End of the Royal Mail Postbus

[whole diary]

[bobm]

There were once hundreds of Royal Mail Post Buses operating around the country.  They offered typically half a dozen seats in a minibus which was taking postal workers out to their deliveries or doing collection rounds from pillar boxes and post offices.

In the last ten years they have been slowly withdrawn and the final one - the 134 route Tongue to Lairg in the Scottish Highlands ran for the last time on Saturday 19th August.



I had planned to catch it on one of my All Line Rover trips but with an early morning start in a remote village it was always going to be a challenge.  Now it is too late! 

[caliwag]

Sadly that's the way it goes...don't vote nasty party!

[chrisr_75]

Sadly that's the way it goes...don't vote nasty party!

What does that mean?

[stuving]

Royal Mail's web site still offers a Postbus route finder, boasting:

Postbus

All aboard — THE POSTBUS ROUTEFINDER

There are numerous Postbus routes carrying more than 50,000 passengers a year in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), so hopefully we'll have a service near you.

It offers you six regions, though it struggles to find a route in Leicestershire - there is only that last one in Highland. But Royal Mail evidently believes that still runs.

News lost in the mail? (For several years, in terms of the page text.)

[caliwag]

Just one of those quiet back door cuts! Royal Mail say they are no longer viable (!), Local Authorities are working to enforced shrinking budgets (again and again)...so who do you blame...I know who I blame..again the disadvantaged suffer...obvious. Nasty Nasty...we don't all ( and an increasing number) own or have access to a car...what's the option peeps?

[Bmblbzzz]

Interesting to discover these existed, even if a bitter-sweet discovery. I'd heard of them in foreign parts but didn't know we had any in Britain. I wonder if they still have some in Ireland?

[chrisr_75]

Given bobm says they've been in decline for the last 10 years, that covers the central governments of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron/Nick Clegg X 1.5 and Theresa May. Could you be explicit about what you mean about this being a 'back door cut' by 'the nasty party'? Would that be Labour, Conservative or Liberals?

The rate of car ownership has climbed steadily during the past 10 years and continues to do so, road vehicle fuel as a proportion of disposable income has never been cheaper, little minibuses with 4 available seats were never going to be viable for very long. Likely just a case of use them or lose them...I suspect ridership of these post buses has been in decline for many years.

[Worcester_Passenger]

These were never going to be very successful, given the way the timetable that was driven by the needs of the post.

A typical route would operate out of a remote valley to the nearest small town. Now, the passenger flows for something like that are out of the valley to the town in the morning and back again in the evening. Unfortunately the post flows in the opposite direction, out of the town to the valley in the morning and back again in the evening.

The sensible thing for the Royal Mail to have done in these circumstances would have been to base the Postbus up at the far end of the valley, and arrange the timetable so as to come into town in the morning. But ... that would have involved changing the pattern of deliveries and collections such that the mail was delivered in the early evening and collected first thing in the morning. This was something that either they weren't prepared to do - or that they didn't think that the public were ready for.

The most successful Postbus was the one in The Archers. When that was introduced, every Parish Council in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire promptly wanted to have one.

[trainer]

A typical route would operate out of a remote valley to the nearest small town. Now, the passenger flows for something like that are out of the valley to the town in the morning and back again in the evening. Unfortunately the post flows in the opposite direction, out of the town to the valley in the morning and back again in the evening.

This discussion stirs a strong memory of my only use of a bus subsidised by the Post Office.

August 1979.  Highland Omnibus Thurso to Reay (and onto Tongue).  This was a conventional bus with the back section blocked off and the floor and seats beyond removed for the post to be slung in through (I think) doors added to the rear. The bus called at all the Post Offices delivering and collecting bags of post and was exciting to us 'townies': Clevedon seemed positively urban in comparison. The only departure (in the evening) meant that my little group of friends had to spend the night in the idyllic extreme North before returning on the morning bus.  It sticks in the mind not because of the bus ride but because of the violent storm that swept us off the camping site and into a fortunately adjacent B&B. That storm devastated the Fastnet Yacht Race. At the same time a personal sadness was unfolding to one of our group whose father died at home while he was so far away and could not make his regular evening phone call from so remote a place.

Only on returning to Thurso on the sole inward bus and making a call home from call box (no mobiles then of course) did we realise the extent of the storm and discover the family distress at not being able to pass on the news.  We are used to instant communication today and the Post Bus was part of what is now a secondary form of communication system.

[CyclingSid]

I always thought they were largely a Scottish phenomenon, and then many years ago found that they used to run in West Berkshire to Hungerford,etc.
On viability, I always remember in Germany the PostBus. Large single deckers painted yellow. Now long gone. Like all public transport, sacrificed to the motor car, will climate change eventually cause the idea to return?

[JayMac]

Well, environmental concerns have led Royal Mail to invest in a fleet of glorified milk floats electric vehicles.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41025771

[paul7575]

Prototype was around a while back:

[Red Squirrel]

Well, environmental concerns have led Royal Mail to invest in a fleet of glorified milk floats electric vehicles.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41025771

I think that belongs in this thread - partly because, unlike the demise of Postbuses, it is good news!

[martyjon]

I recall a PostBus operating in an area near where I live from Chippenham serving areas where normal bus services were withdrawn. Can't find anything on Google but I think this PostBus served villages like Castle Coombe, The Shoe Tormarton and others in south-east Gloucestershire and adjoining parts of Wiltshire.

I'll keep on investigating.

[bobm]

According to the British Philatelic Bulletins of May and June 2007 there were the following Postbus Routes in the Chippenham area - all ran from 13 Sep 93 to 29 May 99

227 Chippenham to Lyneham
228 Chippenham to Sopworth
229 Chippenham to North Wraxall
230 Chippenham to Melksham (Sundays only)
231 Chippenham to Reading (Sundays only)