Driving mail
Driving Post is a postal history generic term and refers to as opposed to riding post the transport of people, mass mailings or bulky goods using special carriages or stagecoaches .
Beginnings
Because of the poor road conditions in overland traffic, the wagon did not appear on an equal footing with the riding horse until the end of the 17th century. The driving mail was initially provided by the independent state postal service, semi-public tenants and privileged entrepreneurs such as B. operated by the Düsseldorf Maurenbrecher , but also by the Imperial Post Office , which was organized by the Thurn and Taxis . The Fahrpost ran regularly between certain places, the "relays" or " post stations ", where the horses were changed and where accommodations for the travelers were built, the forerunners of the hotel.
Such a type of passenger and mail transport was more time-consuming than the transport by Estafette . The journey between London and Oxford, for example, took two days, with a special express mail it was still 13 hours. Therefore, soon after the arrival of the railroad in the 19th century, this type of transport was abandoned in favor of rail mail , while it remained in areas without a rail connection until the introduction of motorized mail .
In the 19th century, the term "Fahrpost" was extended to all transport using wagons.
Driving post in the 19th century
Letters
From an administrative point of view, in the 19th century, the collective terms letter post or driving mail were legally meaningless terms for service instructions of the old German post , the North German Confederation and the Reichspost . The driving mail included letters with an indication of the value, post advance mail (cash on delivery) and parcels (value, registered and ordinary parcels). Furthermore, the consignment form samples with no value that were heavier 16 Loth (Thurn and Taxis), as well as letters heavier than four Loth belonged to the Fahrpost.
passenger traffic
Even the travel remained a part of the driving post. This included traveling with omnibuses (large carriages), stagecoaches or diligences. To do this required authorization bills like diligence - Travel vouchers and extra postal forms.
Literature (selection)
- Wolfgang Behringer: In the sign of Mercury , Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-35187-9
- Exhibition catalog: Money or Life! From stagecoach robbery to virtual data theft , Edition Braus, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-89904-210-7
- Thomas Gaal: Fahrpost bei Thurn und Taxis , Birstein 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024295-3
