POSTAL MUSEUM - MAIL RAIL

The central focus of Mail Rail is the ride on carriages down along part of the original Royal Mail railway line under London.

The carriage screech down the line, heading under London, with an on board commentary. Lights under show control show the way, as the train pulls into a platform where mail was taken on and off. Now, however, a projection show is warped onto the original wall running across from the platform. With speakers and lights on the platform, visitors are shown historic images tracking the story of Mail Rail across time.

The lights go up again, and the train moves on through the tunnels, rounding the next bend though, the lights surge and go out, and the visitors are plunged into a pretend power outage – something that was frequent during the Mail Rail’s operation. Moving again, the train heads into another platform, where the journey of three different letters via Royal Mail during the 1950’s is shown in another mapped projection. However, for Christmas, DJW changed this show for a Christmas themed one, ensuring that no visitor hours were lost.

In the engineering hall above, visitors can turn a screen to look ‘through’ it to see what the workshop looked like before it was turned into a visitor attraction. Further projections show the depths of the amazing space, flying the visitors virtually through the underground network, to parts they can’t reach, and providing an easily changeable backdrop for entertaining and corporate groups.

DJW designed, supplied, installed and programmed the AV and show control systems for the museum and shows.