Stop making our Postal Rail a tourist attraction and get back to it carrying mail!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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The Royal Mail infrastructure of tunnels that connect Whitechapel with Mount Pleasant Postal Sorting Office and Paddington Station and which was closed in 2003 will scandalously reopen in September 2017 as a Postal Museum tourist attraction called “Mail Ride” (see here).

The network built by the tax payers purse, which was in operation between 1927 and 2003, was claimed in 2003 to be too expensive to be continued to operate and repair. They claimed it was five times more costly than transportation by trucks on roads. The Communications Union claimed, however, the costs were hyped up. Royal Mail then moved much of the post that went through the tunnels onto road based trucks which increased traffic on roads throughout the city. A Greater London Authority (GLA) Study in 2013 noticed that this increase was equivalent to an extra 80 lorry journies per week on London roads, with a not insignificant environmental impact (particle and noise pollution) See The Future of Rail Mail, GLA, April 2013.

At the time of the closure, Royal Mail faced losses of nearly 1/2 bn Pounds (£484 Mio), which let in the end to its total sale by the Conservative / Liberal Democratic coalition government in 2015.

The closure of the Postal Rail was criticized not only by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) but also by the GLA. The GLA opposed the closure, especially on the aforementioned environmental grounds. They recommended that steps should be undertaken to make the line made efficient again. Further, there was criticism by Steve Jones of the CWU that the line had been deliberately run down by Royal Mail and that “We think we could very, very quickly move to a break even. If you start bringing new work into the business, you could probably make a profit.”

A secret investigation by a group calling itself the Consolidation Crew revealed in 2011 that the tracks and tunnels were all in relatively good shape. Whilst their exploration was from an urban sociological perspective it suggested that the network could easily be reopened if there was any will. See http://www.placehacking.co.uk/2011/04/2 ... mail-rail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In spite of intense discussions about the congestion on London roads and the pollution it caused, Royal Mail, now a private company, never felt it would be right to consider using the tunnel network and getting lorries off the road.

Instead, in an almost cynical move, part of the tunnels are now going to be used for museum tours, costing £14.50 or £16.50 with a donation to normal paying adults, where visitors can have a ride on purpose built trains along the old tracks. UK national media like the BBC and the Guardian have been invited for pre-opening tours, but their reports lacked any critique of the controversial history of the closure, focusing on but what the Postal Museum wanted to get out, here is a history themed “fun ride” ( See BBC Report and Guardian Report).

The Kings Cross Community, which is part of the London population that had to tolerate the increase of 80 Royal Mail lorries per week on already overloaded and congested roads, has always seen Royal Mail traffic through its roads as a problem. We have seen little signs of willingness or cooperation to change traffic from the Mount Pleasant Central sorting office to less polluting vehicles or electric vehicles or to offer any solutions to mitigate the environmental impact of their road based transport. They like to stay quiet and out of the discussions on this. Yet one partial solution was and continues to be right underneath the renovated post office.

It is rather hypocritical to state that the tunnels are not able to carry mail any longer, but are good enough for human transport, in fact, that a purpose built locomotive and compartments that can carry people were ordered for the purpose, and that Royal Mail believes that it can advertise these rides, which can be pre-booked now for its opening in September 2017, without controversy or argument. One poster doing so was seen at Kings Cross Underground station itself, an offence to all tube using local residents of Kings Cross, when you consider that our mail could also take the tube, rather than the truck.

It is a scandal that it took this community blog to highlight the controversy and hypocrisy of the scheme and expose it for what it is: A shallow money making enterprise on the backing of a proud and futuristic scheme erected by the public purse by gone by generations for the greater good. In fact, it is a scheme way ahead of its time, and in the climate of trying to reduce congestion and polluting traffic it ought to be considered to be more than just the latest London tourist attraction to yield money from rides, but its operation restarted and in fact, the track network extended.