The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

22 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

It was 491ºR here this morning; frost on the car windshield! BRRR!

there was ice on my windscreen this morning as well.   

 

As to superintendents.  A friend in the job and i once decided to come up with collective nouns for the various ranks.  This is what we came up with.

 

An absence of Constables.  

A conspiracy of Sergeants.

A worry of Inspectors

You never saw Ch Insps together so we didn't bother with them

A vacancy of Superintendents.   Just look in their eyes.

 

Jamie

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

In Spain a few years ago a tram line was being upgraded to a higher voltage and new stock was on it's way.  That went fine until someone threw the wrong breaker and all the existing trams on the system were fried.

 

Jamie

Melbourne, former home to this chap, has the world's largest tram network.  It also has a suburban rail network.  Each operates on its own voltage and runs on its own track gauge.  Trains run according to fixed signals; trams largely run on line-of-sight.  

 

Melbourne is also home to three of the last tram / train crossings in the world; there were once more and there were four while I lived there but a level crossing replacement program is steadily removing them with only one not yet scheduled for extinction.  

 

At each tram / train crossing, known as a "square" locally, there is a control cabin.  There is a hefty amount of insulation suspended aloft to separate the electrical systems.  Line voltage by default is 1500Vdc for trains, which run on Irish broad gauge 5' 3" track (1600mm locally as Australia is metric) with red / green lights and derailers set against approaching trams.  Despite the default position trams are more frequent than trains in most locations.  Trams run on Stephenson or Standard Gauge 1484mm or 4' 8½".  

 

When a train approaches it will trigger the automated boom-gate controls, road warning lights and bells.  Ordinarily in Melbourne the signals will be clear even with boom gates raised (!!) but approaching a tram square the signal remains at stop until the crossing controller has interlock from the tram stop lights and confirmed the derailer is open.  The square controller then releases the train signal and replaces it to stop after the train passes.  

 

When a tram approaches it must stop short of the derailer.  The driver sounds the gong.  The controller checks no trains are nearby and if the rail route is clear then the overhead voltage will be switched to 750V.  Until this is done the tram derailer cannot be set "normal" and the controlling traffic signal changed to green.  When 750V is selected the rail signals are locked at red interlocked with an insulated section to ensure 1500V doesn't reach the tram.  Once the tram has crossed the controller must re-set for rail operation unless another tram is to follow immediately and the rail route remains clear.  

 

At Kooyong and Riversdale two tracks cross two tracks.  At Glenhuntly, probably uniquely in the world now, three rail tracks cross two tram tracks and the rail route is used by heavy freight trains as well as suburban passenger services.  Gardiner (2 crossing 2) was grade-separated around ten years ago but was within my time there.  There are advanced plans to remove Glenhuntly and Kooyong squares leaving only Riversdale which is tricker because of the local geography - it's on a steep hillside.  Get there if you can.

 

No system is foolproof.  More than one tram has bee fried on a rail crossing when it received an unexpected dose of 1500V.  If a train were to draw the 750V tram current it would probably stall as this is insufficient for the on-board computers to manage its movement.  

 

Two tram tracks cross three rail tracks at Glenhuntly

 

The tram square control cabin at Glenhuntly; the third rail track is off-shot to its left.  Can you spot the different track gauges? 

 

Crossing pans in the rail / tram overhead; each is about 20kgs of iron

 

Comeng train approaches Glenhuntly on the three-track section.  Unfenced suburban rail lines are fairly common in Melbourne

 

Xtrapolis train on Gardiner square

 

Tram derailer at Glenhuntly; set to allow the tram to proceed but something has run off there at some time - check the road surface! 

 

Tram squares suffer very heavy wear and tear; this is Gardiner.  Remember it's a main road as well. 

 

Gardiner square during grade-separation works in its final week of use; 15 means 15 km/h which slows trains right down

 

More evidence of grade-separation at Gardiner with the trough for the new station nearing completion

 

Tram's eye-view approaching Gardiner rail square.  

 

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Gwiwer

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

It'll be in his poo....

 

Problem is that was almost forty years ago.

[Happy Hippo]

54 minutes ago, br2975 said:

 

 

Alec, the Super mentioned above was well aware of this, so during the day, Alec would scour the nick, topping up Bob's flagons with cold tea.

. 

Now, as  for Jamie's 'super' having an 'en-suite dubs' - I cannot recall working at any station in South Wales (except one, Cardiff Central) where the boss had his own bog.

 

Did Super Alec have the bottle to re bottle Dark for his own consumption at a later time, or did he sacrifice the wait and down it immediately on the grounds that he was looking after the welfare of a subordinate officer?

 

I will have to ask my brother whether he has private facilities, or whether it's a rusty old Elsan, surrounded by hessian sacking, just off Porthcawl prom!

[laurenceb]

13 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Spoilsport.....

There are rules about returning grandbrats in the condition that they were delivered

[SM42]

In the interests of celebrating Mrs SM42's impending birthday we have just returned from the in laws where large amounts of assorted cakes and vodka have been consumed. 

 

I am feeling with little wobbly at the moment and predict a good night's sleep ahead.

 

I may not be back here this evening. If I am I may make less sense than usual.

 

I love you all

 

Andy

[PhilJ W]

When I lived in Romford we had a local beat bobby who was very fond of the juice. He used to pop into our club for a crafty pint while on duty. He used to take his pint in the beer store, just as well as one evening while he was enjoying his pint his sergeant popped his head round the door and asked "Have you seen PC R******n? only his bike is leaning against the wall outside." 

[figworthy]

51 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

There are rules about returning grandbrats in the condition that they were delivered

 

I thought that you were supposed to return them full of sugar, and with noisy toys.

 

Disclaimer, I have no grandbrats, so are only going on what I've been told by others.

 

Adrian

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

there was ice on my windscreen this morning as well.   

 

Frosty here last night and light snow this morning. Full sun now!

 

The errant switch lock keys have been discovered in the lathe toolchest. I looked in that drawer at least twice yesterday and didn't see them. My excuse is they are a bit smaller and less conspicuous than I remembered.

[simontaylor484]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

There was definitely grade separation in Police Station offices.  Only a Superintendent's came with an en suite loo.  The trick was to use it on nights and not tell him.

 

Then the nick was downgraded and the office was occupied b a chief Inspector.  That went fine until they were rebuilding the front counter underneath.  The stupid pratt was told not to use the loo.  Of course such things were beyond his ken.  The workmen were beneath him and were not al all happy.  I had a very good laugh though.

 

Jamie

So it's true then that sh1t rolls downhill

[simontaylor484]

I did hear a story at the Council when they used to jet drains that an Estate in Wakefield was been jetted. Some poor unfortunate was lifted off the pot by a fountain of brown stuff, used sanitary wear and other delights.

 

Another tale involved what was termed a " green card" employee who was only meant to work in a certain park where there were toilet facilities. Anyway one day a bright spark of a manager decided to send him out working on the streets. He ended up knocking on a house door to use the facilities. Allegedly he had managed to get sh1t everywhere like it had literally hit the fan. Carpets curtains towels the lot covered in it

 

[Adam88]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

I did hear a story at the Council when they used to jet drains that an Estate in Wakefield was been jetted. Some poor unfortunate was lifted off the pot by a fountain of brown stuff, used sanitary wear and other delights.

 

Another tale involved what was termed a " green card" employee who was only meant to work in a certain park where there were toilet facilities. Anyway one day a bright spark of a manager decided to send him out working on the streets. He ended up knocking on a house door to use the facilities. Allegedly he had managed to get sh1t everywhere like it had literally hit the fan. Carpets curtains towels the lot covered in it

 

 

Far, far TMI Simon.

[iL Dottore]

17 hours ago, Northmoor said:

…When I joined an agency of the MoD in the mid-90s, I worked in an old building where some offices had carpet, some had areas of carpet under some desks and some had none.  This was because the different grades had different entitlements…

 

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

The grade separation (a term in alternative use in the railway industry!) that you identify also existed in railway offices. Exactly the same distinctions, with chairs w arms and bits of carpet. I think it was dying out by the '80s, but the Divisions - early '60s to 1984 - were rigid bastions of such trifles. …

I encountered such petty and pedantic differentiation/separation when I did a short spell as a “Clerical Assistant“ at British Telecom in the early 80s, after completing my studies in the US (and before getting first of my Locum jobs at the NHS). Apart from having to sign the Official Secrets Act (not that I was allowed anywhere near anything confidential or sensitive), It was also my re-introduction to the wonderful world of the British class system (something I was not really aware of when growing up in the UK being just a child). I found the whole thing ridiculous and I am sure I annoyed more than a few people by being willing to talk to anybody, no matter the rank or position.

 

I know that I certainly worried my boss at the time for two reasons: I was more intelligent and better educated than he was, and I had (and still have) the American “can do” attitude towards work which is basically  “if you can do the job and the job needs to be done, you just do it”  Demarcation has always seemed to me to be about 95% “stoopid”. I remember him almost having a stroke from apoplexy when I suggested that a process - which involved a document leaving my desk, going to 2 other departments before returning to my desk for final action - could be made more efficient and faster by my desk simply going straight to the final action, with a cc to the other two departments.

 

Strangely enough, although I remember quite a lot about the work and the working environment of that time I actually don’t remember anything about the food I ate or where I ate it (I dimly recall a sandwich bar was involved).

 

Moving to Switzerland and joining a Swiss company where the emphasis was (is) on your abilities, experience and willingness to work and where hard work was (is) recognised and rewarded, was probably one of the best moves I’ve made in my life.

[iL Dottore]

And whilst on the subject of rewards for great performance, I heard through the grapevine that someone at my old company was given an award of SFr.1 million (about £820,000) for coming up with a process that would save the company about £50 million on a yearly basis.

 

Now that’s what I call appreciation…

[AndyID]

37 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 the American “can do” attitude towards work

 

 

Perhaps not as prevalent as you might imagine. The first outfit I worked for in the US rewarded me quite handsomely for sorting out a serious problem that was about to torpedo the division (it was part of a major US conglomerate). All the engineers were doing their jobs but the heads of the various mechanical, digital, analog and regulatory departments were all in "it's not my end of the boat that's sinking" mode.

 

It became clear quite rapidly that they were all so specialized that they had little appreciation of how all of these things interact and and how those interactions must be anticipated in the design. I ran into similar problems at all the US companies I worked for. I suspect there is a bit of a gap in the education system for engineers in the US.

 

 

 

[SM42]

I suspect many large companies or other organisations suffer from each department doing their thing without considering it might cut across the work of others or need their input with the result that a lot gets planned and canned. 

 

The  reasons for this are many from empire building to  lack of training, poor training, inexperience, poor resourcing and organisational inertia.

 

The front line / shop floor (the lowest paid generally) always end up trying to sort stuff out in the best interests of the bottom line or sometimes just throw their hands in the air, moan and move on.

 

Any feedback gets listened to (maybe) and /or ignored whilst the higher echelons complain about the grunts being inefficient. 

 

The solution is obviously an extra layer of management to ensure the managers are properly managing those inefficient oiks who lack the right attitude and are holding the company bsck

 

I don't expect things to change.

 

Andy

In hangover land

[SM42]

It has been announced that we are heading into the city centre today and to the supermarket out of town later. 

 

In classic silo mentality it also means we will be nowhere near a model shop, unless I can divert us down one particular street that is a little out of our way. 

 

However she is wise to my ways and I may not get away with it. ☹️

 

It seems that as it's her birthday I have to buy her a present.

Buying myself one for her birthday is, apparently, frowned upon.

 

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

I once spent time on a Royal Naval warship carrying out an efficiency review.

 

One of the issues we highlighted was the amount of time spent with documentation moving from one part of the ship to another.

 

These days it would be via a computer terminal, but back then the desk top PC was not the machine it is today, and the solution had to be 'cheap'.

 

The areas concerned were next to each other, separated by a thin metal wall, but the route from one to the other was via the typical warship's rabbit warren of passages.

 

Having checked the ship's plans and finding out that both areas were within the same watertight compartment, we suggested that the offices were combined by the simple expedient of  a doorway  being cut through the steel wall.

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

And whilst on the subject of rewards for great performance, I heard through the grapevine that someone at my old company was given an award of SFr.1 million (about £820,000) for coming up with a process that would save the company about £50 million on a yearly basis.

 

Now that’s what I call appreciation…

He wasn't working for the Ford motor company then. They often asked for suggestions from the shop floor to save on production costs but they only paid the equivalent of a days pay. Some suggestions saved them millions. But one caused a few problems, back in the 60's a suggestion was made that the stainless steel clips holding the trim to the bodies with ones of mild steel. This saved pennies per car but over a production run that was thousands of pounds. Then the problems began to show up, the clips rusted and the trim began falling off but even worse the rust spread to the adjacent body panels.

[Mike Bellamy]

22 hours ago, Northmoor said:

 This was because the different grades had different entitlements;

 

The same applied at Lloyds Bank back in the 1970s and early 1980s. When I got engaged to a member of staff, I was immediately moved to another branch (Grantham to Leicester) as we were not allowed to work with each other. All transactions had to be approved by two members of staff and so we could countersign each others work to rob our customers!  We married (and still are 44 years later) and bought a house in Leicester. Two years later I was told I had to go to Derby - when looking at houses, I was told that a cheap staff mortgage was only available if I bought a semi-detached house (previously we had an end of terrace) but the amount spent didn't matter as long as I didn't buy a detached house as they were only for managers. A couple of years later the bank started doing commercial mortgages for customers in competition with building societies and all restrictions were removed - but the very cheap rate was increased. At around the same time they started advertising jobs for the first time instead of managers shuffling staff around the region like pieces in a game of chess - I was always a pawn . . 

.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Mike Bellamy

[bbishop]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

I encountered such petty and pedantic differentiation/separation when I did a short spell as a “Clerical Assistant“ at British Telecom in the early 80s, after completing my studies in the US (and before getting first of my Locum jobs at the NHS). Apart from having to sign the Official Secrets Act (not that I was allowed anywhere near anything confidential or sensitive), It was also my re-introduction to the wonderful world of the British class system (something I was not really aware of when growing up in the UK being just a child). I found the whole thing ridiculous and I am sure I annoyed more than a few people by being willing to talk to anybody, no matter the rank or position.

 

I know that I certainly worried my boss at the time for two reasons: I was more intelligent and better educated than he was, and I had (and still have) the American “can do” attitude towards work which is basically  “if you can do the job and the job needs to be done, you just do it”  Demarcation has always seemed to me to be about 95% “stoopid”. I remember him almost having a stroke from apoplexy when I suggested that a process - which involved a document leaving my desk, going to 2 other departments before returning to my desk for final action - could be made more efficient and faster by my desk simply going straight to the final action, with a cc to the other two departments.

 

Strangely enough, although I remember quite a lot about the work and the working environment of that time I actually don’t remember anything about the food I ate or where I ate it (I dimly recall a sandwich bar was involved).

 

 

 

Flavio only signed the OSA once, I signed it four times!

 

I worked for 24 years for the PO then for BT, mainly in computer finance.  The issue that Flavio describes was one of job inflation, where managers attempted to increase their staff numbers in order to achieve their own promotion.  It wasn't driven by the unions but they were happy to go along with it.  So if a new task came along, perhaps one hour a day, it wasn't a quick re-orgination, but no, a new post was created.

 

Privatisation dealt with that - and ultimately - me.

 

So far as the culture was concerned, from my start in 1977 everyone was first names, we had the same furniture (one could choose armed or armless chairs), managers had offices (which is what the staff wanted as well), senior managers had a conference table.  If the door was closed, one knocked and waited, mainly to give the manager time to wake up.

 

Bill

 

 

[Tony_S]

I think I have mentioned this before in connection with workplace hierarchy long ago. London Transport were having a problem with a gearbox on a bridge. Dad worked for the company that had originally made the part many years before. Anyway so Dad whose job was something like “product design engineer”and the managing director who was a metallurgist went down one weekend. When they arrived at the LT offices they were informed of the different dining and lavatory facilities available as one of them was a company director. Dad’s boss informed them they would use the same facilities, he didn’t care which they offered but it was same or nothing. 
 

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, bbishop said:

 

… If the door was closed, one knocked and waited, mainly to give the manager time to wake up.

 

Bill

 

 

When Matthew moved to study in Ireland he said he wasn’t sure about what an open office door signified. At Leicester University , an academics open door meant “available to chat”, at the University of Utrecht it didn’t. He mentioned to the admin staff at Maynooth that his supervisor always had her door open and would talk but he wondered if she were perhaps just being nice rather than say “go away”. The admin staff suggested he just arrive at the door and ask if he could make an appointment, and it was quite likely the supervisor would say if she was happy to talk then or if not, suggest an appointment. 
Tony

[rockershovel]

13 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

When I lived in Romford we had a local beat bobby who was very fond of the juice. He used to pop into our club for a crafty pint while on duty. He used to take his pint in the beer store, just as well as one evening while he was enjoying his pint his sergeant popped his head round the door and asked "Have you seen PC R******n? only his bike is leaning against the wall outside." 

As a general comment, it's thought-provoking to reflect on the extent to which drink related issues were tolerated or acquiesced in, twenty or thirty years ago. 

 

I well remember "runs ashore" resulting in all concerned returning well and truly bladdered. No one appeared to regard this as a particular problem. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by rockershovel

[Michael Hodgson]

50 minutes ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

The same applied at Lloyds Bank back in the 1970s and early 1980s. When I got engaged to a member of staff, I was immediately moved to another branch (Grantham to Leicester) as we were not allowed to work with each other. All transactions had to be approved by two members of staff and so we could countersign each others work to rob our customers!  We married (and still are 44 years later) and bought a house in Leicester. Two years later I was told I had to go to Derby - when looking at houses, I was told that a cheap staff mortgage was only available if I bought a semi-detached house (previously we had an end of terrace) but the amount spent didn't matter as long as I didn't buy a detached house as they were only for managers.

.

I worked for them in south Birmingham the early 70s and I was living in digs at the time.  I was told that whilst I could get a cheap staff mortgage, I wouldn't be allowed to get a mortgage for a bigger house than the branch manager had, so if I were to become a branch manager I would be expected to buy a big enough house (whether I needed it or not!) in order that this rule didn't cause problems for the lower orders!  As a mere trainee I didn't see house buying as a good idea whilst I needed freedom to move elsewhere for career progression.

 

Five years later (after working in manufacturing industry) I got a job with an American bank in London and the cheap mortgage and the interest free annual season ticket loan proved to be worth more than the big increase in salary, given the then rate of inflation, a problem which our economy is beginning to see returning as a result of the pandemic and the Ukrainian war.