Mail truck

A mail truck, mail van, or mail lorry is a delivery vehicle that is used to distribute mail.

In his article, "Right through the Post", John Hollingshead describes mail vans from the point of view of a letter navigating through the postal system:

Here we find […] many really dismal, but rather would-be gay-looking, vehicles, drawn up to convey us to our different railway stations. These are the Post-office vans, furnished and horsed by contract, to the department, for a payment of ten thousand pounds per annum; and forming the only existing link that binds the railway-governed Post-office of to-day, to the mail-coach-governed Post-office of the past.

In shape, the Post-office van is like a prison-van; in colour it is a mixture of dingy black and red; and in condition it is dreadfully shattered and work-worn. Something of the hearse also mingles in its composition, and something of the omnibus. Its stand, when off duty, is at the end of Bedford-row, Holborn, where it basks in the sun, within a maze of posts, against the dead wall, looking with its companions like a crooked line of Chelsea pensioners waiting for the doctor.

As described by Hollingshead, mail vans in the United Kingdom were originally horse-drawn, operating in conjunction with the railway network, including Travelling Post Offices, carrying mail between railway stations and places distant from them, and between sub-post offices and sorting offices. Some of these vans were of the Brougham type. In the 1880s the General Post Office began hiring larger enclosed box vans from McNamara & Company. These vans had elliptical spring front suspension, semi-elliptical spring rear suspension, a double driving seat, and mail coach style headlamps. These were frequently called mail coaches, although unlike actual mail coaches they carried no passengers. At least six regular long-distance, i.e., not just to and from local railway stations, mail van services out of London existed in the late 19th century. A London-to-Chatham mail van service ran until the summer of 1908, and one mail van service ran from London to Oxford until 1909.

During World War II such horse-drawn McNamara mail vans were reintroduced, because of petrol rationing, but only for local work. These vans were drawn by a single horse, had pneumatic tyres, and were painted in the Post Office livery colours. A few of them were still in service in the early 1950s.

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