The number of mail bag exchange points probably reached their peak with 245 in use in 1913. It was always a precarious operation but continued until 1971. The final despatch of mail by apparatus was made from the North Western Night Down TPO at Penrith, Cumbria on the morning of 4 October 1971 as it neared the end of its journey from London, Euston to Carlisle.

Why did it end?

There are many reasons why TPOs ceased- problems with timetabling, the hazardous nature of working on moving trains, cost, the flexibility of road services, declining numbers of letters.

In the early hours of Jan 10th 2004 I was up extra extra early and drove to Hayle station to click a few pictures of the Bristol Parkway to Penzance TPO which stopped at Hayle to unload Mail for the Hayle and St Ives areas.

Not quite the end of the carriage of mail by train, I don't think - just they end of sorting on the move??

Not quite the end of the carriage of mail by train, I don't think - just they end of sorting on the move??

A Travelling Post Office (TPO) is a series of one or more rail carriages in which the manual sorting of letters takes place. These carriages were invented to save time sorting mail while it was being transported to its destination.

Before the invention of the railways, mail was transported by road on horse-drawn carts and mail coaches. By modern standards this was a slow and inefficient service in which mail was often delayed, lost or stolen. As early as August 1826 Rowland Hill had suggested the sorting of letters on mail coaches to improve the service, but this came to nothing.

The first public railway opened on 15 September 1830 between Liverpool and Manchester. It did not take long for the Post Office to make use of this more effective mode of transport. By 1838 the mail coaches for Manchester, Liverpool and Carlisle were being transported on rail trucks between Euston and Birmingham.

George Karstadt, a long-standing Post Office surveyor, made a formal proposal on 6 January 1838 to trial a 'travelling office' where mail could be sorted during transit. The first run took place that same month. With more railway lines being built the new TPO network rapidly expanded.

The TPO service was cut back during the First and Second World Wars as part of wartime economy. TPOs ran on major routes carrying sealed bags only, without sorting. After the Second World War, few of the TPOs recommenced operations due to a reduction in the number of deliveries.

This post war lull, coupled with Dr Beeching's report on the reshaping of British Railways in 1963, meant that a number of quieter lines and stations on the TPO network closed. From then on the TPO network went into decline. In 1988, a radical TPO review was introduced which meant the reduction, re-routing and removal of numerous TPOs. This left only 35 in service, and by 1994 this was just 24. By the end of 2003, there were few dedicated services still operating and the golden era of TPOs was coming to an end.

"TPOs were the backbone of the long distance rail network for well over a century?it might seem strange to end them, but it's worth reminding ourselves why it has to be? technology has moved on and with the big increase in machinable letters, the proper place to sort them is within a mail centre..." - Steve Griffith, TPO Manager, 2004

In recent years, many mail routes have been revised and large volumes of mail have been transferred to air and back to the road. This, coupled with problems over service level agreements and a rising concern for the health and safety of staff, meant that the decision was finally made to dispense of all TPO operations. The last TPO services ran on the night of 9 January 2004.