LNWR POST OFFICE CARRIAGES

Philip A. Millard

Part One: Early Carriages Up To 1885

This article was first published in the Journal of the Historical Model Railway Society, Volume 10, Nos.6–8 (April – September 1980). It is reprinted here, with some additions and corrections, by permission of the HMRS. Post Offices in the LNWR and Caledonian Railways’ West Coast Joint Stock fleet have been fully covered in ‘A Register of West Coast Joint Stock’ (R.M. Casserley and P.A. Millard, HMRS, 1980) which is still in print and hence readily available. This article, which will be presented in three parts, is an attempt to record the corresponding information for the LNWR’s own domestic fleet of Post Offices.

Although fewer in total number at the grouping than the WCJS fleet, the number of different LNWR types was larger and their workings were considerably more complicated. The information to be presented has been gathered from original research at the Post Office headquarters, at the Public Records Office at Kew and at Wolverton works, supplemented by other sources. In particular I am very much indebted

to Richard Casserley who has supplied much of the detailed information for the LMS period and whose independent researches have done much to enable the story of the early vehicles to be reconstructed. Readers who are interested in the details of mail circulation and postage stamps are referred to H.S. Wilson’s ‘The Travelling Post Offices of Great Britain and Ireland’ published by the Railway Philatelic Group (1996), which is a mine of information on these aspects, although containing comparatively little which is helpful to model makers.

Until March 1873, LNWR Post Offices were numbered in two separate series, namely Sorting Carriages and Post Office Tenders, each series starting at 1. The difference between the two was that Sorting Carriages were equipped with shelves and racks to enable letters to be sorted during the journey, while the Tenders were simply stowage vans. Either variety might be equipped with the apparatus which enabled mail bags to be exchanged whilst in motion. In 1873 the carriages were renumbered into one single series, and it has been possible to construct a complete list of vehicles existing at that date.