Updated
12
July

Royal
Mail

is
planning
to
transfer
its
last
movements
of
mail
from
its
own
trains
to
a
mixture
of
road
and
third-party
rail.
The
reasons
are
said
to
be
the
cost
of
electric
traction
and
the
increasing
difficulty
of
maintaining
the
30-year
old
Class
325
Royal
Mail
fleet.

The
change
is
set
to
take
place
this
October.

Mail
has
been
carried
by
train
since
the
opening
of
the
Liverpool
&
Manchester
Railway
in
1830,
although
specialised
mail
trains
came
a
little
later.

There
was
a
brief
gap
after
the
last
Travelling
Post
Offices,
which
were
mobile
sorting
offices,
were withdrawn
in
November
2003.
The
Post
Office
underground
railway
in
London
was
closed
at
the
same
time.

However
simple
tenders,
carrying
trolleys
of
mail
bags,
returned
to
rail
on
a
couple
of
routes
soon
afterwards,
and
have
been
running
until
now.