Mail delivery has certainly changed over the years. This is how Vancouver handled mail in the 1950s from the train that brought mail from across Canada to the Pacific region. Who knew this?
The tunnel was built in the 1950s to move mail between the main Vancouver Post Office on West Georgia Street and the CPR station—the site that is now Waterfront Station. It stretched roughly 2,400 feet and used two conveyor belts to move mail directly from arriving trains into the sorting plant.
BC POSTAL HISTORY
VANCOUVER MAIL PROCESSING PLANT: TUNNEL-CONVEYOR
The following article first appeared in the May 1959 Postmark Magazine. It describes a labour-saving innovation incorporated in the “new” Vancouver Mail Processing Plant with the launch of a mile-long underground conveyor linking the VMPP and the C.P.R. Station. Capable of moving tons of mail in minutes, the innovative system streamlined sorting and transport while operating around the clock with minimal human intervention.
March 12, 1959, marked the inaugural run of Vancouver’s mile-long tunnel-conveyor system, through which mail bags are conveyed in either direction between the Post Office and the C.P.R. Station. The conveyor went into full operation on Monday, March 16th.
The tunnel was built at a cost of $1,140,000 through which the conveyor system operates is approximately 2,400 feet in length. Commencing at the northeast end of the Main Post Office building, it runs (from 15 to 35 feet underground) west on Dunsmuir to Richards, north on Richards to Cordova and west on Cordova to the C.P.R. Station and north into the station.
Nearly a mile of electronically controlled belting carries the mail to and from the C.P.R. Station Mail Room in approximately 9 minutes.
Dynamite charges set, skilled miners in new post office tunnel get ready to blast sandstone under Dunsmuir Street. Crews are drilling towards each other fro opposite ends of mail tunnel which will link Canadian Pacific Railway station and block square post office.
By the 1960s, Canada Post stopped using trains for mail transport. Trucks took over, and the tunnel became obsolete. It sat unused for years, occasionally rented out for film shoots and even Halloween events. Eventually, due to structural and safety concerns, the tunnel was filled in.
