TRIVIA - Things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today

[Taunton]

For those of a certain age, found on the Commercial Road in Limehouse in the 70's.

It was still there in the mid-1980s, I think the last one left, on the abandoned route from Gas Factory Junction curving round towards Blackwall across the substantial bridge. There was another alongside the GEML nearby with, classically, the INOCENT mis-spelt.

"Bill Stickers is Innocent", a parody of both an LT poster and of this campaign, went along with it.

 

[DiscoStu]

Casey Jones Burgers in polystyrene containers (loved them)
Max Pax trollies
Cross Country Grill in the MKI buffet with orange seats
Walking into TOPS offices to use their machines to see where loco's were or what was booked onto a certain train (I actually knew some of the code to put in when I was thirteen)
Coach tours round depots
Large groups of spotters overnighting down the end of the platforms at Crewe
Sleeper trains to all corners of the country
Footex's
Newspaper trains
Dim lighting in compartment stock
Long lines of withdrawn locos

 

[InterCity:125]

Football specials - which usually ended up with the train vandalised

I must of imagined when GWR ran a hst instead of a two car 156 when a big football match was on in Cardiff (I can’t remember witch I don’t care for football)

 

[PeterC]

Trainspotters being teenagers rather than old men.

 

[InterCity:125]

I still see that (though rarely)

 

[AY1975]

Something you used to hear was announcements asking someone to report to the Travel Centre or the Station Manager's office for a message: "If Mr David Short is on this station could he please report to the Station Manager's office on Platform 1." You still hear that occasionally, but it's pretty rare these days: I would guess that modern day communication technology (mobile phones, tablets and the like) has largely done away with the need for that kind of thing.

Talking of which, I once saw a letter in the InterCity magazine (a free passenger magazine on InterCity trains in the 1980s and '90s) suggesting that London termini and other major stations should have message boards like those found at airports in the days before mobile phones. The editor replied that this might seem like a good idea in principle, but passengers might not think to check them.

 

[AndrewE]

Something you used to hear was announcements asking someone to report to the Travel Centre or the Station Manager's office for a message: "If Mr David Short is on this station could he please report to the Station Manager's office on Platform 1."

Some of those were coded messages for "Fire alarm at" or "Security alert."

 

[Busaholic]

Some of those were coded messages for "Fire alarm at" or "Security alert."

Yes, either that or ''David Short'' was a very popular man who travelled extensively without ever leaving the stations!

 

[DavidGrain]

Talking of coded messages, in a supermarket i heard the announcement 'Code 99 Till 5'. I did not know that so many men worked in the supermarkets as staff appeared from everywhere: Butchers, Bakers, Managers, Trolley Porters, Warehousemen and several others whose role I could not identify followed eventually by an overweight security guard puffing away. Apparently someone had run through the checkout with a bottle of Southern Comfort.

Once at Belfast City Airport, the old wooden shed not the present terminal, I heard the announcement 'Would Mr Blackadder please return to check in'. I guessed that might be a security announcement but Blackadder is a genuine name, Scottish I believe.

 

[RLBH]

Once at Belfast City Airport, the old wooden shed not the present terminal, I heard the announcement 'Would Mr Blackadder please return to check in'. I guessed that might be a security announcement but Blackadder is a genuine name, Scottish I believe.

Quite apart from anything else, half the point of coded announcements is not to draw attention - so an unusual-sounding name isn't really suitable for the job!

 

[PR1Berske]

Trainspotters being teenagers rather than old men.

See also: real ale drinkers, non league fans, etc

 

[trebor79]

Garish yellow vestibules in HST coaches. I seem to remember some LHCS had red vestibules.

Anyone know why yellow was chosen? It looked awful.

 

[route101]

Trainspotters being teenagers rather than old men.

Theres quite a few that use Instagram around 12 to 15 .

 

[Fearless]

Toilet rolls streaming like banners when some eejit had thrown them out the window but they'd got stuck.

 

[krus_aragon]

See also: real ale drinkers, non league fans, etc

When were real ale drinkers teenagers rather than old men?

 

[yorksrob]

When were real ale drinkers teenagers rather than old men?

Judging from my own experience, from around 1995 onwards.

 

[krus_aragon]

Judging from my own experience, from around 1995 onwards.

I was thinking that eighteen and nineteen-year-olds (plus under age drinkers) must be knocking them back at a fair rate to outnumber all the old men!

 

[AY1975]

Coin-operated weighing machines in station toilets and on platforms and concourses - they may still exist in a few places but I haven't seen them anywhere for quite a while.

Going back even further, I believe there used to be weighing machines that spoke your weight.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Circus animals were routinely moved by rail...

I once told someone that there were special wagons for giraffes, with a hatch through which they could poke their heads whilst on the journey. It took him more than a few minutes to realise that I was joking.

 

[3141]

Coin-operated weighing machines in station toilets and on platforms and concourses - they may still exist in a few places but I haven't seen them anywhere for quite a while.

Going back even further, I believe there used to be weighing machines that spoke your weight.

In 1949/50, Boots had a machine that issued a series of small cards showing locomotives of the four mainline railway companies, on which your weight as measured by the machine was stamped. My friends and I spent an awful lot of pennies weighing ourselves, hoping we'd get the cards we needed to complete our collections. There were 24 cards, five for SR + one for LBTB showing a Metropolitan Line electric loco, and six each for the other companies. [Off topic, sorry!]

Speak your weight machines were much rarer. I only ever remember finding one, and it didn't speak very clearly. Meccano Magazine once had a cartoon showing a very fat man standing on one of those machines, and the machine says "One at a time, please!" [Also off topic,]

 

[Taunton]

Going back even further, I believe there used to be weighing machines that spoke your weight.

Called "Speak Your Weight". There was one in the subway at Taunton station.

My mother reprimanded it severely when, after several attempts by me to get her to put the 3 old pence in it to use it, I had a success. In went the coin. It boomed out "Eleven - Stones - Twelve - Pounds", in a first-generation Metal Mickey voice. "LIAR!!!" was the instant, even louder, response.

 

[3141]

I used to shut my eyes for a while and try to convince my brain that we were actually going in the opposite direction, so that when I sleepily opened them again my mind would take a few seconds to work out which way we were actually travelling.
People sometimes wonder what we did for entertainment before we had mobile phones. Well it was this sort of thing...

Here's another way of creating that kind of illusion. In a coach with compartments there's often a mirror above the seats, halfway across the compartment. You kneel on the seat, or lean on it, facing the direction of travel, and look into the mirror, with your face quite close to it. Out of the corners of your eyes you 'll be able to see the reflected view through the side windows (or the reflection of one side at least), which will show the train appearing to be going backwards. You hold that position for a minute or two. Provided that the train has been moving steadily you'll have started to think that it is travelling backwards. Then you move back from the seat and turn your head to look out. It feels almost like a jerk as you discover that the train is actually moving in the opposite direction from what you've been thinking.

 

[The_Engineer]

Called "Speak Your Weight". There was one in the subway at Taunton station.

My mother reprimanded it severely when, after several attempts by me to get her to put the 3 old pence in it to use it, I had a success. In went the coin. It boomed out "Eleven - Stones - Twelve - Pounds", in a first-generation Metal Mickey voice. "LIAR!!!" was the instant, even louder, response.

Ha ha!! Great, in circa 1960, quite young at the time, our family found one in Blackpool on our holidays. All four of us jumped on, and the total weight boomed out loudly something like <thirty-three stones and four ounces>. Lots of pass-bys turned around, and laughed and clapped when they saw us all on it and not a grossly overweight person!!

 

[Dr_Paul]

Going back even further, I believe there used to be weighing machines that spoke your weight.

I never saw one of those on the railways when I was a kid, but they did exist. They were the subject of a classic comedy gag: a fat bloke stands on the machine and it replies 'Oi fatty, get off, you're too heavy', or something similar.

 

[PeterC]

I once told someone that there were special wagons for giraffes, with a hatch through which they could poke their heads whilst on the journey. It took him more than a few minutes to realise that I was joking.

There was a Triang model of one I believe.

 

[Cowley]

There was a Triang model of one I believe.

I like to think that they’re turned on a turntable before returning so that the giraffes can see when to duck if they see a bridge coming towards them.
(and obviously they can’t run during the night/heavy fog etc)

 

[Peter Mugridge]

There was a Triang model of one I believe.

I'll stick my neck out and suggest that this screenshot from Google Images suggests your belief is correct:

For the benefit of those who rely on text, this is a screenshot of a Google Images search which shows several pictures of the discussed giraffe car.

 

[Cowley]

I'll stick my neck out and suggest that this screenshot from Google Images suggests your belief is correct:

For the benefit of those who rely on text, this is a screenshot of a Google Images search which shows several pictures of the discussed giraffe car.

View attachment 54267

That’s great. A slight safety issue though:
If the driver was pushing the Giraffe Car, he’d have to be careful not to misread the giraffes head for a distant signal.

 

[RichmondCommu]

A loco hauling a single wagon on a surely loss making Speedlink service. A class 58 could regularly be seen doing this during the miners strike of the early 1980s between Manchester and Toton via the Hope Valley.

 

[InterCity:125]

I'll stick my neck out and suggest that this screenshot from Google Images suggests your belief is correct:

For the benefit of those who rely on text, this is a screenshot of a Google Images search which shows several pictures of the discussed giraffe car.

View attachment 54267

I like the fourth picture along. Bit of a safety issue if there are giraffes inside though.