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MECHANICAL AIDS

Whilst the original GPO telephone vehicle livery colour was green, the Road Haulage fleet of the Motor Transport Department were painted red when they merged with the Stores Department fleet in the mid 1950's.  The Road haulage fleet was formed in 1946 when the railway companies requested cessation of stores by rail due to shortage of storage capacity.

The rest of the fleet before 1969 were coloured:-
Telephones - Mid Bronze Green, BS381C shade 223.
Postal - Pillar Box Red, BS381C shade 538.

In 1969 the Post Office was separated into two businesses and both colours changed to:-
Telephones - Golden Yellow, BS381C shade 356.
Postal - Service Red, BS381C shade 539.

The Telecoms fleet had already adopted Yellow as the livery colour by the GPO Board on 13th May 1968.  One reason for the change was road safety concerns due to the dark green livery.

The pictures in the vehicle section are provided courtesy of the GPO, the Post Office and British Telecommunications PLC.

These pages cover only Engineering Department vehicles.  If you cannot find the vehicle in the obvious section, then try the Specialist section.

Many of the pictures were taken around Olympic Way, Wembley, London (next to what was Wembley Stadium) - so look out for the Art Deco buildings, as they should be seen and not how they look today!

All the information and pictures available to us are on this site.  For more information on GPO/PO/BT vehicles and to purchase books please go to the Post Office Vehicle Club web site.

Many thanks must go to Bill Aldridge for his assistance on these pages as he has provided much of the captions and explanatory text.

 

 
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Last revised: August 07, 2023

FM