Railway Parcel and Letter Stamps are stamps issued by a railway to show payment of the fee for transport of parcels and newspapers between railway stations. Parcel and letter services used to be a popular practice among railways all over the world, but stamps were used in relatively few. The stamps were usually affixed to a waybill, rather than to the item being shipped, and often retained by the railway and later destroyed, so many were not easily available to collectors. Material to be carried on trains usually had to be delivered to the originating station and collected from the receiving one, though some railway companies offered delivery on the receiving end for an additional fee.
Many of these stamps had images of rail vehicles on them, so they are popular among rail stamp collectors. My goal here is to show a representative sample of the ones with trains, and to give general information about what is available overall.
I know of no country where railroads still use railway parcels stamps or railway letter stamps apart from concoctions for tourists issued in the UK and in Australia.
