Recent content by John Webb

I'm not clear exactly what sort of gas leak it was. One problem is that if even diluted gas is drawn into an internal combustion (ic) engine it adds fuel to the engine and can cause the engine to over-rev and to emit lit gas through the exhaust - and if there's already gas in the atmosphere then...

Signal 3 allows trains from the Goods loop onto the main line, signal 7 appears to allow trains to cross over into the Down Sidings, and signal 8 allows trains onto the line to Stainby. The 'D' sign below each signal indicates either a plunger or a telephone to contact the signal box is...

My late father, born 1913, learnt to drive between WW1 and WW2; I'm not certain exactly when. But post-WW2 he steadfastly refused to get a car for the family on the grounds there were too many people driving about than when he'd learnt to drive! I tend to avoid motorways as well, particularly...

In that case Highdyke Box was a short distance away from the North end of Stoke Tunnel. Could this have been a key for locking a south-bound (Up) signal at danger to prevent trains entering the tunnel while work was being undertaken in the tunnel? (The key would reside in a lock on the lever and...

Where was Highdyke Box? There seem to be a number of places with a similar name scattered around the country. Does the Number 3 refer to a lever, perhaps? And was it a way of locking the lever at danger while work was being carried out on the track the signal referred to?

I think the clip can replaced on the back of the lampholder from behind, as you don't have the revolving colour mechanism in the way. The bulb is placed in the holder and the small black piece goes over the bulb and is held in place by the spring clip to keep the bulb in place.

The horizontal line of the benchmark is at the declared level - or at least it is the declared level when the measurement was made. As Morayshire mentions above in post #15 it is possible in some areas for levels to change due to subsidence.

The scientific convention is that 277.48 would be rounded down to 277; 277.52 would be rounded up to 278. On the other hand 277.5 is rounded up to 278, the nearest even number; not quite certain where that convention came from - my maths masters never explained it 60+ years ago and I never...

That conversion to 1/8th inch is approximate as there are 96 eighths of an inch in a foot. (12 x 8=96). All levelling was done by the OS in feet and decimals of a foot for ease of calculation rather than introduce foot to inch conversions to make things more complex!

Decimals of a foot, I understand.

The Furness Railway was noted for the use of local stone for station buildings and signal boxes - there are a number of more usually shaped boxes along the Furness Railway's former route.

The signaller may have been busy sending the 'Train entering Section" to the next box and "Train out of Section" to the previous box and making the appropriate entries in the train register before replacing the signal?

It wasn't only 1984-1994 prices rose. In 1969 I started a cross-London commute, having taken on a new job. From January 1975 to January 1977 my annual season ticket virtually doubled in price. (I can't recall the exact figures.) At which point I sat down with a calculator and realised I could...

I've noticed a further upswing in the number of unwanted calls on my landline following my early March posting. February and March had 10 each, but I'm already up to twelve this month and only a third of the way through it! (My 'Call Guardian' system has stopped any of them getting through.) On...

Most likely cause of an RCD tripping in a shower or other water-heating device is a fault in the element (most likely corrosion of the element sheath) allowing water into contact with the actual live element and giving a path to earth where there shouldn't be one, thus operating the RCD.