Her Majesty's Mails: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the British Post-OfficeLewins, William
History
Her Majesty's Mails: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the British Post-Office
Lewins, William
Postal service -- Great Britain
"The arrangements for expressing the American mails throughout from
Queenstown to London, which we described as being so successfully
executed with the mails brought by the _Africa_ last week, have been
repeated with still more satisfactory results in the case of the mails
brought by the _Europa_. These results are so exceptional that we record
them in detail. The _Europa_ arrived off Queenstown, about five miles
from the pier, at 9 P.M. on Monday night. Her mails and the despatches
from Lord Lyons were placed on board the small tender in waiting, and
arrived at the Queenstown Pier at 10.5 P.M., at which point they were
transferred to an express steamboat for conveyance by river to Cork.
Leaving Queenstown Pier at 10.10 P.M., they arrived alongside the quay
at Cork at 11.15 P.M. and thirteen minutes afterwards the special train
left the Cork station for Dublin, accomplishing the journey to Dublin
(166 miles) in four hours and three minutes, _i. e._ at a speed of about
41 miles an hour, including stoppage. The transmission through the
streets between the railway termini in Dublin and by special train to
Kingstown occupied only thirty-six minutes, and in four minutes more the
special mail-boat _Ulster_ was on her way to Holyhead. The distance
across the Irish Channel, about sixty-six statute miles, was performed
by the _Ulster_, against a contrary tide and heavy sea, in three hours
and forty-seven minutes, giving a speed of about seventeen and a half
miles an hour. The special train, which had been in waiting for about
forty-eight hours, left the Holyhead Station at 8.13 A.M., and it was
from this point that the most remarkable part of this rapid express
commenced. The run from Holyhead to Stafford, 130½ miles, occupied
only 145 minutes, being at the rate of no less than fifty-four miles an
hour; and although so high a speed was judiciously not attempted over
the more crowded portion of the line from Stafford to London, the whole
distance from Holyhead to Euston, 264 miles, was performed by the London
and North-Western Company in exactly five hours, or at a speed of about
52-2/3 miles an hour, a speed unparalleled over so long a line, crowded
with ordinary traffic. The entire distance from Queenstown Pier to
Euston Square, about 515 miles, was thus traversed in fifteen hours and
three minutes, or at an average speed of about thirty-four and a quarter
miles an hour, including all delays necessary for the several transfers
of the mails from boat to railway, or _vice versâ_.... By means of the
invention for supplying the tender with water from a trough _in
transitu_, the engine was enabled to run its first stage of 130½
miles, from Holyhead to Stafford, without stopping."
During the session of 1860-1, an Act was passed through Parliament for
the establishment of Post-Office Savings' Banks on a plan proposed by
Mr. Sykes, of Huddersfield.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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