LETTERS ON TIME IN MAIL TRAINS

“By rock and ridge and riverside

The Western Mail has gone

Across the great Blue Mountains Range To take that letter on.”

AB Paterson (“The Travelling Post Office”) hen Banjo Paterson wrote these words, he caught the romance and excitement of not only the railway, but also the travelling post office.

When the formidable Great Dividing Range was conquered in 1813, the way to the west in NSW was opened and colonists began to develop itchy feet.

By the time gold was discovered in 1851, the population was moving away from the city and desperately needed cheap convenient transport, and it came in the shape of the railway system.

Since the 1850s when the first line connected Parramatta to Sydney, trains have played a large part in the lives of Australians, both in Sydney and the bush.

W“I spent a good deal of my childhood travelling by train to school”, one member of the Oral History group told me. “A school friend lived near a little siding and the mailbags were dropped off and collected there every day.”

The delivery and transport of mail has always been carried out with remarkable initiative and variety.

With the expansion of intercolonial railways, it was decided by the government that the use of rail was the fastest and most reliable way to operate the service.

Special mail vans were attached to trains and Post Office employees sorted the mail en route, ensuring prompt delivery as soon as the train reached its destination.

Letters could be posted at a city terminal right up to the mail train’s evening departure, and by the time it reached its destination the following morning, the mail had been sorted, stamped and ready for delivery.

The postal workers operated in a specially fitted carriage, working the “up and down” shift of a two-way journey.

The trains quite often had their own letter boxes so that letters could be posted along the line.

Veronica worked in a tiny post office in Forest Reefs in 1954.

“The mail bag arrived on the train at Millthorpe and was sorted there into a bag for Forest Reefs,” she said. “I sorted it again and put the Beneree mail into a bag to be delivered on horseback.”

John was born and spent most of his life in the Trundle and Condobolin districts. He was also one who spent a lot of time travelling on trains to school in Sydney and later, as a farmer, transporting grain and stock.

John’s grandfather was the overseer in charge of travelling post offices and operated from his office on the south side of Sydney’s Central Railway Station.

“Every so often my grandfather would catch a different mail train to oversee the men at their work, spend the day at the local post office in the town at the terminus and return the next night,” said John.

The trains operated seven days a week, which always meant as quick a service as possible.

The trains carrying Mail, parcels and some passengers were the backbone of the postal service for many years, but, with the expansion of road and air transport, the days of travelling post offices were numbered and they ceased altogether in 1984.

Copyright Helen McAnulty 2023

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