RMweb Premium corneliuslundie Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 13, 2021 Is it simply that Salop was shorter than Shrewsbury in telegraph messages etc? The same reason that the GWR had its wagon codes and a long list of code words for sentences when used in messages. Jonathan 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 12 hours ago, iands said: Given that the first yellow distant signal (Metropolitan & District) appeared in 1907, the GCR introduced yellow lights in distant signals in 1916 (and yellow arms in 1918) and a 1925 BoT requirement for all distant signals to display yellow lights and yellow arms, but the first traffic lights (with an amber light) didn't appear until 1927, I would argue that it is "highways" that is out of step with the railways! And don't forget that in Britain reputedly the first traffic lights actually used colour light signal heads. So yellow also came first to traffic lights 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said: Is it simply that Salop was shorter than Shrewsbury in telegraph messages etc? The same reason that the GWR had its wagon codes and a long list of code words for sentences when used in messages. Jonathan Exactly so - Salop is a lot shorter to chalk on a van door, it's a lot shorter to use in both written and verbal messages (and it avoids any debate over the correct way to pronounce Shrewsbury ). The GWR (painted) shed code was SLP and that at least made it distinct from other painted shed codes such as SHL used for Southall. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 11 hours ago, Mark Saunders said: I think the French translation was the decider for the name! Salope? Certainly my cleaner's lover's abandoned wife refers to her as such.... Then there is salopette, which sounds like a junior woman of ill-repute, but seems to be a sort of bib-overall for skiers. Language is a funny thing. 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 15 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said: And don't forget that in Britain reputedly the first traffic lights actually used colour light signal heads. ..... I wonder if the mounted them upside down ??!? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Welchester Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 13, 2021 In the Diocese of Lichfield the Archdeacon responsible for the area is the Archdeacon of Salop, whilst the other archdeacons have towns: Lichfield, Stafford and Wolverhampton. However, the area bishop is the Bishop of Shrewsbury. 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said: I wonder if the mounted them upside down ??!? As they still do! If the railway considered the red needed to be closest to the drivers line of sight, why do road vehicle drivers not need this? 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillCav Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 13 minutes ago, Oldddudders said: As they still do! If the railway considered the red needed to be closest to the drivers line of sight, why do road vehicle drivers not need this? A train driver doesn't generally have another train blocking sight of the signal - closest to eye for restrictive aspect is best. A car driver may have a bus / lorry in front - red at top is most visible above high vehicles. That's my understanding of why but other views may be available... Will 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheatley Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 (edited) Salop - used by the GPO for the county and town before the railways so in general use for both. In railway use I presume it meant the town unless preceded by another place name (eg 'Wellington (Salop)') as railways would not normally address goods only to a county. Shrewsbury - 'Mark Steele's in Town' (R4) went there a few years ago, a straw poll of the audience (of locals) revealed a 50:50 split of shroo and shrow. Mind you, half of them probably thought they had a train station as well so not necessarily a reliable indicator. See also recent discussions in the news about whether Peterborough is on the River Neen or River Nenn - it depends who you ask and where they live. Signals - traffic lights have a much wider focus than signals, as they have to be visible from wider angles rather than just the car immediately in front, so it doesn't really matter whether the red is at the top or the bottom. Edited June 13, 2021 by Wheatley 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 Just now, Wheatley said: Salop - used by the GPO for the county and town before the railways so in general use for both. In railway use I presume it meant the town unless preceded by another place name (eg 'Wellington (Salop)' as railways would not normally address goods only to a county. Shrewsbury - 'Mark Steele's in Town' (R4) went there a few years ago, a straw poll of the audience (of locals) revealed a 50:50 split of shroo and shrow. Mind you, half of them probably thought they had a train station as well so not necessarily a reliable indicator. See also recent discussions in the news about whether Peterborough is on the River Neen or River Nenn - it depends who you ask and where they live. The sixties/ seventies staff at Llanelli used to refer to the Central Wales train as the 'Salop'. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickham Green too Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 Of course all this postcode business has confused things ........ apparently the Vale of Rheidol Railway give a locals discount to everyone in the SY postcode - many of whom don't even live in the same country !! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 21 hours ago, Steamport Southport said: Or sidewalk in the US. I was surprised at how seriously they took jaywalking and crossing roads. I got told off by one of those motorcycle cops for trying to cross the road at a reasonably sensible place instead of walking about 100 yards to cross. There was no traffic at all. It was something like "Sir. Use the designated crosswalks!" I believe the perjorative term jaywalking first appeared before the First World War but the laws confining pedestrians to the sidewalks and making crossing the road an offence were lobbied for by American automobile manufacturers in the 1920s who, partly in response to campaigns to limit the speed of cars to reduce pedestrian deaths, wanted to establish the idea that "roads are for cars". The motive was less to prevent pedestrian deaths than to stop them impeding the progress of cars. In Britain, the ancient right for everyone to use the King's/Queen's highway was never challenged in that way. It's another example of how Britain is in many ways a freer country than the USA but it's also worth noting that the rate of pedestrian fatalities (per 100 000 people) in Britain is about half what they are in the US . I'd be interested to know what the situation is in Canada. I found two good article about this here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26073797 and here https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Johnster Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 1 hour ago, WillCav said: A train driver doesn't generally have another train blocking sight of the signal - closest to eye for restrictive aspect is best. A car driver may have a bus / lorry in front - red at top is most visible above high vehicles. That's my understanding of why but other views may be available... Will The reason for railway colour light signals being ‘red bottom’ is that this is the first position that comes into a driver’s line of sight if he is approaching the signal from the other side of an overbridge or tunnel entrance. Or so I learned on my Guards’ induction training course… 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold rodent279 Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 14 minutes ago, The Johnster said: The reason for railway colour light signals being ‘red bottom’ is that this is the first position that comes into a driver’s line of sight if he is approaching the signal from the other side of an overbridge or tunnel entrance. Or so I learned on my Guards’ induction training course… I thought it was also because a build up of snow or ice would obscure the "proceed" aspects first? 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caradoc Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 13 hours ago, Trog said: Did it not originally belong to its own separate joint railway company, funded by several of the mainline companies that profited from the traffic running over it? So if most of your railway company runs over its one and only bridge, numbering it would be a little redundant. It was financed by the North British, Midland, Great Northern and North Eastern Railways, although only the first actually ran trains over it ! Certainly, during my 30 years in Control in Scotland, it not having a number never caused any confusion; Unlike the situation between Dundee and Aberdeen, where the mileages and bridge numbers 'step back' at Kinnaber Junction, resulting in duplicate figures within a few miles (although with different ELRs). 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidlandRed Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 (edited) 44 minutes ago, The Johnster said: The reason for railway colour light signals being ‘red bottom’ is that this is the first position that comes into a driver’s line of sight if he is approaching the signal from the other side of an overbridge or tunnel entrance. Or so I learned on my Guards’ induction training course… Road traffic signals have a different process for showing aspects and in particular, show red, red and amber and green in that order from red. You can argue that red has the highest priority in that as it’s an instruction, and failure to comply has legal implications for the perpetrator as well as potential serious safety consequences for themselves and others. As you go from red to green, you could view it as on your marks, get ready, go - in that order!! It is also the case that the lower signals have a greater chance of being obscured by other traffic. The railway usage is somewhat different as the aspects mean different things and also, drivers shouldn’t (if the signalling is operating normally) see a green followed by another aspect as they approach an individual signal, unlike a motorist. The Salop thing is very interesting - one wonders how many postal letters and packages have been delayed by people stating, for instance Ludlow, Salop - or railway wagons have gone missing or delayed because, for instance they were intended to go to Clee Hill, Salop!! Anything which introduces uncertainty into a system is surely bound to lead to disaster (as anyone who lives in a post code with two sets of near identical house numbers but separate roads/apartment blocks) will attest!! Im guessing no one but railway staff or post office staff ever refer to Salop (Shrewsbury) now (if indeed anyone else ever did) presumably it never has been a town name available for selection when identifying a delivery address in computer applications, or even a valid county name in the same. Didn’t Swindon complicate things further by naming a locomotive County of Salop - surely a contradiction of operational definition? Many footbridges across railways (or roads for that matter), unless an adjacent, separate facility to a road bridge, usually cater for public rights of way, where those designated for pedestrian use only are called footpaths - as opposed to the footways alongside roads - so this terminology is valid in the right situation - I would imagine railway staff come into contact with these owing to footbridges. These are generally, though not exclusively, in rural areas. There are plenty in built up areas also. Edited June 13, 2021 by MidlandRed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanchester Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 23 hours ago, Fat Controller said: Either Frank Muir or Denis Norden used to recount a story of someone in the same carriage to them. The train stopped in the middle of nowhere, the passenger went to the door, opened it, and fell into the cess. He scrambled back on board, muttered something about 'you must think I'm a bloody idiot', something that was confirmed when he opened the door on the other side of the carriage, and fell into the 6-foot. The version I heard was a train stopped on the King Edward Bridge, Newcastle, during the WW2 blackout, with a couple of Free French officers in a compartment. One, assuming he is at the station, steps out and, as he plummets 100 feet to a watery grave, snaps to attention and sings the first lines of the Marseillaise. His colleague, teetering on the brink, looks down and observes "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare". I'll find my own way out. 1 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 (edited) 19 hours ago, iands said: Given that the first yellow distant signal (Metropolitan & District) appeared in 1907, the GCR introduced yellow lights in distant signals in 1916 (and yellow arms in 1918) and a 1925 BoT requirement for all distant signals to display yellow lights and yellow arms, but the first traffic lights (with an amber light) didn't appear until 1927, I would argue that it is "highways" that is out of step with the railways! I've not been able to find out why road signals adopted amber rather than yellow but it is the internationally agreed colour, with red and green, for traffic lights. (1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs) Yellow is also AFAIK internationally agreed as one of the colours for railway signals. Originally it was red for stop, green for caution and white or no indication for all clear. Red and green were the colours of flags used for hand signalling and adopted for mechanical signals. The usual explanation for the change is that the advent of gas lighting mean that lighting for illumination was also white so likely to cause confusion. Yellow would be a different colour from other bright lighting while mistaking a street light for a caution signal was far less serious than mistaking it for a clear signal. It's interesting how international the use of coloured lights in signals seems to have been with reds, green, white used in the same way both in America and in the rest of Europe and changing, though at different times, to red, yellow, green (though some railways used red and green for caution). The change seems to have happened gradually in Britain from around the turn of the 19th/20th century but was later elsewhere. I don't know about other European railways but the French didn't change it until the 1934 Code Verlant was adopted. That also introduced violet (purple) as an absolute stop signal for movements from sidings (so the opposite sense from some British railways' use of purple as a clear to shunt signal) for which the previous looser 1885 code had used yellow. I don't know if violet is used as a signal light colour anywhere else. The fact that the Code Verlant and the 1925 BoT requirement appeared at similar periods suggests that there was some kind of international agreement (probably within the UIC) or perhaps that the railway industry is far more international than most enthusiasts in each country realise. Unfortunately, none of this explains why traffic lights use amber rather than yellow. I wonder if it's something to do with amber being more distinguishable at the closer distances at which traffic lights need to be read and yellow at the longer viewing distances required for railway signals? Edited June 13, 2021 by Pacific231G grammar 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steamport Southport Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 Postcode snobbery is a very really thing. We used to get a lot that insisted that Hale Village is part of Cheshire. It's not, it's part of Speke in Liverpool. But they always used to put HALE CHESHIRE on their letters. A right bunch of Hyacinth Buckets.... We just sent them to the other Hale near Altrincham which is in Cheshire. They sent them back with big letters L24 SPEKE LIVERPOOL 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugd1022 Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 On 09/06/2021 at 08:16, Nearholmer said: It’s too easy to get pointlessly worked-up about this sort of thing, which has been going-on since the dawn of railways, and is unstoppable. I get irritated by the widespread use of the term “loco”, for instance, when the proper term is “locomotive engine”, and always has been. However much it irritates you it is in constant use on the operation side of the job, saying 'locomotive engine' over the phone when talking to the signalman, the duty control manager, the power controller (aka 'loco man') or the TOPS clerk is just tedious and long winded. We also use terms like drag or dead in tow daily which seem to annoy some folk, but you'll be glad to know that nobody as far as I'm aware ever says 'train station! 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugd1022 Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 On 10/06/2021 at 12:11, APOLLO said: Railway content !! Coalville - I think the box still survives (does it ?) Brit15 Yes Mantle Lane 'box is still in regular use, have consumed many a fine brew there over the the last fifteen years or so. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 3 hours ago, rodent279 said: I thought it was also because a build up of snow or ice would obscure the "proceed" aspects first? The original normal arrangement of 4 aspects arranged vertically had green at the bottom, a yellow aspect at the top and red between the two yellows. Thel Southern cluster head signals had the two yellows arranged vertically and red and green placed either side of the horizontal centre line, and I believe the LMS cluster head signals were similar while early LMS 3 aspect heads with the aspects arranged vertically had red at the top. Red was relocated to take the position at the bottom because of concerns over build up of snow on lens hoods but older signals with red in a different position survived fora long time - including one I photographed at Stratford (exGE version thereof) in the early 1990s. The only signals which have the red aspect is specifically arranged to bring in nearer to a Driver's eye level is a ground mounted multiple aspect head. In the case of all straight post signals the height of the signal structure decides which aspect (in a multiple aspect signal) is nearest to a Driver's eye level so it is nonsensical to suggest that red was moved to the bottom for that reason. Gantry mounted multiple aspect signals only acquired red at the bottom as a result of the genera; change in the position of the red aspect. 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium corneliuslundie Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 13, 2021 All of which will become academic as more and more LED signals are installed, effectively the same for the driver as the searchlight signals I remember around Liverpool Street. And then as ETCS makes signals redundant. You will just get lots of lurid arrows lineside. And I am sure I have seen at least one three aspect signal mounted on its side to give visibility under a platform canopy. Jonathan 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Dagworth Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 6 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said: And I am sure I have seen at least one three aspect signal mounted on its side to give visibility under a platform canopy. https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2021/01/18-month-signalling-upgrade-project-at-birmingham-new-street-station.html 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted June 13, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 13, 2021 6 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said: All of which will become academic as more and more LED signals are installed, effectively the same for the driver as the searchlight signals I remember around Liverpool Street. And then as ETCS makes signals redundant. You will just get lots of lurid arrows lineside. And I am sure I have seen at least one three aspect signal mounted on its side to give visibility under a platform canopy. Jonathan You have seen one, in fact it f you went to one particular place there was more than one 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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