London Post Office Railway
The Post Office Railway , also known as Mail Rail , was an underground rail service operated in London from 1928 to May 31, 2003 for the carriage of mail . The vehicles of the Post Office Railway were driverless . The track width was 610 mm. The trains were operated electrically , with the voltage in the stations being 150 volts and 440 volts on the open line . The power was supplied via a power rail in the middle of the track.
The Post Office Railway was built to interconnect various mail sorting stations and bypass road transport in the totally congested city center. The model was the freight subway in Chicago . The 10.5 km route ran from Paddington in the west to Whitechapel in the east. Originally there were nine stations, but in the end only three were in operation because the post offices had been relocated to other locations. The Post Office Railway was eventually abandoned because the running costs were up to five times higher than road transport. Most recently, 150 postal workers were directly involved in the subway. It was in operation 22 hours a day.
The Munich Post-U-Bahn , which was in operation from 1910 to 1988, and the Zurich Post-U-Bahn , which was operated in 1980 by a transport system with tire-worn vehicles, were comparable, albeit significantly shorter with a maximum of 450 m or 340 m was replaced.
Trivia
- Charlie Higson describes in his book Double or Die (2007, German: GoldenBoy ) of the Young Bond series a mail train system that is very similar to the London Post Office Railway.
- In the film Hudson Hawk - The Master Thief (1991) - redecorated as a facility of the Vatican Post in Vatican City - the mail train is used by Bruce Willis as a Hudson Hawk as a means of transport.
- In the English children's fantasy novel The Horn of Mortal Danger (1980) by Lawrence Leonard, there is a connection between the London Post Office Railway and the underground parallel world.
See also
- London Post Office Railway series 1927
- London Post Office Railway series 1930
- London Post Office Railway 1962 series
- London Post Office Railway 1980 series
- Post-U-Bahn Munich
- Post tram Berlin
- CargoCap , an automated freight underground system that has only existed as a draft
