Recent content by D Foster

Railway usage - of all sorts of terms - is specific to the railway. Rather than conventional usage such as in maths. The key factor is that people using the term and (in this case) a location know what they are talking about - or, if not, that they stop and ask. :)

That wasn't the case in my experience on BR/SR. In fact we liked to have small young ladies on a training course for buckeye lifting. First thing was to select and nice grundged up buckeye that hadn't been dropped in a while. The instructor (always male in those days and usually large -...

Full support for the positive understanding of autism. I would be surprised if any regular staff at a location were not aware of any interesting characters - of the whole range of variety not only autism - and would work with them appropriately. In many cases train crews will have similar...

In the days of proper signals (aka semaphores) a lot of the public out in the wilder places broadly knew what the signals meant and were essentially safe using the board crossings unsupervised. Also, those were non-compensation times so people used their eyes and ears and didn't put themselves...

A solitary beat on the bell would work where "call attention" was not required - but - elsewhere we would hold the key down on the beat. This came out as "ding - thunk" at the other end. It was heavily frowned upon by managers and S&T. Variations on the tale occur everywhere. As does the...

noticing the post about getting naval officers back to base I recall that most staff would watch out for any forces trying to get back to base before a 48 hour expired. This would mainly be on a Sunday afternoon/evening. As in the 1970s most signalmen and foremen had done National Service they...

Very unlikely to be any kind of European stock because we have a smaller loading gauge (except the GCR) - unless the Germans had built special small stock that could work through on the ferry. A different military traffic was various armour being carried on warflats or later similar flats...

I don't know about "on line" info - but when starting I used the individual destination boards that were kept in a rack below the slot-bracket that they were put in to display the next train - or the one that had last left if someone forgot to change it. They were quite high up so that most...

One thing definitely not missed - the stench of tobacco and browned (deep brown) cream paintwork - maybe that was once even white paintwork - in smoking compartments and carriages - and the filthy/disgusting debris on the floor... The mess had to be swept out at least twice a day on commuter...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

These have got to be tongue-in-cheek!!! Management Trainees were a joke! Their common specialities were putting point clips on over the top of the rail and scotches in stood upright. Arriving for a night shift with a PWay Possession in high heals and "inappropriate" clothing was a nightmare...

The white with a vertical black stripe on a semaphore Stop signal's arm is indeed so that the Signalman/Signaller can see the arm clearly - when it is a signal on the approach side of the Box (aka "In Rear of" the Box). It confirms both that it is in fact still there and its position. At night...

Simple answer to part of your question(s) - if/when a signal is out (or showing anything less than a 100% correct aspect) it counts as a Red/Stop signal at which a train must stop and wait until instruction is obtained. (It used to be that some signals that caused a stop but there was then no...

While browsing I came across this "interesting" picture... https://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/14941847501 :D

Fresh scented air??? Whatever became of the charms of fresh diesel exhaust? No-one has mentioned the wonders of "living statues" yet... Old hat though - had them at Greenwich back about 1998. :D