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00:15Hi, I'm Aisha one of the male rail drivers and your guide today. We ask all passengers
00:21to remain seated for the duration of the ride and not to lean on the sides of the train.
00:26This may cause it to stop suddenly. Thank you.
00:32Welcome to Mail Rail. We're just leaving the depot where the trains were maintained.
00:37We're in a small train entering a narrow tunnel beneath the busy streets of London
00:41on a mini railway that once carried Britain's mail for sorting, distribution and delivery.
00:47If this were a working mail rail train, we wouldn't be going slowly.
00:51We'd be rattling along at 30 miles an hour and I wouldn't be here either because the trains had no
00:57drivers.
00:58They were controlled by an electrical switching system.
01:02This was the world's first traveller's electric railway and the only one dedicated to carrying the host.
01:10On this journey, you'll hear from people who remember Mail Rail. Here's Beverly Turner.
01:17My grandfather Cornelius Lee was inspector on the mail rail. I have a story about when I was seven and
01:24I was allowed to go on the mail rail against all the rules.
01:28I must have said to him I wanted to go but when the doors opened there was this little tiny
01:33train with a track so small and I was going for a ride on it which was so exciting.
01:39Until they sat me on it, I realised that to go on that ride I had to go into this
01:43really dark tunnel.
01:45Off we went into the darkness. My granddad didn't come. He wasn't able to go which probably added to my
01:51small anxieties about being on the mission per se.
01:54My granddad didn't come.
02:04Merrill could be dangerous. Can you see the pile of sandbags we're passing?
02:09That used to be a sand pit designed to catch and safely stop trains that were running the wrong way.
02:19We're arriving at platform one on the right of the train.
02:23These platforms were scenes of frantic activity in the days when the railway was doing its job.
02:29And on the platform you may notice a dartboard.
02:32Steve Holloway, platform worker, explained.
02:36They would set a dartboard up and they'd have a few games in their downtime.
02:43And the golfers used to get a golf club out and practice with a practice ball with the holes on
02:51the platform.
02:52Why not?
02:53It sounds like a lot of fun and games.
02:55But there was a serious need for Merrill when it was constructed.
02:58In those days it was called the Post Office Railway.
03:14Post Office Railway was designed to solve an old problem.
03:16As early as the mid-1800s, people realised that mail moving through the streets of London could easily get trapped
03:23in traffic.
03:26In 1911 it was decided to build an underground railway, running six and a half miles through new tunnels, 70
03:34feet below the streets.
03:35Eight stops were linked to sorting offices and railway stations, from which mail crossed the country on regular trains.
03:43Digging up the tunnels began in 1913.
03:47It was done almost entirely by hand.
03:51During the First World War, the unfinished tunnels were used to safely store treasures from London's galleries and museums, including
03:57the world famous Rosetta Stone.
04:00The railway wasn't ready for use until 1927.
04:04But once it was in service, the Post Office Railway became something very special indeed.
04:10Some of the guys would have had a sleep down there.
04:12I don't know how.
04:13It was very, very noisy.
04:15Ray Middlesworth, engineer.
04:16We had the trains coming in as you're in a tunnel.
04:19The sound echoes round and you get screeching of the wheels.
04:23Hungry administrator.
04:25Not many people knew that Royal Mail had an underground railway.
04:29It is just fascinating that it ran for so many years and nobody knew of its existence.
04:35Lovely little gem of hidden London.
04:38A lot of things stayed pretty much the same over the lifetime of the railway.
04:42And one of them was what happened every time a train arrived at one of the stations.
04:46Carrying containers of mail.
04:48Some needed taken off to go to a sorting office.
04:51And others needed to be loaded on.
04:53They'd come in and it just went mad.
04:56Everyone would be pulling off and then tip that, tip that, get some, put something on.
05:00All the mail bags would be emptied onto this bucket by a conveyor belt.
05:04This thing would rise to the surface and empty them all out onto the platform.
05:12From 1927 to 2003, the railway ran 22 hours out of 24.
05:19Six days a week, 51 weeks a year.
05:22Teams of workers, three shifts every day.
05:24Most of the people I knew, they said mail rail was the best job they ever had.
05:28It was very family orientated.
05:31Everyone seemed to get along.
05:33Commander Stokes, Inspector.
05:35The railway was just special.
05:37There were so many people that I just bonded with.
05:40Doing something really unique, but also doing it in great company.
05:45What more do you want?
05:46I'm still friends with people I've worked with on the railway,
05:49because they didn't become just work colleagues after several decades.
05:53They're your best friends.
06:01Oh, it looks like I've got a letter to deliver.
06:06And now, we'd head back into the tunnels.
06:13For staff in the 70s and 80s, life on the railway was like travelling back in time.
06:18I joined in January 1979.
06:22When I first went down there, I was amazed.
06:24The line was really dim, and it was very odd.
06:27Everything was odd.
06:27The furniture was odd.
06:29The dust was everywhere.
06:31The conveyor belts were all needed a coat of paint.
06:34It was probably as it was in the 30s, 40s.
06:38It hadn't changed since then.
06:41The year I joined, in 1987, onto the railway,
06:45it was the 60th anniversary,
06:47and many generations had been through it.
06:51There were people there who were trained by people,
06:54who were trained by people who were there at the very beginning.
06:59A lot of railway stuff had to be fixed in-house or made in-house.
07:04And you were seeing things that come from the early 30s, still there and operational.
07:15Let's pause here for a moment, where the tracks head off in different directions.
07:20The tunnel to the left leads to Liverpool Street Station,
07:23where mail was transferred to the main railway network.
07:27And further down that tunnel, there's a pair of heavy steel doors.
07:30They are flood barriers.
07:34During the railway's construction,
07:36ten men had to scramble to safety when water flooded into where they were working.
07:41The barriers were put in during the war, but luckily haven't been needed since.
07:47When we move off into the loop tunnel,
07:49keep a lookout on either side of the train,
07:52and you'll get a glimpse of what we call the train graveyard.
07:56Over to our engineer, Ray Middlesworth.
07:58When trains did have a collision,
08:01sometimes the damage was quite severe,
08:03and so they'd be stored there,
08:05and on a temporary basis,
08:07but temporary became very long-term,
08:09became permanent,
08:10so it did eventually become a graveyard for these trains.
08:13And I believe the old hoover is down there.
08:17It's important to keep the track clean,
08:19and they thought, well, why not build a hoover,
08:22stick it on a set of wheels,
08:23and we'll take it down there.
08:24One of the problems in a tunnel that size
08:27is that once you start the air moving,
08:29the air keeps moving,
08:30so all that happens is you disappear in a cloud of dust.
08:53Don't worry, it's gone dark because we've lost power to the lights,
08:57but they'll be back on any moment now.
08:59During a power cut, engineers could reroute the supply from other stations
09:03to get the trains moving without delay.
09:24Now that the lights are back on, take a look at the tunnel walls.
09:27You can see the great iron rings that were bolted together,
09:30one by one, to protect the workers as they dug out the clay.
09:34You might also notice things that look like icicles hanging from the ceilings.
09:39These are made of a mineral called calcite.
09:46People trusted the post office to deliver almost anything,
09:49which meant the railway carried some surprising parcels.
09:53I used to like bees.
09:55I used to post bees.
09:56I think they were in tubes that were broken up into little cells.
10:00And you'd pick a bag up and you'd go,
10:03and you'd get ice bees.
10:05They've got bees in you.
10:06Put them very gently into the container.
10:08Dice like that.
10:17We've now looped around to platform two,
10:20where trains would head off towards Paddington station.
10:23We want to give you an idea of what the railway was like when it was new,
10:27in the 1930s.
10:29It was a world without emails and texts.
10:32Even telephones weren't that common.
10:34So you wrote and posted letters.
10:45Train loads of mail arrived at every station every few minutes,
10:48with about a minute to unload and reload.
10:52Let's follow a few of those letters.
10:58This is the colonel.
11:05This is Kathleen.
11:07She's keeping in touch with her sweetheart in the Navy.
11:13And this is Mary.
11:15Her letter is very special,
11:16because it's going to
11:17Ho Ho Ho!
11:19Father Christmas!
11:24I'm not going to tell you about my family.
11:26But I'm coming home for Christmas.
11:27That maybe has a lot to hold.
11:29I'm not going to want to go to the acting office and keep it going forward.
11:33To the merely to gently British broadcasting voice for it.
11:37I've recently mentioned the television air relators have been compelled
11:41to prior to your family broadcast
11:43moving features of the king's speech on the Christmas day.
11:47Do you love the Christmas?
11:49It's me again.
11:50Now we're ready. I've actually lost you, if you remember. I asked for a puppy, but you brought me a
11:56doze house instead. But I do still really want to find you.
12:08Well, like Chris was saying, do you want to look at me? Must be more of them. In you go.
12:21Here we go.
12:22Here we go.
12:24Help you, brother.
12:31Hold that booty, cow.