I visited the Postal Museum which opened earlier this year - and despite my initial cynicism I was suitably impressed. The museum is next to the site of the Mount Pleasant sorting office, which is the main London postal depot. But most excitingly, as part of the museum, the Post Office’s underground electric railway is open to the public. And visitors can take rides on the old trains. The train service was opened in 1927 and was used for sending mail around the central London area. In fact it went quite large distances - about seven miles from Paddington in the west to Commercial Road in the East End. The trains were unmanned and were operated a bit like a large train set. Mailrail - as it became known - was only closed in 2003. But it was kept in good condition in case it was ever needed. It has now become part of the museum and the carriages have been adapted to allow passengers to ride on them. Visitors go on a short (20 minute) ride, which includes stopping at some of the stations and listening to an audio visual presentation. You can see where the trains ran, where they were unloaded and there is even a short section -‘the graveyard’ - where the obsolete trains were kept, simply because it was cheaper to keep them underground, than to dismantle them and take them up to the surface. The rest of the museum is definitely worth seeing. Lots of old vehicles, devices for moving the post and descriptions of how stamps are designed and printed. There is some interesting artwork for proposed stamps. However there are very few old stamps on display. Unlike the Smithsonian Postal Museum in Washington, which contains some of the most valuable stamps in the world, there is little here for an avid collector to get excited about. This is probably a good thing. Most visitors are more interested in looking at vehicles and the social history of the postal service, than they are in rare stamps. And if you want to see some rare stamps, it’s only about ten minutes walk to St Pancras, where - entirely free of charge - you can see some of the superb stamps in the British Library. And, in case I didn’t mention it, there’s a very nice cafe at the museum, or you can nip around the corner where there is a very cheap cafe where the postal workers get their bacon sandwiches and cups of tea. The postal museum is open almost every day. Check website for details. Tickets are £14.50 or £13 for concessions. see also - The Smithsonian stamp museum |
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3/6/2018 05:59:56 pm
My friends know that whenever I have free time, I am choosing to spend it going to different museums within the city because I consider it as my therapy. I've never been to Postal Museum that's why I got an initial interest to visit it one day, since this is the very first time I've heard about it. Based on your review, it seems like you enjoyed The whole experience there. There must be something about Postal Museum which cannot be found on other museums!
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12/9/2019 08:42:01 pm
I hope to see more updates from you, this helps me a lot.
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AuthorJack Shamash is a top journalist who writes for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent as well as various stamp magazines. He is a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London and the author of the book George V's Obsession - A King and His Stamps. Archives
March 2020
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