London's vintage Mail Rail to open to public as part of new Postal Museum in 2017

London's Mail Rail, the esoteric underground railway network system, will be opened to the public for the first time in 2017, as part of a new Postal Museum. The heritage attraction will see two Mail Rail trains return on the tracks that have been kept away from the public eye for almost a century.

Passengers would be ferried on the secret London underground railway network on a 1km journey, from the new Postal Museum, located close to the Royal Mail sorting office in Mount Pleasant. Director of Postal Museum Adrian Steel, while launching their new website said that the primary role of the museum would be to attract people by telling them hitherto unknown stories about the history of the Mail Rail service.

He said, "Our new home will reveal the stories of the service, the people, the vital role postal communication has played over 500 years. Five centuries of social history from an institution that changed the world."

Mail Rail – the world's first electric, driverless railway network – began operations in London in 1927, connecting mail sorting offices from Paddington to Whitechapel. Following the closure of numerous sorting offices around the city, the mail service was shut in 2003.

However, thanks to years of fundraising, it will be up and running again for the general public. The Postal Museum will reveal the 500-year-old history of Britain's entire postal network, outlining major events from the appointment of the first postmaster general by Henry VIII to modernised mail services offered today.

Steel further claimed, "We [the new Postal Museum and Mail Rail] aim to become a high class, immersive and innovative experience which everyone will want to visit."

Tickets for entry to the Postal Museum and the Mail Rail exhibit will be priced at £9 ($13). However, visitors who wish to take a ride on the renovated Mail Rail train, will have to shell out an additional £5.5.