The Railway Museum (Dutch: Het Spoorwegmuseum) in Utrecht is the Dutch National Railway Museum.
It was established in 1927 and since 1954 has been housed in the former Maliebaan station. The museum currently owns a large and varied collection of rolling stock.

Postal Electric Unit mP 3031 of the type Motorpostrijtuig, serie mP 3001 - 3035, built in 1966 by Werkspoor, Amsterdam, at the Het Spoorwegmuseum / Railway Museum in Utecht Maliebaan former Station. July 15th, 2022.

From 1956, 25 block box motor cars from the years 1926 - 1930, which were previously used in passenger service, were converted into motor mail cars on a trial basis. As a result, passenger trains could be less hindered by postal transport. When the test proved successful, it was decided in 1963 to purchase new motor mail carriages. In 1965 and '66 there were 35 which formed the series mP 3001 - 3035. They offered a floor area of ​​41 m2 and a payload of 15 tons. Three large sliding doors were fitted on both sides for loading and unloading the roll containers with mail bags. However, there was also a small sorting department. The power of the motor cars was large enough to pull 200 tons: four loaded postal carriages or eight freight wagons. The main color was brown, the color of the freight stock. In 1975 a larger part of the front was painted yellow.

These freight cars came in 1978 when 60 special postal freight cars class 242 2 000 - 063 type Hbbkkss were purchased, so that mail transport could be handled completely independently of passenger traffic. However, they were not brown, but painted red. The drawn and streamlined postal carriages were withdrawn from service. The museum owns resp. the P 7920 and the streamlined P 8502.

From 1982, the motor mail cars were painted PTT red, which made them better suited to the also red mail cars.
Much of the mail transport took place at night.
Due to the increasing number of nightly shutdowns after 1990 for track maintenance, postal transport was seriously hampered. In 2001 the PTT (KPN) decided to make all postal transport by road, so that all postal carriages and wagons became redundant. The outflow started in 2002. In that year, the Railway Museum acquired motor mail carriage mP 3031 in serviceable condition. The 242 2 043 of the postal wagons has been preserved at the museum.

Photo by Guido Allieri (guido@allieri.com)