TPO,s

[Derbyroy]

Morning all.
I have just spent an enjoyable hour watching "Night Mail", and "The West Highland", on DVD.
I was wondering if any of the members on here actually crewed the loco,s allocated for these runs. either the tpo,s or the west highland?
or were the TPO,s crewed as an elite unit ie. mainline expresses?
I believe loco,s from three sheds were used for the Tpo,s Crewe, and Glasgow being two of them. which London shed provided the power for the south area?
best regards
Derby

[locojoe]

Hi Derby When I was firing at Kings Cross in the number 3 mainline link we had a job which was working a TPO train from Kings Cross to Doncaster. It was on this train we sometimes had the Prototype Deltic and it was an evening turn. I do remember that at Huntingdon there was the PO apparatus where mail would be picked up without stopping. Fred a chap who lived next door to me was a regular PO sorter on this train, he would go through to Newcastle and return to London the next night. I would let him know when I was on this job, and when we stopped at Grantham he would bring us a couple of bottles of beer one for me and one for Arthur my driver. The beer went down well especially if we had a steamer. Can you imagine the uproar today drinking on duty. I believe the post office sorters got through plenty of bottles before they reached Newcastle. On this job we returned from Doncaster with an Anglo Scottish express.
Cheers Alan Locojoe
PS Here's a photo of me and Arthur my driver on Deltic.

[Derbyroy]

Hi Alan ,
you do look a young tearaway "teddyboy " in that shot,
thanks for the info,about the ECML tpo,s , my self being a west coast lad used to stand on Crewe north platform watching the Mail trains before catching the last Lime street home to Runcorn, happier times
Cheers Derby