The Travelling Post Office.
The pouch which has been discharged from the wayside standard into the net attached to the train.
The Travelling Post Office.
The apparatus on the exterior of a mail carriage. Two pouches are extended for despatch and the net lowered into position for the receipt of incoming pouches.
The history of the Travelling Post Office is not without its stories of more serious disasters. One of the most awful railway accidents which have happened in this country was the collision of the Irish mail train with some runaway waggons at Abergele on the 20th August 1868. There were barrels of petroleum on the waggons, and these became ignited, setting fire to the train. Among the burning carriages was the Travelling Post Office, and the two officers working in it were seriously injured. The conduct of Woodroffe, one of the two, whose injuries were not so severe as those of his colleague, was in accordance with the best traditions of the postal service. Woodroffe, though badly hurt, carried his brother officer, who was insensible from the collision, to the side of the railway line, and after laying him there proceeded himself to save the mails so far as it was possible.
Another railway tragedy which will long be remembered in the postal service was that which took place outside Shrewsbury Station on the 15th October 1907. This was the severest accident that has occurred in the whole history of the Travelling Post Office. No less than three Post Office men were killed while on duty, and others were injured.
It will be perhaps interesting at this stage to trace the travels of a letter to the furthest point in the British Isles. On this route we can bring out clearly the fact that in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland the Post Office, in spite of mail trains and ingenious mechanical contrivances, is still dependent on quite primitive means for conducting its business. Moreover, directly we get away from the main lines of traffic, considerations of weather still affect postal operations almost as much as they used to do in the old coaching days. Let us address a letter to the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, which is situated to the north of the island of Unst in Shetland. Let us post the letter at King Edward's Building on a Sunday night at 6 P.M., and given favourable conditions of weather it will be delivered at the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse on Thursday morning. The letter is sorted into the Scottish division, is subsorted into a pigeon hole, and afterwards into a bundle labelled “Aberdeen forward.” The bundle is dropped into a bag inscribed with the words “London to Aberdeen,” and one of the familiar red vans conveys the bag to the London terminus. On Sunday nights this would be Euston. The bag is handed over to the sorters in charge of the Travelling Post Office, on which there is a mail carriage which runs direct to Aberdeen. Aberdeen is reached at 7.35 on Monday morning. So far the process of the letter has been simple and rapid.