To avoid delay of postal matters to and from places served by the Graaf-Reinet branch of the railway, a T.P.O. service was established between Zwartkops Junction and Uitenhage in 1893. The service was withdrawn in 1897 for financial reasons. The service used only one type of postmark.

Probably because of the short period of operation Goldbaltt records only a single example of this postmark. Hagen and Naylor record as having seen only one copy, which is the one illustrated here.

However, the date he records is October 2 1895, whereas the copy in my collection illustrated here is dated earlier. Probably two or three copies exist. Nevertheless the ‘Zwartkops Sorting tender’ postmark is one of the most scarce postmarks of the Postal History of the Cape of Good Hope or at least I consider it so.

This postmark is a single circle of diameter 22 mm and with a dot at the bottom. The wording is “Zwartkops Sorting Tender” and is so spread as to occupy the whole of the perimeter of the circle. This mark (Goldblatt TPO 26 and H&N 6) is dated in two lines.

In 1885 the service reached De Aar and the section from Cape Town to De Aaar was named the Western T.P.O.

The vans were coupled to trains which departed from Cape Town at 5.30 p.m. every day of the week except Fridays and Saturdays. An express or “fast” train left Cape Town on Fridays at 1.15 p.m. Four of the vans proceeded as far as Beaufort west and the other two continued to De Aar.

The Western T.P.O. continued to use the no-name postmarks until about 1891, the “No Name” T.P.O. was renamed the “WESTERN T.P.O.” as it operated over the Western route of the Cape Government railways between Cape Town and De Aar. It carried on well into the twentieth century (until 1950) when T.P.O. were stopped because of expense. The Western T.P.O. operated North of De Aar at times and also on the route De Aar to Naauwpoort and possibly into the Orange Free State on occasion. “UP” in the marks indicated towards Cape Town and “DOWN” away from Cape Town. In the course of the train’s northbound journey from Cape Town, letters, newspapers and parcels were dispatched to all offices in the colony, as well as the Orange Free State and Transvaal. On the return journey, the main duty of the official in charge was to open every mailbag addressed to forward post offices and to sort the correspondence to facilitate speedy delivery on arrival at the terminus.

Mai lbags were made up and handed out at stations en route and mail for Cape Town was sub-sorted into various categories such as government departments, private boxes, poste restante and street deliveries. Foreign mail was sub-sorted for transmission to London, Manchester, Plymouth, Liverpool, Scotland, Ireland and provinces and countries to be served in London. This facilitated the dispatch of overseas mail on Wednesdays, which was accomplished within three hours of the train’s arrival at Cape Town.

Posting of Letters on the Train

The T.P.O vans carried a supply of postage stamps which the public could purchase and mail could be posted on the T.P.O. up to the time of the train’s departure, or at any intermediate station. This was, subject to the payment of 6d. as a late fee over and above the normal rate if the mail bags had already been closed. This was denoted by a Late Fee handstamp (TPO 25). Letters posted on the train are rare although a number of them exist and quite possibly more are waiting to be found in postcard collections.

Registration Service

A registered service was available on the Western T.P.O vans. this registration service was identical to those offered in other post offices of the Cape of Good Hope.

Letters appear on either side of the postmark, but whether these have any significance beyond identifying the handstamp has not been established The roller cancellers (HRD 1 and 2) were intended to deface stamps on newspapers at Grahamstown and were used for this urpose until 1864 or ’65, when they were replaced by the Barred Oval Numeral Cancellers, generally used for defacement purposes. The larger post offices were furnished with the cheap rate matter strikes described above. When the Newspaper Branch Office was established at the G.P.O., Cape Town, it was issued with a special datestamp. This, and future handstamps of its type (NP 1 to 5), incorporated the Letters N.P.B. for Newspaper Branch in their design. NP 1, the earliest handstamp in use, is a box with clipped comers. line. A special handstamp (NP 2) was used when the contents came adrift from the newspaper wrapper. It was struck on the wrapper and contained the information “Posted in N.P.B. without contents”. The first recorded use of NP 1 and 2 appears to be October 1877.

The Letters N.P.B.stand for News Paper Branch.

To identify these marks properly both the illustration and the description should be consulted.

Hagen & Naylor describe thirteen date stamps used for this purpose.

In about 1891 the TPO between Cape Town and De Aar was renamed ‘Western TPO’, reflecting its route of operation on the Western Section of the CGR. Well after the new name has been adopted, the use of ‘No Name’ continued until at least May 1896 (Hagen and Naylor). The service may have operated also on the route De Aar Naauwpoort and after the rail bridge over the Orange River was opened in 1890, as far north as Norvalspont.

Postmarks with the ‘UP’ variety can generally be identified by measuring the width of the letter ‘U’ and the distance between the letters ‘U’ and ‘P’ in ‘UP’. ‘Down’ varieties can be identified by the dimensioning of the space between the ‘D’ and ‘N’ of ‘DOWN’. The ‘TRAVELLING PO’ marks are easily identifiable by their wording and no special varieties exist.

Based on this identification method Hagen & Naylor identified thirteen postmarks as described in the following table.