THE POST-OFFICE ON WHEELS.
The particular portion of the 'Post-office on Wheels' which we purpose describing is the Special Mail which leaves London from Euston Station daily. We have selected this mail, not only because all the duties appertaining to the Travelling Post-office are performed therein, but also because it is the most important mail in the United Kingdom, probably in the whole world. In the Special Mail, the post-office vehicles are forty-two feet in length, and one of thirty-two feet. There is a gangway communication between all the carriages, so that the officers on duty can pass from one to another throughout the entire length without going outside. All the carriages are lighted with gas.
The pair-horse vans which convey the London bags for provincial towns come dashing into the station in rapid succession, and as there are only fifteen minutes before the train starts, no time is to be lost. The bags are quickly removed from the vans, the name of each being called out in the process, thus enabling an officer who stands near to tick them off on a printed list with which he is provided. They are then stowed away in the respective carriages in appointed places.
Having proceeded to the principal sorting carriage, we see that there are some thousands of the letters which have come from the London offices still to be disposed of. They lie on the desks in large bundles; but every minute there is a perceptible diminution of their numbers by means of the vigorous attacks of the men engaged. From end to end of one side of the carriage—that farthest from the platform—rows of sorting-boxes, or 'pigeon-holes,' are fixed nearly up to the roof, starting from the sorting-table, which is about three feet from the floor. The boxes into which the ordinary letters are sorted are divided into sets, numbered consecutively from 1 to 45, and one sorter works at each set. The numbers on the boxes are in accordance with a prescribed plan, each number representing the names of certain towns, and into such boxes the letters for those towns are sorted. The plan mentioned is carried out as follows: Suppose we say that No. 10 represents Rugby, of course when the mail-bag for that town is despatched the box is empty. It is then used, say, for Crewe, and when the bag for that place is gone the box again becomes empty. It is then used for some other town farther down the line, and so on to the end of the journey. The set of boxes nearest the fore-end of the carriage is used by the officer who deals with the registered letters. This set can be closed by means of a revolving shutter, which is fitted with a lock and key; so that, should the registered-letter officer have to quit his post for any purpose, he can secure the contents of his boxes, and so feel satisfied that they are in a safe place. This officer also disposes of all the letter-bills on which the addresses of the registered letters are advised.
The set of boxes into which the newspapers and book packets are sorted is about twice the size of an ordinary letter set, and occupies the centre part of the whole box arrangement. This space is assigned to the newspaper boxes for two reasons: the set is exactly opposite the doorway through which the bags are taken in at the stopping station, so that they lie on the floor behind the sorter who opens them; he has therefore simply to turn round and pick them up one by one as he requires them, thereby saving both time and labour. Again, as the bags are opened, the bundles of letters which are labelled No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, in accordance with the list supplied to postmasters for their guidance, have to be distributed to the letter-sorters—No. 1 bundles to the left, No. 2 to the right; and this distribution could not be so conveniently performed with the newspaper or bag-opening table placed in a different position. Most of the newspaper boxes, as we have said, are about twice the size of a letter box; some, however, such as those used for large towns like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, &c., are four times the size; and the necessity for this can be readily understood.
We will now look at the other side of the carriage—or that nearest the platform. Along the whole length of that side, strong iron pegs are fixed about an inch apart, and on these pegs the bags to be made up and despatched on the way are hung. Most of the bags used in the Travelling Post-office are of one size—three feet six inches long, and two feet four inches wide; but for the large towns, bags of greater dimensions are required. Each bag is distinctly marked on both sides with the name of the town to which it is to be forwarded, the letters forming the name being an inch and a quarter in length. The name is also stencilled inside the mouth of the bag, so that the sorter has it immediately before his eyes when putting the letters, &c., away. On reaching its destination the bag is emptied of its contents, is turned inside out, and then the name of the Travelling Post-office from which it was received appears in view. The bag is then folded up and kept ready for the return despatch on the following night. In this way it passes and repasses until it is worn out, when it is withdrawn, and a new one takes its place.
We will now assume the train is fairly on its way, and that we are approaching Harrow, the first station at which the mail-bags are received by means of the apparatus. As the machinery constituting the apparatus is of great importance in the system of working, we shall here endeavour to describe it.
We may say that the apparatus in the Special Mail is worked in a separate carriage which runs immediately behind the one to which we have referred in the preceding details. A large and very strong net is firmly fixed on the side of the carriage on the near end, and the woodwork being cut away, an aperture is formed through which the pouches containing the bags are taken into the carriage. The net is raised or lowered by pressing down a lever very similar in structure and appearance to the levers which are seen in a signalman's cabin. When the net is lowered, a strong rope is seen to stretch across from the fore-part, and this rope, being held in position by a chain attached to the back-part of the net, forms what is called a detaching line in the shape of the letter V placed thus, <; and as the carriage travels along, the rope at the point forming the angle strikes the suspended pouch, and detaches it from the standard, when it falls into the net, and is removed by the officer attending to the apparatus. The machinery is also arranged so that a bag can be despatched as well as received. A man doing this work should possess keen eyes, steady nerves, and a full average amount of strength. On a dark or foggy night it is difficult to see the objects which serve as guides to the whereabouts of the train, and which are technically known in the office as 'marks.'
The net is now lowered for the receipt at Harrow. In a second or two, a tremendous thud is heard, and a large pouch comes crashing into the carriage through the aperture, the men meanwhile keeping a respectful distance. I should perhaps explain that in the Special Mail a new form of net is used. The bottom of it is flush with the carriage floor, and as the lower portion is constructed with an angle of about forty-five degrees, the pouches roll into the carriage by their own weight.
We will now see what the pouch from Harrow contains. It is quickly unstrapped; the bags are taken out; and it is then laid aside, to be used for despatch at a subsequent station. There are three bags for the Travelling Post-office received in this pouch—two containing correspondence for England and Scotland, and one for Ireland. The bags are immediately opened by the proper officers. The first duty is to find the letter-bill; and if there are any registered letters, to compare them with the entries on the bill, when, if correct, the bill is signed and passed over, together with the registered letters, to the officer who disposes of that class of correspondence, and by whom an acknowledgment of the receipt of the letters is at once given to the bag-opener. It is in this way that a hand-to-hand check is established which ensures the practical safety of such letters.
The bag-opener then proceeds to pick out from amongst the mass of correspondence the bundles of ordinary letters, and to pass them to the right or left according as they are labelled No. 1 or No. 2. These bundles are cut open by the respective sorters who work at the several sets of boxes, the letters being laid in a row on the desk, and the men then proceed to sort them in accordance with the addresses they bear. As the boxes (each of which will hold about one hundred and fifty) become full, the letters are tied up securely in bundles, and the sorters, turning round, drop them into the bags which hang along the other side of the carriage. And so the work goes on in the same way throughout the entire journey.
Let us now try to show to how great an extent the Travelling Post-office has contributed to the acceleration of correspondence from place to place. On an examination of the letters received from Harrow, it is found that there are three for Aberdeen; and a similar number for that city will be received from the several towns between London and Rugby, and so on. Of course, the number of letters mentioned would not be sufficient for a direct bag between each of these places and Aberdeen; but the small numbers referred to being brought together in the Travelling Post-office, it is found that when the train arrives at Carlisle a sufficient amount of correspondence for the northern city has been received to fill a large bag. This bag is therefore closed at that point, and a fresh one hung up, to contain the correspondence for that city received northwards of Carlisle. The same may be said of the other large towns in Scotland. Now, if there were no Travelling Post-office, how would the few letters for Aberdeen emanating from the various towns in England be dealt with? In the first place, they would have to be picked up by a stopping train, and even if this train ran direct to Aberdeen, there would be a difference in the time of arrival of at least eight hours. But the letters could not go direct in such a case, as that would mean the making-up of separate bags at each place; and we have already shown that the letters are too few in number to justify such an arrangement. They would have to be collected at some central office, say at Birmingham, where they would of necessity be detained some time; so that altogether it is probable they would not arrive at their destination early enough to be delivered on the day following that of posting. What, however, is the case now? Thanks to the Travelling Post-office with its mail-bag apparatus, the letters are whirled along at close upon fifty miles an hour without intermission, thus admitting of the delivery of letters from London at so remote a place as Aberdeen long before noon on the following day.
We will now assume that the train has arrived at Rugby—the distance eighty-four miles. At this station mails for Coventry, Birmingham, &c., are left to be forwarded by a branch train. After a stop of four minutes, the train again speeds on its way, the next stopping-place being Tamworth. Here a large number of mail-bags are despatched, including those for the Midland Travelling Post-office, going north to Newcastle-on-Tyne, which serves Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and the whole country-side bordering on the north-east coast; for the Shrewsbury mail-train, which serves the whole of Mid-Wales; and for the Lincoln mail-train, which serves Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
The next halt is at Crewe, where formerly a large exchange of bags took place, having been passed without stopping. Crewe is, for Travelling Post-office purposes, by far the most important junction in the kingdom. Within three hours—that is, between half-past eleven at night and half-past two in the morning—over a dozen mail-trains, each with sorting-carriages attached, arrive and depart; whilst the weight of mails exchanged here within the hours mentioned is not less than twenty tons. A great amount of labour is involved in receiving and delivering such an immense weight of bags, the work being all done by hand, and the mail-porters have to exercise great care in keeping them in proper course for the respective trains. Nevertheless, these responsible duties are remarkably well performed, mistakes very rarely occurring.
The Irish mail which runs from London to Holyhead, and in which correspondence for Ireland is almost exclusively dealt with, branches off at Crewe, the remainder of the journey being run by way of Chester and North Wales.
Leaving Warrington, the next stoppage is at Wigan. Here the mails for Liverpool are despatched, and the receipt includes bags which have been brought through a long line of country, stretching from Newcastle-on-Tyne through York, Normanton, and Stalybridge, and thence to Wigan. The mails for Preston and East Lancashire are left at Preston, and, running through Lancaster, Carnforth is soon reached. At this station the mails for North-west Lancashire and West Cumberland are despatched, and this is the last stopping-place before arriving at Carlisle, which is the terminal point of the North-Western Railway.
Mention should be made of the noteworthy despatch of mails by apparatus at Oxenholme, the junction for Kendal, Windermere, and the Lake District. It is the largest despatch by that method in the kingdom, as many as nine pouches being delivered into two nets. Each pouch at this station weighs on an average fifty pounds, so that altogether four hundred and fifty pounds of mail-matter is despatched at this one station—no inconsiderable feat.
At Carlisle the mails for the Waverley route country and for the whole of the south-west of Scotland, including Ayrshire, are left. There is another long run over the Caledonian Railway—about seventy-eight miles—without a stop, the apparatus being worked seven times in that distance until Carstairs is reached. Here, one of the sorting-carriages is detached, and proceeds to Edinburgh; and a few miles farther on three more are detached, and proceed to Glasgow from Holytown Junction. From that point, therefore, only two sorting-carriages remain in the train, and these go on to Aberdeen.
The next stop is at Stirling, where the bags for the Western Highlands are left; and we then run on to Perth.
At Perth, the mails for Dundee and the northern Highlands are despatched, the latter being forwarded by a mail-train which runs on the Highland Railway viâ Inverness. Again the Special Mail starts on its way, there being only one stop—at Forfar—before arriving at Aberdeen, where the journey ends. Here the last bags are despatched. The carriage is clear. The sorting-boxes are carefully searched, to see that no letters have been left in them; and the carriage is then taken charge of by the railway officials, to be thoroughly cleansed and made ready for the return journey on the following day. The duties on the way to London are performed in a precisely similar manner to those on the journey northwards.