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Few Christmas images are as enduring as the figure of the gift bringer. That’s a truth attested around the world. For centuries, artists and storytellers have stocked our imaginations with visions of solitary travellers journeying, heavy-laden through a midwinter’s night.
Father Christmas comes to mind, of course, but so does the mail carrier. That’s certainly true in Britain, and not just because Royal Mail’s signature colour is the same as Santa’s coat. Here, more than in most places, the approach of the festive season is signalled by the arrival of Christmas mail. It seems telling that the first commercially printed Christmas card appeared in 1843, the same year as Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Postal workers will still be making their rounds this year. Their sacks will be packed with gifts and greetings, much as they were in Dickens’ day. For the first time since then, though, the Christmas mail won’t likely be travelling by train. Royal Mail has sidelined its inhouse rail operations in favour of road haulage and is selling off its fleet of postal trains.
That decision marks the end of an era. Mail has been moved by rail across Britain for nearly two centuries. In fact, the practice is nearly as old as the railways are.
The General Post Office started sending mail on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway shortly after the line opened in 1830. By 1838, some trains were equipped with special carriages staffed by postal workers. Before long, these travelling post offices (or TPOs) were shuttling up and down the country collecting, sorting and delivering mail on the fly.
That innovation caused a step change in British society. Where, and as, the railways spread, the pace of communications quickened. The resulting acceleration brought the nation closer together and altered the rhythms of provincial regions, including our own.
Let’s say you lived in Carlisle at the end of the 1700s and wanted to send Christmas wishes to a loved one in London. In those days, it’d have taken Royal Mail around 52 hours to make the journey by horse and coach, and the postage would have cost you at least 13p (about £4 in today’s terms). That’s a hefty sum for sending a single letter.
A half century later, your grandchildren would have enjoyed a much speedier, steam-powered service at a fraction of the price. They could send seasons greetings to their London relations on Christmas Eve safe in the knowledge that their cards would arrive the next morning. (The Post Office made Christmas day deliveries back then.)
The ability to send messages across the nation overnight is something we take for granted. At the time, though, it was transformative, and it was part and parcel of the process whereby Cumbria eventually became a more integrated and self-conscious part of the UK. That’s something railways tend to do; they tie together the places they traverse.
The Cumbrian corridor of the West Coast mail line may seem a far cry from the UK’s major manufacturing and transport hubs, at least when you’re rolling by at speed. Still, the rails that run through our county carry the beat of the nation’s pulse in much the same way as a wire conducts an electrical charge. That mattered in 1936, and it still matters today.
For all that, though, Royal Mail’s relationship with the railway has changed markedly over the last half century. They stopped running TPOs 20 years ago, but some of their distinctive, electric trains (British Rail Class 325s) have still been hard at work. Spotting one has, however, become a bit harder of late. Recently, they’ve only been running between Daventry and Glasgow.
That sort of sentimentality seems natural enough, but Royal Mail’s decision does raise more pressing and practical concerns. Rail transport has a role to play in helping the UK meet its net zero targets. Over the years, though, less of our mail has been travelling that way. As Peter Hendy explained during a recent discussion in the House of Lords, “only three per cent of Royal Mail’s parcels and letters are moved by rail”.
That trend contrasts with developments elsewhere. As Simon Walton has pointed out in a piece for Rail Freight, Royal Mail “is pulling out of its railway operations just as the private sector is gearing up for rail-delivered express logistics”.
Varamis Rail, for instance, has confirmed its interest in buying up Royal Mail’s fleet of 325s. It’s perfectly possible that they and other companies might step in to fill the gap.
A Royal Mail spokesperson has accounted for the company’s decision as follows: “To improve reliability, increase cost effectiveness and remain consistent with our environmental goals, over the coming months we will cease operating our own trains while continuing to use a mix of rail, road and air to transport mail to all corners of the UK.”
I’ll leave it to the experts to debate the economic and environmental merits of ditching trains for trucks. There are a lot of variables to consider. Still, I reckon we haven’t seen the end of mail by rail. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
This Christmas, though, if you’re travelling by railway, you might spare a thought for those trains and hard-working people that, in days past, brought families closer together at this time of year – both in person and by post.
