The Nene Valley Railway has announced that the National Railway Museum has donated Southern Railway TPO, 4920, to the Railway. The vehicle, which had been on loan from the National Railway Museum for over 25 years, was one of only eight TPOs built by the Southern Railway, of which three survive. Built at Eastleigh in 1939, the TPO was used on services throughout the south of England until 1977 when it was withdrawn and claimed for the National Collection, arriving at Wansford in 1979. The vehicle has been used to house the Railway's Museum Collection until recently when the interior was renovated in order to demonstrate what the interior of a TPO looked like and to allow sorting demonstrations to be undertaken.

This is the second TPO to have been donated by the National Railway Museum to the NVR, with LMS designed TPO, M30272M, having been given to the Railway in March 1996. Restoration work on M30272M, which started in 1997, is at an advanced stage and it is hoped work will be completed within the next two years. The carriage, which is the only surviving vehicle from the Great Train Robbery of 1963, will then be used on a regular basis to demonstrate the exchange of mail, which last occurred on the national network in 1971 at Penrith.

In a separate acquisition the NVR has been given a Great Northern Railway TPO body dating from 1885, this vehicle was originally a six wheeled vehicle fitted with sorting equipment and apparatus to perform a lineside exchange. The vehicle is also interesting in that it had a central corridor connector at one end only so that it could work with a "twin" vehicle and allow the postal staff to walk between the two carriages, yet keep the public at bay. The body of Great Northern sorting carriage 2178 has been used on an allotment since being withdrawn in the 1930's and has been protected from the elements by having a roof placed over it along with a lean-to on one side.

It is hoped to have the GNR TPO body moved to the Railway before the NVR's Rail Mail event of 18th / 19th June when LNER TPO E70294E, owned by Railway Vehicle Preservations Ltd, will be the star attraction. The GNR TPO body will be located at "Sutton Cross" and will be available for inspection between exchanges at the lineside. Should a suitable six wheel chassis become available at some point then serious consideration will be given to fully restoring the vehicle, in the mean time preventative maintenance will be carried out.

The NVR also hopes to acquire two of the redundant TPOs from EWS in the near future to complement the TPO collection now being formed. Peterborough has a strong connection with both the railway and postal systems dating back to 1845 when the railway from Blisworth to Peterborough, now the Nene Valley Railway, was first opened. The Post Office used the railway to carry the mails of the Louth to London mailcoach, with the coach being loaded aboard the train at Peterborough to be conveyed to London, thus reducing the journey time considerably.

During recent months work on M30272M has not been forgotten, in fact the opposite is true with over 600 man hours having been worked this year so far. A nine day work week was undertaken at the start of April which saw a small team complete many tasks. The remaining sections of the roof were removed. This was no small task when one side of the roof is bolted to the cantrail and requiring all the bolts to be cut; the other side was screwed to the cantrail and was simply pulled out due to its rotten condition of the cantrail. One of the cantrails was then removed and by the end of the week a new one had been constructed and installed using two lengths of wood scarf jointed together. More of the new floor has been installed, with some 75% screwed into place and the remainder just waiting to be profiled and installed.

Work has also been undertaken on our lineside apparatus, which is on long term loan from the Locomotive Club of Great Britain. This has had its original platform reinstated, which will make it safer to stand on, as it is much deeper than the one that has been in use since 2000. The lineside hut has been repaired after an act of vandalism. The embankment next to the lineside has been levelled to enable the GN TPO body to be located here once it arrives.