old pneumatic rail car

Survivor from the original pneumatic railway in 1863.
In service until 1866, it lay hidden until rediscovered in 1930.

The Post Office pneumatic railway first carried mail in February 1863.
It ran from the sorting room at the North West District Office, under Eversholt Street,
to beneath platform one at Euston Station - a third of a mile to the south.

www.londonreconnections.com/2015/londons-lost-pneumatic-railway-the-worlds-2nd-oldest-underground

Engineers Thomas Webster Rammell and Latimer Clark were part of the group that incorporated the Pneumatic Despatch Company Ltd. in June 1859 to build an underground pneumatic tube railway... This would use air to propel small railcars in tunnels to carry standard mail bags and small parcels between main railway termini and post offices. A stationary steam engine turning a reversible fan would blow or suck the cars along...

The first operational tunnel was tested from January 17, 1863, and following inspection by the Post Office, the first mail was carried on February 20, 1863. Two or three cars could carry up to 14 tonnes equivalent of mail at an average speed of 30mph – more than twice as fast as the 12mph trains on the brand new Paddington-Farringdon Underground line that had opened just a month before. In fact the London Pneumatic Despatch Railway was the second underground railway in the world, albeit not in passenger carrying revenue operation...

This first pneumatic railway tube’s life would not prove to be a long one, with its last run coming in October 1866...

GPO Builds Its Own Mail Rail Tube

Advances in tunnelling with the Greathead shield meant it would be easier for the Post Office to dig tunnels along a more optimal route and develop its own electric powered tube railway. Parliament approved the creation and development of the Post Office Railway in 1913... It was completed in 1927 (after war delays and funding problems) between Paddington and Whitechapel via several key London post offices...

Although the Rail Mail system was closed in 1993, a segment of it is scheduled to reopen operationally for public rides in 2016 on a 1 km ride section of track around the Mount Pleasant station and depot.

Mail Rail video:
www.ipernity.com/doc/isisbridge/46329752