I read about this museum recently in the rather splendid "Mail Obsession" by Mark Mason - well worth a read
Everything you never knew about mail: The Postal Museum opens
Royal Mail’s Postal Museum, hidden round the corner from its central London sorting depot, is opening to the public after an 18 month refurbishment project. “We are absolutely delighted to welcome our first visitors to The Postal Museum. We’re anticipating an extremely busy first month, with lots of fun activities planned for …
COMMENTS
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Friday 28th July 2017 15:27 GMT Ogi
Fascinating
There’s also a small display of how mainline steam trains of yore used to deal with loading and unloading mail while travelling at full speed, courtesy of an alarming-looking system of nets and spikes.
Indeed, and a visual overview (and demonstration) of that (among the other things, including sorting in the train) is available on youtube, movie is called "night mail", original from 1936, and available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7SD6qt0EFI
The whole post office inner workings are an impressive and elegant system, I have to say. Very well organised.
I for one will be paying the museum a visit, although if 5'11 is hard to fit into the mail rail carriage, I suspect squeezing my 6+ ft frame will not really be possible :-S
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Friday 28th July 2017 15:49 GMT Mike Shepherd
Multimedia
How about the full multimedia experience? Visitors could enjoy dealing with a crotchety postmistress or learn about the Post Office Act. We're sorry to hear that your Recorded Delivery item is missing without a signature, but there's no refund as we don't guarantee anything. Here's a book of stamps. Now go away.
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Friday 28th July 2017 17:00 GMT Stevie
Bah!
Neat. Wish I could take the tour.
Triang Hornby used to make an 00 scale Royal Mail coach that would pick up and deliver tiny plastic mail bags on the move. Very clever it was too.
BTW dept:
There's a pocket history of how the stamp came about in Terry Pratchett's excellent Discworld book "Going Postal".
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Friday 28th July 2017 22:58 GMT Scroticus Canis
So do they have a few examples of the clacks as a working exhibit?
What even happened to two deliveries a day or in the box by 3 pm deliver by 9 am? Used to work when we had steam trains and then slowly didn't.
@Stevie - I used to have one of those mail coaches looooong ago. Would be worth a fortune now I expect.
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Saturday 29th July 2017 19:32 GMT Ken Moorhouse
I went on a visit there many many years ago
Well worthy of a visit.
Two areas stuck out in my mind as places you don't want to dwell too long in:-
(1) The difficulty of breathing whilst in the Battery Room.
(2) The Contactor Room. Trains were not "driven": full power was either applied to a vehicle, or not, in order for it to move or stop. The explosive arcing coming from contactors that controlled the trains were within feet of where we were standing was both deafening and blinding.
I'm sure that these two facets will be made less "in yer face" to comply with H&S.
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Saturday 29th July 2017 23:55 GMT John Brown (no body)
I'll be going
...next time we're down that way.
Although it no longer affects me, I note that the mention of "families" and a "childrens playroom" seems to have fallen into the same old trap of assuming "family" means adults with kids aged 5-11, which often means they have childrens story telling, dressing up boxes and other similar facilities. There's rarely anything for older children other than the adult oriented part of the visit. Hopefully I'll be proved wrong on the visit.
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Sunday 30th July 2017 20:57 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
I do hope that there will be an appropiate opening ceremony.
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Monday 31st July 2017 10:05 GMT Dan McIntyre
Might have to pay that a visit. Ideally I'd like to do all the sites mentioned in the geeks guide to britain series but physical constraints (I use a wheelchair) might prevent that.
However, I have made a start! During the august bank holiday I am paying the Falkirk wheel a visit and have a boat trip booked. Going to combine it with a ride on the Bo'ness - wherever it is (I forget) railway and a visit to the Kelpies too.
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