Royal Mail’s switch to road a body blow for rail freight sector

To some, Royal Mail’s decision to move its postal deliveries from rail to road, and in turn decommission its remaining fleet of trains (which currently stands at a fleet of six Class 325 electrics), was a long time coming.

In some ways, those people would be correct - Royal Mail has for decades been moving slowly away from mail by rail.

From its pre-Second World War boom of 130 Travelling Post Offices (TPOs) that sorted mail on the move, Royal Mail has slowly (but progressively) shifted its mail operations to other modes of transport.