The Nene Valley Railway
"Awards for All has allowed a practice that took place between 1838 and 1971 to re-emerge from history and the pages of hundreds of photographs in books"
Brian White, the museum’s curator
An Awards for All grant has helped to resurrect The Travelling Post Office after nearly 40 years of being closed.
The Nene Valley Railway (NVR) is a registered charity and museum that promotes and preserves the standard gauge railway track, which runs for over seven and a half miles, traversing over and alongside a river, a listed tunnel structure, meadowland, cuttings, urban areas, an industrial complex and through a country park.
Through the Awards for All programme, the charity was awarded over £7,000 in July 2007 to develop the educational aspect of the railway – ‘the Travelling Post Office’. This involved erecting a mailbag exchange apparatus at the side of the line to re-enact how mailbags and letters were collected and distributed in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The trouble was that this location was great for railway enthusiasts but not easily accessible for school children or the elderly. So when the entire travelling post office system ceased to exist in January 2004 four of the coaches became available and NVR were able to purchase them. A new station and platform had recently been opened at Yarwell and it is here that passengers can alight and walk the short distance back to the line side apparatus site.
The Awards for All grant paid for the footpath, the fencing, sleepers, rope and other equipment necessary for completion of the line side equipment. The short walk from the end of the station platform made the new line side apparatus fully accessible. Now young and old railway enthusiasts can view the mail exchange system in safe and attractive surroundings.
Brian White, the museum’s curator said: “This project has allowed all ages of people to witness an operation that usually took place at high speed in total darkness. The location of this apparatus equipment allows everyone to see the operation in detail as it is possible to perform up to three run-pasts in fairly short order and gives them time to appreciate it.”
