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Postal bosses have defended a decision to axe nightly mail trains passing through Exeter to London Paddington after more than a century of operation.

The Royal Mail has been running its 50 ‘travelling post offices’ on Britain’s rail network, including the Great Western main line, since the mid-19th Century. But it now says trains are no longer economic or reliable.

Ending the service could cost around 70 jobs at sorting offices and rail freight depots in Plymouth and Cornwall.

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail, yesterday attacked the Government over its handling of the rolling out of the “universal bank” which is intended to reduce the number of people without a bank account and also boost the finances of the Post Office.

Mr Leighton put the blame at the door of the Government for delays in advertising the new “bank” and also for the complicated process customers have to follow if they want to take out one of its new accounts through the Post Office.

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail, is on Wednesday expected to spell out a series of radical reforms to Britain’s regulators. In what will be interpreted as a sideswipe at Graham Corbett, the postal regulator, Mr Leighton will tell a House of Lords select committee that the Government needs to keep a tighter rein on the regulators.