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“Illiterate “symbols


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Hi all . I was thinking about the so called illiterate symbols used on wagons . Are they really so that railway workers could identify wagons ? Surely learning to identify wagons with large letters on the sides would be just as easy as learning the symbols themselves? Also not all companys  used them as far as I’m aware so is there another use/reason for them? Are we underestimating the intelligence of the average railway worker?

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Not sure what the thread you've found says, but there was an article in the HMRS Journal several years ago suggesting that they were more by way of a 'trade mark', these originally being used by merchants to identify their sacks, barrels etc in pre-railway times.   railway workers would have to have a high degree of literacy, as they were required to record the numbers of the wagons passing through the yards, write way bills etc.

 

Jim

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I am going to disagree Jim, just as I did in the previous thread.

 

Yes clerks and foremen were very literate, but the guy shovelling coal out of a wagon, or unloading crates and barrels out of an open?  Well probably yes, but maybe not always.  

 

Today around 10% of an educated population has problems with reading  - from total illiteracy through to dyslexia and particular character blindness and all ports in between.   Why do we think Victorian Britain would be better?  Staff selection would surely reduce the problem but I doubt it could eliminate it.  

 

If they were just trade marks, why put them high up on open wagons?  Just where they would be covered by the sheeting?  I don't buy it as the total reason.  Sorry.

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I was only pointing out (from memory) the tenure and conclusions of the article.  I am unaware of such symbols having been used by any of the pre-grouping Scottish companies (or their constituants), but then literacy levels in Scotland were relatively high due to the Church of Scotland's policy of a school in every parish.

 

Jim

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20 minutes ago, Regularity said:

What about the NBR quartre-foil, Jim?

Oops, yes, forgot about that, but then it was based in that City in the East I almost named somewhere earlier. 

 

Jim 

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2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Oops, yes, forgot about that, but then it was based in that City in the East I almost named somewhere earlier. 

 

Jim 

I suspect that railway was simply ashamed of its name. Unlike the proper Scottish railways which must of course have been better educated!

 

John

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‘Brands’ of various kinds were, as is pointed out above, used for all sorts of things well before Victorian times, so I surmise that the idea carried forward, without overt thought about literacy or otherwise, but then probably broke down as follows:

 

Wagon with brand of four-leaf clover arrives in yard in small village in Sussex, for the first time ever. So, what is the person doing the ‘booking’ to put-down as the return destination? Hmmm ...... leaf through general appendix; can’t find it; ask around etc etc. 
 

“It ‘oud be a whole lot simpler if they jis’ writ the name o’ the railway on these ‘ere trucks!”

 

In short, an “illiterate” symbol might necessitate more literacy than words or initials, which even an illiterate person could copy down as pictures and have understood by others.

Edited by Nearholmer
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23 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I was only pointing out (from memory) the tenure and conclusions of the article.  I am unaware of such symbols having been used by any of the pre-grouping Scottish companies (or their constituants), but then literacy levels in Scotland were relatively high due to the Church of Scotland's policy of a school in every parish.

 

Jim

22 hours ago, Regularity said:

What about the NBR quartre-foil, Jim?

 

 

22 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Oops, yes, forgot about that, but then it was based in that City in the East I almost named somewhere earlier. 

 

Jim 

What about the Highland, too?  A colourful insignia, with shields in a circle.  Admittedly rarely seen in photos, but it did exist.

And the Caledonian had its own "mystery mark"; a sad emoji symbol as noted in the CR Wagons supplement.

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

In short, an “illiterate” symbol might necessitate more literacy than words or initials, which even an illiterate person could copy down as pictures and have understood by others.

Slightly off-topic, but this reminds me of the days when I worked on site, and there was over-night security.  For a period we had a lovely Maltese guard, who was most probably illiterate, and English was his second (or third) language.  During the night he had to enter a brief report into his log book every hour or two.  It started well when he copied a suitable entry written by a previous guard,  and this first attempt was quite legible, but, since he was copying the shapes, rather than the letters, things got rather out of hand, because instead of referring to the original text, he dutifully tried to copy his previous attempt, and each time it diverged further from any known alphabet, and ended up looking more like Sanskrit! No doubt our Victorian ancestors probably could manage up to four letters, although anything from the Hull and Barnsley, carrying its full original title, would prove a challenge.

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1 hour ago, Nick Holliday said:

And the Caledonian had its own "mystery mark"; a sad emoji symbol as noted in the CR Wagons supplement.

Indeed, but that was just a small mark carved into the wood.   It's only seen on a few wagons and it's origin and purpose remain a mystery.

 

On Maltese, a friend of ours went on holiday to Malta and took time to learn how to ask for her bus ticket in Maltese.  The bus driver replied (in English) saying there was no need for her to do that as everyone spoke English!

 

Jim

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I just think of these things as logos. You see logos every day - literally - it doesn't mean we're all illiterate.

 

The GCR did not just paint its five pointed star on wagons. It was part of the house flag on its ships, for example, and it was used on certain posters, which implies it meant something to Joe Public. The McDonald arches are better known, as a result of modern communication techniques, but they do a very similar job.

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Logo comes, of course, from the Greek, “logos”, meaning (in one definition) word*, so by definition it doesn’t imply illiteracy!
 

* As in, “In the beginning was the word.”

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On 18/10/2020 at 13:56, Poggy1165 said:

I just think of these things as logos. You see logos every day - literally - it doesn't mean we're all illiterate.

 

The GCR did not just paint its five pointed star on wagons. It was part of the house flag on its ships, for example, and it was used on certain posters, which implies it meant something to Joe Public. The McDonald arches are better known, as a result of modern communication techniques, but they do a very similar job.

 

Some years ago, driving from Slough to Windsor with my (then) 5-y-o grandson, who had been demonstrating that he remembered the songs he had learned at school, we passed a brightly lit fast food outlet. "Oh, look", child said "It's Old MacDonald's".  

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Excuse me if I consider this to be an act of academic fantasy.

 

https://www.teacherboards.co.uk/community/adult-illiteracy-in-the-uk/#:~:text=According to the National Literacy Trust a major,in 5 adults struggle to read and write.

 

So if both are right (and I really doubt your source) where did it all go wrong between 1910 and 2020?

 

I have had the "privilege" of working with lower grade workers in the UK, Germany and France and the numbers look to be very much the same in all those countries.  The actual definitions are different in each country but we always seem to come out at 10-15% (or 16% in this link).  

It is  problem that is truly underestimated by the majority who can read and write with a degree of proficiency.  I can however tell you that these people do not sit in the mess room with a sign tattooed on their forehead saying I cannot read.  They buy a newspaper and leaf through it - looking at the pictures.  When a notice goes up on the notice board they listen in to what is going on and then maybe ask questions to get up to speed.

In my professional life I personally came across 3 warehousemen who would fall into the category of having reading difficulty.   In each case some of the team around them were aware and they were protected until the major b0110ck was dropped.  Two could not read or write at all.  One had a number blindness and could not differentiate between a 3 and a 5 - perhaps you might not consider this as a literacy problem.

 

So back to my question;

So if both are right (and I really doubt your source) where did it all go wrong between 1910 and 2020?

We discovered dyslexia for one and realised that Victorian nirvana was a myth. 

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9 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

So if both are right (and I really doubt your source) where did it all go wrong between 1910 and 2020?


It didn’t: the goalposts moved in a positive direction, added to which there are multiple different definitions/standards of literacy anyway.

 

The best studies seem to conclude, unsurprisingly, that adult reading comprehension is distributed on some sort of bell/normal curve, with a small percentage effectively unable to comprehend even the most simple words and sentences, most people spread across a broadish middle, and another tiny percentage who can disentangle the most dense and complex material. That has probably been true for the past century or more.

 

As an anecdotal example of ‘old times’ literacy, my maternal grandfather had “1920s ordinary school-leaver” literacy, and a certificate to prove it, at aged 14. He never really moved beyond that - he was an intelligent and very skilled man, but his trade was as a nurseryman, progressing over time to become head-gardener at the estate of a peer, and he learned everything by word of mouth and reading what I would categorise as very simple English. He would read the newspaper, but not a broad-sheet, and you could tell he was taking it step-wise. Ditto with his RHS journals. My guesstimate is that his literacy would now be classed as 80th percentile 11 year old. Anything in the way of complex paperwork was dealt with by my grandmother who was “a grammar school girl”.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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In my day job I have to deal with people through the written word. No matter how simply I express something I remain amazed at the number of people who will not read something or, if they have, they then contact me to ask for an explanation. Functional illiteracy is a huge problem for society. Schools are loathe to give up on students (looks bad for the teachers) so they'll keep them until the minimum school leaving age requirement is met and let them go with a certificate that says they've completed that requirement. What it means in many cases is that they have simply been at school for whatever number of years is the legislative requirement. It isn't cynicism on my part just a recognition that that is how the system works. 

 

Also in today's virtual world of communication all they need is the capacity to look at pictures and be sharp enough to follow what the majority are doing. But then I suspect that human society has always been that way.

 

Most tertiary education now turns out people educated in vocational skills rather than intellectual skills - witness the huge range of courses built around business management, marketing, design, advertising, media etc. In the not too distant past tertiary institutions were turning out people trained to think logically and apply scientific methods to their professions. Things like business practice, marketing, accounting and the others I mentioned etc. were things that any halfway ambitious 14 year old apprentice shop assistant picked up by learning on the job.

 

Our current economic development did not come about because of people in marketing or business management, it came about through the application of complex scientifically derived data in a range of disciplines. We could save on education costs across society and still achieve the same economic results if we just accepted that vocational courses which are the main product of our tertiary institutions were replaced with simple apprenticeships. Young people would then be able to select their own level of achievement rather than suffer constant embarrassment by having to compete with the few who do have the ability to comprehend complex ideas. The best and brightest would still maintain the input needed to keep our economies and society moving on, while the rest would be fitted into whatever jobs their skill levels allow. Which is actually how it works out now - the saving would result from admitting the reality and stop the diversion of vast sums of money into needless tertiary education in subjects that don't need it, and concentrate that money in the subjects that do matter.    

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4 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

Schools are loathe to give up on students (looks bad for the teachers) so they'll keep them until the minimum school leaving age requirement is met and let them go with a certificate that says they've completed that requirement. What it means in many cases is that they have simply been at school for whatever number of years is the legislative requirement. It isn't cynicism on my part just a recognition that that is how the system works. 

 

 

 

No, that is a recognition of how the system does not work.

 

There is no point in letting children leave primary school without the basic tools to cope with five years of secondary school. That is not only letting them down but they then hold back the learning of others.

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This is a first-class place to start if you want to get into this subject properly https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/

 

At this point in any discussion of literacy, I find it impossible to hold back a personal rant: The current UK (or it it just English?) National Curriculum has got some of this badly wrong. In an attempt to do better than some exceedingly lacklustre and ineffective teaching that went on during the 1980/90s, the curriculum at primary level now places far too much emphasis on learning formal grammatical concepts, and far too little on being able to produce good, clear, logical, understandable English. The affect of this is to make it much harder than it ought to be for many children in the early years of secondary school to provide good answers to "written questions" in subjects like science, history, and geography. Much of the blame sits with Mr M G, but by no means all of it.

 

Kevin [parent and formerly a school governor]

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One possible explanation for the use of illiteracy marks might be for ease of recognition on the home line rather than precise identification on a foreign line i.e. this is one of ours, rather than this is one of theirs. A non-railway example is  the resurgent Wehrmacht in the 1930s using 'panzer grey' as the colour for ALL vehicles and the related field grey for uniforms, not because of the camouflage properties of these colours but because every other European army (i.e.  their potential enemies) used green and khaki - grey=friend, anything else=foe. 

 

Returning to pre-grouping illiteracy symbols, these seem to have most prevalent on the big coal carrying lines (L&YR, LNWR, NBR) with the NER being the exception and I wonder whether the latter's monopolistic approach and restrictions on the use of PO wagons might have to something to do with the NER not using an illiteracy mark -  an example of if it's a wagon and it's grey, then it's obviously ours ? Also, the NER's neighbours with whom there was probably the most interchange traffic were the NBR, L&Y, LNWR (grey wagons with illiteracy marks) and the GNR (red wagons) and so would be easily identified as such.

 

It's also interesting that with the one exception of the 4-4-2Ts,  the LNWR never put it's name on it's engines, presumably on the basis that if you worked on the LNWR, it was obvious that any black engine was LNWR.  

Edited by CKPR
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I think one has to remember also that before the Great War, which saw the introduction of pooling of railway company wagons, the vast majority of wagons would be of the home company, or PO mineral wagons. Any foreign wagon would be worked back to its home system empty and as soon as possible. Obviously there were exception, such as at exchange sidings, or south of the river, where most manufactured goods would be arriving in the wagons of the northern companies. 

 

Add to your list the North Staffordshire Railway, whose wagons displayed the Staffordshire knot, but also the Brighton. I don't think the connection with mineral traffic really stands up as these symbols were used on all goods stock and most mineral traffic was being carried in PO wagons - certainly on the LNWR. The Midland got into the business of conveying coal in its own wagons by the expedient of buying up the PO wagons on its system; the Midland never used a symbol but it did indicate its ownership of the bought up wagons by painting M R in very large letters on the side - which is in fact the origin of displaying company initials in large letters on wagons. The Midland's Scottish partners, the North British and Glasgow & South Western, seem to have been among the earliest companies to copy the practice, in the early 1890s. One could see the initials M R as a symbol or logo, if one whishes. 

 

The primary indication of ownership of a wagon was the company name or initials on the solebar numberplate. The only significant exception I can think of to this was the Great Western, which didn't use cast numberplates until late in the 19th century and then had separate G.W.R. and number-plates bolted to the side of the wagon. As long as it had been building wood framed wagons, the number was cut into the solebar; I think on iron/steel framed wagons it was punched on. I'm not sure when the rectangular cast solebar numberplates came in.

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