И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT 6. POST OFFICE RAILWAY
An interesting example of a fully-automated railway is a two-foot gauge Post Office Railway which runs under the centre of London connecting major sorting offices with the railway termini,. Opened in 1927, it has carried mails day and night through its deep tube tunnels. Mails are carried at a speed of 35 mph in trains which have no one on board to drive or supervise.

Fifty electric units are in use on the Post Office Rail­way, sixteen dating back to 1930 and the remaining 34 built in 1979. These trains take the place of about 2,000 post office cars which would otherwise run on the congest­ed London streets.

To avoid accidents the cars automatically cut off cur­rent from the section immediately behind them. Special tracksicie devices stop the trains just before they arrive at stations and bring them in at a low speed.

The original signalling system is soon to be replaced with solid state interlocking. There are 10 spare electric units being held in store ready for refurnishment should traffic levels require more stock.