The railway from Melbourne to Geelong was opened in June 1857 with service extended to Ballarat in 1862.  The first evidence of service on TPO10 is in 1882. No uptrain service is recorded for TPO10.  Material is rare and little is known about the scheduling of the service or the stations that may have been served. TPO10 service ended in 1889.

TPO's 1 and 2 also served along this route.

T10-D1 (Downtrain)

TPO10 is the rarest of all the TPO's that served Victoria. It operated between Melbourne and Ballarat, but no examples of uptrain usage have been recorded and downtrain examples are very rare. The earliest recorded date is April 30, 1880 and the latest date recorded is September 22, 1889.  Several strikes on stamps are known and a few covers.

Collectors must be VERY careful to segregate faint strikes of MG19 as these are sometimes mistakenly identified as MG10

The Early and Late Record Dates shown are those published by Purves, or otherwise confirmed to me by various TPO collectors based on inventory in their respective collections.

Rarity factors shown have been deduced from the aggregate inventory of several major collections in this field, exceeding 10,000 strikes on loose stamps and 1050 covers in total; however, the statements on relative rarity are observations only and no warranty of accuracy shall be implied.

Reference: Victoria: The Travelling Post Offices and Their Markings (1865-1912) by JWRPurves (1979

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