sent to senders because the firm is
incompetent.

--
My blog: http://adf.ly/4hi4c

In message

, at 04:56:13 on Thu, 13 Mar 2014, Recliner
remarked:
Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.

Doesn't it have something to with potties now being full-time workers? In
the past, they finished their postal rounds as early as possible so they
could go on to their day jobs. Now, they come back and do another round (or
have another consignment delivered to them).

They still finish by about 2pm though (unless they have overtime doing a
second round for an absentee).

But it explains why deliveries are much later now than the previous first
post (of two or more). Effectively, they work an eight hour day, starting
at about 6:30am in the local sorting office.

Are you saying I'm just unlucky in getting my post at noon (consistently
over the last three places I've lived), rather than at perhaps 8am, by
being on the 'wrong end' of the route?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 04:56:13 on Thu, 13 Mar 2014, Recliner remarked:
Technology helps Royal Mail - mots recently by mapping out all the
delivery points so that rounds can be balanced. Then there's the
postcodes and automatic sorting. None of this, however, is an excuse to
deliver so late in the day.

Doesn't it have something to with potties now being full-time workers? In
the past, they finished their postal rounds as early as possible so they
could go on to their day jobs. Now, they come back and do another round (or
have another consignment delivered to them).

They still finish by about 2pm though (unless they have overtime doing a
second round for an absentee).

But it explains why deliveries are much later now than the previous first
post (of two or more). Effectively, they work an eight hour day, starting
at about 6:30am in the local sorting office.

Are you saying I'm just unlucky in getting my post at noon (consistently
over the last three places I've lived), rather than at perhaps 8am, by
being on the 'wrong end' of the route?

Probably. My M-F mail typically arrives before 10am, and Saturdays around
9am. But you do get the odd day when it's much later. I'm not near the mail
depot, so I'm sure some people get theirs much earlier.