2016-02-17 Wed

Six new labels, belonging to the 2016 Royal Mail Heritage series were released to celebrate UK’s railway system that was used to deliver posts for almost 200 years. These labels feature paintings of mail trains from the first service on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway on 11th November 1830 to the last Travelling Post Offices rail service that ran on 9th January 2004.

One new label is inscribed “Travelling Post Office: bag exchange”. Mailbags were exchanged without stopping the train at a station, for the first time in 1838.

The second label celebrates the 90th Anniversary of London’s underground post office railway, which ran from 1927 to 2003. A section will be reopened as London’s new postal museum. The subterranean network of automated trains ran from Paddington to Whitechapel allowing millions of items of mail to be delivered every day.

The third label recreates the 1939 Night Mail poster by Pat Keely promoting the documentary film Night Mail. The fourth label depicts a 1948 painting by Grace Golden that shows the loading of mail at London’s Euston Station. Sorting mail on a travelling post office is depicted on the fifth label. The final label depicts a travelling post office that is chugging away.

These special labels can be bought from terminals in post office branches across the UK. First-day covers with all six of the Royal Mail Heritage: Mail by Rail post & go labels are also being offered.