Take A 3D Tour Of The Mail Rail

James Drury
By James Drury Last edited 107 months ago
Take A 3D Tour Of The Mail Rail

Mail Rail, British Postal Museum & Archive from ScanLAB on Vimeo.

The Mail Rail is London's worst 'secret' railway, in as much as it's not a secret. It's just that only postal workers ever got to see inside the link which ran from Whitechapel to Paddington from 1927-2003. And a handful of lucky people, such as us.

All that will change when the British Postal Museum and Archives opens a new museum next year, including the opportunity to ride the railway. Before that though, some structural changes need to be made to the world's first driverless electrified railway, to make it accessible for the public.

Before the adaptations are made, the museum wants to create a permanent record of how it used to be, so it has commissioned 3D scanning and visualisation company ScanLab Projects to capture the transit system for posterity. You can see a fly-through in the video above, and stills in the gallery below.

What happens with all these images will depend on how much cash the museum can raise. Possible plans include a full 3D walk-through of hidden parts of the network, or an app that enables layers to be peeled away to see the original industrial detail beneath.

A 3D walkthrough of Mail Rail
A 3D walkthrough of Mail Rail
Aerial view of the Mail Rail loop to be opened as part of The Postal Museum
Aerial view of the Mail Rail loop to be opened as part of The Postal Museum
Cross Section of the Mail Rail platforms
Cross Section of the Mail Rail platforms
The Mail Rail Car Depot
The Mail Rail Car Depot
The Mail Rail platforms from above
The Mail Rail platforms from above
The Postal Museum and Mail Rail as seen from Farringdon Road
The Postal Museum and Mail Rail as seen from Farringdon Road
Viewing the Mail Rail Car Depot in layers
Viewing the Mail Rail Car Depot in layers

Last Updated 21 April 2015