Main line Travelling Post Office run to mark 85th anniversary of Night Mail?

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“THIS is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order…”

W H Auden’s opening lines to 1936’s evocative GPO documentary film Night Mail about the work of the Travelling Post Office (TPO) are known by thousands, and to many conjure images of Fowler 4-6-0s on the West Coast Mail Line, footplate crews working hard, and the stunning scenery north of Carlisle.

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‘Black Five’ No. 45305 races through Quorn & Woodhouse station during a TPO run at the Great Central Railway on January 26. This is the stock the Rail Vehicle Preservation group hopes to put on the main line in 2021. CLIVE HANLEY 

The short film, which is regarded as a classic, will be 85 years old in 2021, and to mark the anniversary the Great Central Railway-based Rail Vehicle Preservations (RVP) group plans to take a six-coach TPO set back onto the main line for a steam-hauled run between Derby and Bristol.

Read more in the August 2019 issue of The RM – on sale now!

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