A parade of ten overnight Mail Trains left Sydney every week night. On these remarkable trains mail vans, Traveling Post Offices, and parcels/brake vans were marshaled front and back of 1st and 2nd class sitters and sleepers (sometimes all three in one car). Some Mails even had prison cars attached to take felons to country prison farms.
Three headed South; the Temora, Cooma and Through Mails: four went West; the Coonamble, Through, Forbes and Mudgee Mails: three served the North; the North West, North Coast and Glen Innes Mails. The North West Mail led the parade out of Sydney Central at 6.20pm, and the parcels and mail loaders were kept busy until the Mudgee Mail glided away behind a 46 class electric at 10.00pm. On Sunday nights the timetables were different, with people returning up country after a weekend in the Big Smoke. Some of the train names changed too.
These trains were not confined to the main lines; the mail had to reach every community. So their progress was a diminishing one, as vans and carriages were detached for connecting branch lines. A mail bag loaded on the Through Mail leaving Sydney behind a 38 at 9.50pm could arrive at Batlow on a connecting mixed drawn by an ancient 19 Class 0-6-0. Another bag put aboard the 9.40pm Forbes Mail might travel 698 miles over nearly 15 hours before arriving at Broken Hill on the Silver City Comet.
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