Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

Guy Gorton

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On Sun, 03 Sep 2017 17:33:43 +0100, Guy Gorton
wrote:

On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

Guy Gorton

'some years ago although' - sorry about the typo.

Guy Gorton

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On 03.09.17 13:34, Recliner wrote:
Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least at
one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

Guy Gorton wrote:
On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railwayÂ’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

I visited it nearly 40 years ago when it was very much in use. We certainly
couldn't ride the trains, and the visit
had to be specially organised by the society of which I was a member;
ordinary members of the public certainly couldn't get access.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

In message , at 01:12:50 on Mon, 4 Sep 2017,
" remarked:

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least
at one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

"Secret" means the journalist hadn't heard of it before.
--
Roland Perry

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On 2017\09\03 17:33, Guy Gorton wrote:

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

It's normal to say a railway becomes "open to the public" not when the
public can look at the trains but when they can ride on them. The
Barking Riverside extension will certainly not be described as "open to
the public" during the shadow running period, when the trains will be
visible for all to see.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 08:26:02 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 01:12:50 on Mon, 4 Sep 2017,
" remarked:

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least
at one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

"Secret" means the journalist hadn't heard of it before.

Or they are accusing someone else of hiding something that has long
been public knowledge on the basis that the information has to be
requested.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

Basil Jet wrote:
On 2017\09\03 17:33, Guy Gorton wrote:

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

It's normal to say a railway becomes "open to the public" not when the
public can look at the trains but when they can ride on them. The
Barking Riverside extension will certainly not be described as "open to
the public" during the shadow running period, when the trains will be
visible for all to see.


True, and the same was true of the test running of the 345 units.

But Mail Rail has never been visible to members of the general public — you
couldn't just book a visit to watch the trains running. I think only a
minority of us here ever visited it when it was operational, and we'd be
just the sort of people who would have visited it if it had been easy.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

In article , Guy Gorton
writes
"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

If you were on the visit I was, the trains were still running. It was
the last day of service for both Aldwych and Ongar (I was on the last
train from the latter).

--
Clive D.W. Feather

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
wrote:
On 03.09.17 13:34, Recliner wrote:
Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway's heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for
22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least at
one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

I don't know that it was actually a secret, but it certainly wasn't
publicised, and of course it was invisible to the public, unlike mail
trains on the BR network or Royal Mail road vehicles.


It was publicised in several public information films.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On 2017\09\07 13:00, Peter Able wrote:

It was publicised in several public information films.

It also played the role of the Vatican railway in the Bruce Willis film
"Hudson Hawk". I can't find the bit in question, but this is great,
despite having no rail content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX_jCwNTKHU

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

[snip]

All trips cancelled Wednesday due to a technical issue. According to
the commentary, when bombs hit during the blitz the system was up and
running the next day yet in 2017 it takes more than a day to fix an
issue with a museum train.

Ex-postie reviews Mail Rail
 

On 08/09/2017 11:33, Scott wrote:
On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

[snip]

All trips cancelled Wednesday due to a technical issue. According to
the commentary, when bombs hit during the blitz the system was up and
running the next day yet in 2017 it takes more than a day to fix an
issue with a museum train.


Wartime mail was more important to keep moving than peacetime tourists.

--
Graeme Wall
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