We had never met the people, but they lost no time in providing us with tea, and all too soon we had to cut our ceilidh as the mail car drove up to take us to Keoldale, whence we were to ferry over the Kyle of Durness.

Using a homemade trailer tied behind his Model A mail car, Presley distributed more than 1,600 piglets to farmers in 11 counties.

The buoyancy in the sector is further demonstrated by the number of projects starting in the city over the coming year (Paradise Circus, Arena Central, Eastside, the 752 space Post & Mail car park later this year etc.) and the extent and quality of opportunities coming to market.

Celebrating: Dennis Ellis, aged 77 from Druids Heath, won the Birmingham Mail car. l

During these times, there was a mail car on each train where mail was received, cancelled and sorted for delivery into mail bags for each town or city the train passed through.

Financial Mail CAR and bike accessory retailer Halfords is showing sales growth that other retailers must envy less than six months after it floated.

Each passenger train had a mail car with a metal arm on the door that could be extended out to the side.

Even as late as the 1970s, when the RPO had been reduced to a single route between New York and Washington, DC, every clerk in the mail car still carried a Colt .38 Special on his hip.