Part 2: LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY POST OFFICE CARRIAGES
Philip A. Millard
During the years 1885–1894, twenty-seven new 32ft 0in Post
Offices were constructed to replace the older mid-Victorian carriages,
which together with the one vehicle of this length (No.2) already in
existence made a total fleet of 28. Most of the older carriages were
withdrawn from service upon replacement but some were transferred to
the duplicate list  by the addition of 2000 to their numbers and
lingered on for a year or two in the role of spare vehicles. No.28
was damaged beyond repair at Holyhead on 20th June 1887,
while Nos.25 and 26 were still in use on the Irish Mail service in
1890. That year saw the elimination of the 1911 6in carriages from
the fleet, while the last 22ft 6in Post Offices were broken up in May
1895. 
The 28 vehicles of 32ft 0in length were built to ten different
diagrams (D.395 to D.404) which reflected the particular needs of the
services they were intended to operate, although not all vehicles to
the same diagram were necessarily identical in external appearance or
in interior fittings. Between them, there were six different
arrangements of the near-side and a further seven styles of off-side,
and in addition there were differences of underframe and other
details. This,
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together with the fact that clear photographs of these
Post Offices are rather rare, makes it difficult to describe them
fully. All had a general family resemblance as typified by the photos
of West Coast Post Office No.348; height of body side to the lower
edge of
the cantrail was 6ft 6¼in, lower panels 1ft 11in deep,
waist panel 6in deep and upper panels 3ft 5¾in deep. All
mouldings were 1¾in wide except for the moulding at the
bottom of the side which was 2¼in. The upper panels were
alternately 4in in width and a dimension which could be between 1ft
2in and 1ft 10in calculated so as to divide the space evenly; in the
case of WCJS 348 the larger panels were 1ft 7½in wide to
the left of the 3ft 9in wide central sliding door and 1ft 7 1/8in to
the right of it, and these dimensions apply also to D.395 and D.404
vehicles. All these vehicles were 8ft 0in wide (8ft 4½in
over the letter/newspaper sets if fitted), and were built on steel
channel under frames with 22ft 0in wheelbase . Originally the
horn plates were 7in wide and located outside the springs and until
1890 the axle furthest from the net apparatus was radial , but from
1892 carriages were built with inside horn plates 9in wide in the same
manner as the six wheeled passenger stock of the same period. D.400
and D.403 were equipped with nets and traductor arms on both sides,
D.396 and D.399 had only a central sliding door on the offside,
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