Blacksod Lighthouse in Co. Mayo is, perhaps, best known for its indirect role in changing the course of history in connection with the D-Day landings in 1944. This arose due to weather readings taken at the lighthouse by Maureen Sweeney, wife of the lighthouse keeper, resulting in the decision to delay the landing in Normandy by the Allied side in WW2 by a day.
A little known former railway in London was the 6.5 mile long underground railway built by the Post Office, to carry mails between sorting offices in London. Opened in 1927, the line closed in 2003 due to the uneconomic cost of running the system.
In 2017, a short section of the system in the form of a loop opened as a tourist attraction as part of the Postal Museum, carrying passengers on the system for the first time (the P.O. railway was for mail only and was operated by driverless trains).
I visited this in 2018 and last weekend, I returned for a different experience on the system – a guided walking tour through the same section of the system that is operated by the Postal Museum.
Mail Rail Tunnels. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2026
The walking tour starts off at the same point as the railway trip (the walking tour takes place in the evening after the tour trains have stopped running). Participants are equipped with hard hats and hi viz (the former necessary as the tunnels are quite low as they were built for driverless trains).
Mail Rail Station – diamond crossover. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2026
At stations, the typical layout was a line adjacent to a low platform, located beneath the relevant sorting office overhead, with a diamond crossover midway for ease of access from the adjacent running line.
Train dumping ground. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2026
At one point in the walk, there is an abandoned smaller tunnel veering off to the right. This was an access tunnel to a point where decommissioned stock was dumped – many of these remaining on site today.
Overall, this addition to the tour offerings by the Postal Museum is worth doing if you get a chance and supports the charity keeping this unique piece of London infrastructure open to the public.
