Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

Guy Gorton

On Sun, 03 Sep 2017 17:33:43 +0100, Guy Gorton
wrote:

On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

Guy Gorton

'some years ago although' - sorry about the typo.

Guy Gorton

On 03.09.17 13:34, Recliner wrote:
Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least at
one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

Guy Gorton wrote:
On Sun, 3 Sep 2017 12:34:33 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railwayÂ’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

I visited it nearly 40 years ago when it was very much in use. We certainly
couldn't ride the trains, and the visit
had to be specially organised by the society of which I was a member;
ordinary members of the public certainly couldn't get access.

wrote:
On 03.09.17 13:34, Recliner wrote:
Alan Johnson on London's latest railway tourist attraction:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/squeeze-in-and-the-london-postal-museum-mail-rail-will-deliver-you-to-a-lost-world-lvvzlmr3d?shareToken=6d140e276fa1eb76fc82d64640584 d9b

Obviously he got this bit wrong ("Back in the railway’s heyday,
battery-powered locomotives pulled cartloads of mail back and forth for 22
hours a day"), as the old mail trains weren't battery-operated.

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least at
one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

I don't know that it was actually a secret, but it certainly wasn't
publicised, and of course it was invisible to the public, unlike mail
trains on the BR network or Royal Mail road vehicles.

In message , at 01:12:50 on Mon, 4 Sep 2017,
" remarked:

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least
at one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

"Secret" means the journalist hadn't heard of it before.
--
Roland Perry

On 2017\09\03 17:33, Guy Gorton wrote:

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

It's normal to say a railway becomes "open to the public" not when the
public can look at the trains but when they can ride on them. The
Barking Riverside extension will certainly not be described as "open to
the public" during the shadow running period, when the trains will be
visible for all to see.

On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 08:26:02 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 01:12:50 on Mon, 4 Sep 2017,
" remarked:

This article seems to indicates that Mail Rail was a secret, at least
at one point in the past.

Was this actually the case?

"Secret" means the journalist hadn't heard of it before.

Or they are accusing someone else of hiding something that has long
been public knowledge on the basis that the information has to be
requested.

Basil Jet wrote:
On 2017\09\03 17:33, Guy Gorton wrote:

"Mail Rail is opening to the public for the first time" is not quite
true either. I was one of many people who visited it some years
although we could not ride the trains. Was it soon after it ceased to
be used for the mail? Can't remember.

It's normal to say a railway becomes "open to the public" not when the
public can look at the trains but when they can ride on them. The
Barking Riverside extension will certainly not be described as "open to
the public" during the shadow running period, when the trains will be
visible for all to see.


True, and the same was true of the test running of the 345 units.

But Mail Rail has never been visible to members of the general public — you
couldn't just book a visit to watch the trains running. I think only a
minority of us here ever visited it when it was operational, and we'd be
just the sort of people who would have visited it if it had been easy.