This article was written late in 2007 for the PBR’s house magazine ‘Topline’. Due to reasons of space it was never published, so it is included here. The first three photographs were supplied to me as the result of e-group correspondence. All, I suspect, are subject to copyright, but am not certain to whom or to where I should write for approval to publish, beyond knowing that the first is attributable to Keith Gunner. Accordingly, if anyone spies their work here and wishes me to take it down, I will comply without hesitation. Conversely I feel bound to ask others not too copy the images.

Post Office Tender s4958s - John Down

WH Auden’s evocative and rhythmic poem,’Night Mail’, perfectly sums up the romance of the Travelling Post Office. You know the one – it starts:

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door...

The image of such trains thundering through the darkness is an exciting one, and this excitement is even greater if the Travelling Post Office is fitted with traductor arms and nets so that pouches of mail can be grabbed or hurled out en route. Inside the train, ranks of post office workers, working through the long night, oblivious to their whereabouts and weather outside, sort letters into racks of pigeon holes and into bags and arrive at their destination just as the pre-dawn lightness slowly creeps into the sky. All this happens in a specially built coach called the Post Office Sorting Car or POS.

Spare a thought then for the humble Post Office Tender, or POT, which is essentially a travelling shed, usually open from end to end. Not for the POT are armies of Post Office workers, or the drama of the mail exchange. These are simply the repositories for mailbags filled with sorted mail, a vital but unglamorous adjunct to the Travelling Post Office. Nevertheless, externally, they appear very similar to the POSs and enjoy the same livery, which, until recently, was a royal cypher flanked by heavy seriffed characters proclaiming ‘ROYAL MAIL’

The PBR took delivery of a POT on Wednesday 10 October 2007 on an overcast but more or less dry day. Arrival was not without incident and the removal of large fence post was needed before the lorry carrying her could ease through the bottom gate. The situation was further complicated by the need to remove GW coaches 5539 from the top yard the same day and 5500 from the bottom yard on the following day. Notwithstanding, everything was completed by the end of Thursday – one in, two out!

Since the PBR is hardly in the business of running TPOs or handling other people’s mail you might just wonder why the PBR was interested in securing such a vehicle. It all started when the Society took a long look at how Santa has operated over the last few years, and the idea was mooted that it would be helpful if Santa was in a coach of his own, isolated behind the bufferstops at Whistle Inn, with sufficient room to accommodate waiting passengers, space to store presents, and perhaps even sufficient space to instal a second Santa. It was pure serendipity that a POT became available within a week of the plan being voiced. So it was that a consortium of Society members got together to acquire POT S4958S, which came to Blaenavon from the Mid-Hants Railway.

S4958S in one of the carriage sheds west of Clapham Junction – (c) Keith Gunner

Records suggest that S4958S is the only pre-nationalisation POT in existence, so it is of some historical interest. It was built by Maunsell of the Southern Railway in 1939. Now compared with the Great Western whose TPOs reached down to Penzance or the even longer services operated by the LMS via the West Coast route to Glasgow, or the LNER via the East Coast Route to Edinburgh, the Southern’s routes were considerably shorter. There was Waterloo to Dorchester and London Bridge to Dover, and even a mail service of sorts tacked onto the back of the Victoria to Newhaven Harbour boat train, and all these were adequately served by pre-grouping stock until the end of 1936 when REL Maunsell introduced a solitary Sorting Car. Maunsell retired the following year to be replaced by the mercurial OVS Bulleid. Even so, in 1939 a further three Sorting Cars and four Tenders were delivered almost on the eve of war, but their design was pure Maunsell and offered nothing to Bulleid who did not produce his first coach till after hostilities had ceased. Apart from 4957, 4958’s immediate predecessor, which worked the London Bridge or Cannon Street to Dover via Redhill services, all POSs and POTs worked the Waterloo to Dorchester via Southampton Central route. Sorters were withdrawn during the war, but tenders continued in service, though some cars did odd things, like serve as stores for ARP equipment and clothing for the military. 4958 remained as a spare relief for most of the war – then from 1948 to 1966 – nearly 20 years, 4958 was once again declared spare. If ever a vehicle had an easy life it was 4958. In 1966 the Paddington Weymouth TPO was withdrawn and Waterloo services extended to Weymouth via Southampton, and, at last, 4958 went into active service and served till about 1973 when BR Mk1 PO vehicles took over. After this, 4958 went, with its remaining siblings, to work the Dover mails. This lasted till the Dover mails were terminated in 1976 and 4958 finished up, after a relatively easy 38 years in service, with the Mid Hants in September 1977. There, for the next thirty years it simply served as an extension to the loco-shed, and probably never appeared on their coaching stock lists. It appears that one side was decorated in the early days to its original green Royal Mail livery, but it is unlikely that it has seen much TLC since then. More recently the roof covering has completely blown off, one or two small body panels have fallen off, and in a few places on the side and ends corrosion has gone through the panels. There’s no doubt that she is looking a bit sorry for herself.

The appearance of the outside of the coach is virtually identical on each side (unlike the POSs). Inside the coach has a truly cavernous interior, open and uncluttered from end to end, except that at one end is a steel lined compartment about 5ft x 8ft square, with a sliding door probably used for registered and valuable mails. Each side is pierced by small windows high up on the bodyside (15 on one side 16 on the other) – too small for any prospective thieves to gain entry, but sufficient to pass a useful amount of light. Each side also contains two sliding doors, each containing two droplights. In each case each droplight is fitted with a close mesh grill which passes only limited light.

The state of the outside can be seen from the photos, but inside, the situation had deteriorated considerably since I viewed the coach at the mid-Hants railway in early March 2007. Inside, a long heater unit ran down almost the entire length spine of coach, attached to the ceiling, and this contained about 20 radiant heater units. During the long wet summer, the screws holding it into the roof had come out of the softened roof timbers and the whole unit – about fifty feet long - had come crashing to the floor, bringing half a dozen fluorescent tubes with it, not to mention three quarters of the ceiling.

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Another shot of s4958s having just passed under the station footbridge at Clapham Junction (c)

Another shot of s4958s believed to be on the Windsor lines at Clapham junction. The vehicle on its left, is its Sorting Van (c

Now work on this vehicle cannot be said to be of the highest priority, but where the fabric of the vehicle is threatened by the weather, then emergency work is justified, and as a result, an immediate start was made on covering the roof. Fortunately we have well established and reliable techniques for covering the roofs of coaches with wooden roofs, and the re-covering work was completed within a few weeks. A few more weeks saw the cornice strips fitted to the cantrail both to secure the roof sheets and to help in throwing water clear of the sides. Truth to tell, only the west side was permanently fixed, which was as much as could be done before the short days, high winds and wet weather made further work dangerous if not impossible. This means that when spring arrives the east side and centre will have to re-opened and fixed permanently. All the same, the roof is now watertight, except when there is rain driven by strong winds from the north, when there is a small leak on the unfinished east side. The next requirement was for some much needed light, so that progress could me made inside during the long winter evenings. Thirteen 100watt bulbs were festooned along the centre line of the vehicle, as well as several 13amp outlets for power tools.. We chose not to use the more efficient and easier to fit fluorescent tubes as the 1300w of tungsten lamps makes a useful contribution to keeping the inside warm and dry.

Next came the task of dismantling the heater unit – it was far to big and heavy to get out of the unit. This took several weeks and a quantity of exceedingly bad language as rusting nuts and bolts were forced to yield. We had hoped that, like our RMB, that the heaters would be rated at 250volts. This would have allowed them to be re-used closer to the floor and mains powered. Unfortunately these had been wired directly into the ETH system and were rated at 750volts. These have been offered to another railway in Wales, so they’ll do someone a good turn. The exercise did however yield a large quantity of substantial teak planking which will be very useful in coach work elsewhere. Now there was space to get to things, and find out what as going on, it soon became clear that the next most serious route for water penetration was the 31 little windows. One had no glass, several were cracked, and most, which were bedded in with felt , presumably impregnated with linseed oil, had dried out and generally buckled out of shape. Each glass is held in from the outside by four hardwood ‘bolection’ mouldings which had lost their paint protection and were thus subject to rot. A programme of cleaning, sterilising and varnishing each of the 124 bolections has started, with the leakiest ones being done firstly. The less problematical ones will be left for several months, since there were more pressing matters.

Of the six external sliding doors (two each side and one in each gangway), all had been jammed solid. The south gangway was jammed open, but Charles James has temporarily sealed this with polythene sheet, however the north door on the east side proved completely immoveable and the rain was blowing in. Charles and I struggled with this door, but it finally dawned on us that nothing but complete dismantling would lead to a solution. Thus started a battle extending over several days whilst the the casing components, and the heavy door were removed. Finally the massive steel runner, which had moved in the sodden cantrail gave way and fell with a resounding crash, inflicting a series of substantial bruises on both Charles and I. Suffice it to say that we believe we have found a fault which we suspect has extended to all the doors. The solution has been to saw off about half an inch of material off the top of the doors, and to undertake some serious rust removal work on the bottom door runner.

We are now close to being able to rebuild the ceiling and start belt-sanding the insides prior to varnishing and painting. There is still some outside work to do on the corners and on the panelling, but the inside is far drier than it was, and we are happy that we have halted the rot. With the POT safe for the moment we must leave it to concentrate on other matters, but it won’t be long till we return to advance the old girl a bit further.

POT s4958s on the day of its arrival. The roof covering has been completely replaced. The jammed sliding door, which has now been fixed, is clearly seen. Attempts have been made to restore the livery to its original Maunsell Green livery. though it is flaking badly. This POT has never been painted in the more common LMS Maroon with grandly seriffed capitals proclaiming ‘Royal Mail’, but in a less flamboyant sans serif Southern Railway style.