Why did they stop royal mail trains?

Question

Why did they stop royal mail trains?

Answer 1

Royal Mail found cheaper ways to do it. In addition, the sorting offices were reorganised to fewer more central locations, so local train delivery and collection at comparatively remote wayside railpoints was no longer required.

Answer 2

Cost effectiveness, A friend of mine used to fly a mail plane from Aberdeen to London 5 nights a week.How that could work out cheaper than sending the mail by train and sorting it on the way,i don't know !

Answer 3

Mail stopped being transported on rail because The Post Office and the Royal Mail wanted EWS (the freight company that ran the Royal Mail Trains) to sign up to a contract that was so strict regarding punctuality and fines for being late, that it would be almost impossible to make any money if a train was more than 2 mins late at it's final destination.

First GB Railfreight, now opperate a few "none essential" mail trains, that don't opperate under such tight schedules, but basicly the whole job was priced of the railway by the customer.

So here's a big thanks to the Royal Mail for clogging up our roads and polluting the atmosphere with more trucks.

Answer 4

They were too expensive, roads are now more reliable and cheaper.  I believe mail trains from Scotland to London were restarted in 2006, but I don't know if they are still running.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4568...

Answer 5

Well: according to  "Rail   is Answers  Cars &Transportation

Because British Royalty  Didn't Trust The  Mail by Railroad

Company !"

Answer 6

When the contract came up for renewal, the Royal Mail wanted better guarantees about reliability for the increased cost proposed by British Rail. With no such guarantee forthcoming, the Royal Mail only agreed to a one year contract.

During that year, the Royal Mail started negotiations to transfer the long-distance transfer to air and the short-distance work to lorries.

At the next contract renewal it was goodbye to the mail trains! And BR only had themselves to blame for it!

Answer 7

They havent. There's a mail train that runs from Aberdeen on thursdays usually class 66 hauled.

Answer 8

Road is cheaper than rail!

Political rhetoric from a Labour government has always been "get it on the rail". New Labour don't give a monkey's f**k about the railways, or the postal workers, or the Unions, or .....

Goodbye Tories, hello Modern Tories aka New Labour.

And the die hard will still vote for them.

Here endeth this sermon.

Answer 9

Easy...Trucks!

Answer 10

The Princess Anne mail consolidation depot at Willesden was built on railway land on the condition that rail was to be used for the bulk of the mail. Now there is only one train a day.