Information on mail trains run on LU tracks

And packets of newspapers were carried on 1962TS trains east of Stratford up to the early-1970s

The mail trains being referred to by MRFS were only for LUL internal mail. Basically it was a normal service train that a member of the Baker Street Mail room staff would travel on and it would be met by staff at each station along the line. All the timetable did was indicate which trains these would be.

Both the C&SLR and CLR operated parcel services.
As far as can be established, the only occasion that mail was handled by LU was during the 1990 Tube Centenary. A set of four stamps was issued, each illustrating rolling stock that operated on the C&SLR / Northern Line. My avatar to the left of this text (illustrating the end view of a Mather & Platt locomotive) is taken from the first stamp in the set.
Stamped postcards from all of the original C&SLR stations were carried in the motorman's cab on one of the Centenary special trains on the Saturday between Borough and Morden. The postcards had previously been franked at all of the original C&SLR stations and sent by rail to Borough. The postcards that were franked at King William Street were walked through the the original tunnel to Borough to ensure that they passed along the full length of the line.
On arrival at Morden, the postcards and stamps were available for sale to the public.

There were plenty of examples of mail trains run before the formation of the LPTB - and internal mail carried on trains akin to 'Metromail'. The 1926 UndergrounD group appendix lists the times for 'Correspondence Satchels for the Superintendent of the Line', plus Letter boxes marked 'Letters for Bill store' and the rather odd phrase 'Correspondence must, as far as practicable be despatched during the slack periods of the day. The letter boxes are cleared by a messenger from the Bill Store' - this makes sense when you realise that the requests for posters were concentrated in the letter boxes at Charing Cross, Picc. Circus, Euston and Oxford Circ. There was also a letter box on the Up platform at East Acton for GWR-bound correspondence.

There were also booked trains for correspondence - I'll scan the image rather than type it up and put it up to-morrow.

From the 1926 UndergrounD Appendix:

For other reasons I was browsing through some Met WTTs and thought you might be interested in the following from 1958:

LMR 3.45am Marleybone-Woodford was booked to drop off newspapers at Amersham, Gt. Missenden and Wendover.

MO (LMR) 3.55am Marylebone-Chesham was an engine and newspaper van.

Train 48 (49 on Sats) 6-car P Stock was booked to carry newspapers - 5.10am Baker St - Uxbridge stopper.

Train 13 (SO & SE) 5.34½ Baker St - Watford, 6-car T stock was booked to make an additional stop at Moor Park for staff and newspapers.

Did train 13 not stop at Moor Park normally?

Looking back through the Met. WTTs I've got to hand, the note about the addtional stop at Moor Park for the first NB BkS - Wat appears first in WTT 104 (22/5/44); prior to that the first NB off BkS, although still T6 was half-an-hour later (5.57) and was an all-stations apart from Neasden.

Going back to where we started in 1958, the journey time with the extra stop at Moor Park was 46½ min, in 1944 was 52 min for the same train and in 1942 it was 46 min. I think a bit more off-topic digging might be needed to get to the bottom of this one - even though in 1944 this first NB stopped at Neasden and had 3 minutes total stand time († at Pinner, Northwood and Moor Park). Curious - I shall have to add rooting around the Met. run times to the list of things to look at.

The first occasion I can find in my library of the column note 'conveys newspapers' is in November 1949 for the first NB P6 to Uxbridge at 5.10 off BkS - and that column note was still there nine years later in the same times, in fact that train had been running at 5.10 off BkS since at least 1938. I bet that particular train had been carrying newspapers north to Uxbridge right from the days it was VT stock through to A stock and running in the same times.

On non-Met. lines I know that I've got a hand-written note somewhere in one of the timetables about newspapers and mail, but with over a thousand to search through I don't hold out much hope of finding it!



I *knew* that there was something significant about that date - 12th October 1964 was the date that UndergrounD WTTs changed to 24 hour format - quite a few of the new WTTs were delayed until that date so the new time format could be introduced across the system; I can remember from the depths of the Library that the Bakerloo and District/Picc. were going to be introduced on the 7th September, and their introduction was put back just over a month for this reason.