Chains as a measurement.

[Spankthemonkey]

They did try. I think I read / heard that until HS1 it was illegal to use metric measurements on the railway. To get EU money for HS1 there needed to be a change in the law as HS1 is measured in metric and not imperial.

Lol, no wonder Eurostar drivers top the salary charts, not only do they have to be fluent in French but they have to give theit locations in metric too. Maybe we should convert it back to miles and chains post Brexit.

 

[brel york]

Part of our heritage, chains are railways and cricket pitches, Britain's two greatest gifts to the world. Surprised the EU didn't try to metric it out when they did our fruit and veg stalls a few years back.

Tyne and Wear metro is all metric , speedo is in km too

 

[14xxDave]

My understanding was that a chain was used because it was the best length that could be physically handled on the ground. As they were indeed metal chains, used because they didn't stretch. A surveyor friend of mine refused to use my glass fibre 50m tape preferring his steel tape for the same reason. Those guys in the past knew what they were up to!

 

[kentuckytony]

Yes please, if you don't mind!

Not the neatest thing...

 

[brel york]

Lol, no wonder Eurostar drivers top the salary charts, not only do they have to be fluent in French but they have to give theit locations in metric too. Maybe we should convert it back to miles and chains post Brexit.

If it was the law how was the Tyne and Wear metro allowed to be built in metric , the distances are metric as are the speeds , and the vehicles are metric too

 

[30907]

Would you like 10-ball overs too?

More seriously, there would be a lot of overpitched balls for a year or two.

You could argue the toss (!) about which system to measure standard gauge in, but one classic is the normal Austro-Hungarian narrow gauge of 76cm aka 2ft 6in.

 

[AM9]

I have access to the legacy as built cabling drawings for the Western and they're all in imperial measurements, some of them for the Swindon works go back to the 1940s, would be impossible to try and convert them to metric.

It wouldn't have stopped Railtrack forgetting where they were buried, metric or imperial!

 

[AM9]

If it was the law how was the Tyne and Wear metro allowed to be built in metric , the distances are metric as are the speeds , and the vehicles are metric too

It never was the law to prevent the use of metric measure. Any new engineering venture should and generally has been metric, - it's easier, less prone to error, and most of all, cheaper to implement.

Lol, no wonder Eurostar drivers top the salary charts, not only do they have to be fluent in French but they have to give theit locations in metric too. Maybe we should convert it back to miles and chains post Brexit.

No smiley there so are we to assume that you are being serious?

 

[Hellzapoppin]

It wouldn't have stopped Railtrack forgetting where they were buried, metric or imperial!

If you're referring to that in the context of the GWML electrification then I can assure you that's a total myth.

 

[AM9]

I believe they have started teaching kids it again. I wasn't though as i am old and imperial is meaningless to me, but i can use google.

When I was at school, our exercise bookshad a multiplicity of measures in tables on the back cover. I can remember:

weight - grammes/kilogrammes, ounces - troy and avoirdupois,
length - inches/feet/yards etc., metres, rod, pole and perch,
depth - fathoms,
volume - pints/gallons, US gallons, litres,
temperatures - centigrade (now celcius) farenheit and reaumur​

Imperial was (and to a degree still is) a hotch potch of specific trade measures with poor numerical relationships with each other. Metric, (as formalised in the SI system) is simple, logical and despite the resistance of some, by far the most effective set of measurement units in use.

 

[jopsuk]

They didnt, only EU rule was metric measurements had to be displayed alongside imperial. Metrication goes back further, in 1963 the confederation of British Industry surveyed its members and the majority wanted to shift to bring alignment with the US, in 1965 it became official policy of British industry and in 1966 the government issued a white paper on the change and announced they would decimalise the currency by 71.

Quite. THe idea that metric measurements are some evil european plot is fact-free, but sadly probably something that influenced how people voted in June 20167, having been fed decades of lies.

 

[InOban]

Of course the railway, even more than other industries, has a great deal of legacy/archive engineering all, of course, in imperial. And when this needs to be accessed, you need people who are comfortable with the necessary conversions. But the idea that imperial measurements would still be in everyday use - I find that astonishing. No other part of our economy has used anything other than metric for decades, except of course, for the need to convert road distances into miles. Even standard guage is 1435mm, not 4ft 81/2. I would have thought that it was dangerously confusing to be using two systems. (Remember the early Mars lander which crashed because the scientists were, of course,using metric but the US engineers were using imperial!)

In my part of the world the original white Mike and quarter mile markers were replaced some time ago by yellow ones which I thought were in km. Am I wrong?

 

[alxndr]

I can't see an issue with chain at all. As far as I can remember I was taught a mixture of metric and imperial at school, although the latter to a lesser extent, and although chain wasn't touched on it's quite easy to pick up and visualise, especially once you're taught that it's the distance between a pair of wickets. When out on track it's a nice sensible measurement, not too small to be inconsequential and not too big to be able to find a specific thing within.

The issue comes when you're trying to use imperial and metric at the same time, especially when you've got varying combinations of metric and imperial, or different formats, all that the same time. We now have:

• Miles and chain / quarter mile posts for track distances
• Miles and meters for asset identification
  
• Miles and meters divided by 10 for new loc cases
• Miles, quarters and yards on older prints showing old loc case locations
• Shortly we're going to be having OLE masts which are in kilometres to contend with too

I invariably end up converting the lot into miles and chain in my head, or even going through and marking up my own documents with miles and chain.

 

[Highlandspring]

In my part of the world the original white Mike and quarter mile markers were replaced some time ago by yellow ones which I thought were in km. Am I wrong?

Assuming your username describes your location, I'm afraid you are wrong...

Traditionally the railway in Scotland was measured in miles and yards and we didn't really use chains at all. However Network Rail made the route move to chains instead of yards around 2010 in the name of standardisation.

 

[Railsigns]

Traditionally the railway in Scotland was measured in miles and yards and we didn't really use chains at all. However Network Rail made the route move to chains instead of yards around 2010 in the name of standardisation.

Historically, the Scottish Region used miles and chains, just like the rest of BR. In 1986, the Scottish Region went its own way and re-issued the Sectional Appendix with all measurements in miles and yards. As you've said, it has since reverted to miles and chains.

 

[greyman42]

When I was at school, our exercise bookshad a multiplicity of measures in tables on the back cover. I can remember:

weight - grammes/kilogrammes, ounces - troy and avoirdupois,
length - inches/feet/yards etc., metres, rod, pole and perch,
depth - fathoms,
volume - pints/gallons, US gallons, litres,
temperatures - centigrade (now celcius) farenheit and reaumur​

Imperial was (and to a degree still is) a hotch potch of specific trade measures with poor numerical relationships with each other. Metric, (as formalised in the SI system) is simple, logical and despite the resistance of some, by far the most effective set of measurement units in use.

I am 54 so was taught both imperial and metric, but till I read this post I had never heard of a rod, pole or perch as measurements. Perhaps you went to a grammar school.

 

[westv]

I am 54 so was taught both imperial and metric, but till I read this post I had never heard of a rod, pole or perch as measurements. Perhaps you went to a grammar school.

I'm actually the same age as you but I have heard of them. Not everything we know is learnt from school though.

 

[InOban]

When went to school in the fifties my exercise books ('jotters') had all these printed on the back. Rods, poles and perches were the same, a quarter of a chain, I think. The standard size for an allotment garden was measured in rods, as I recall.

I am astonished that as late as 2010 NR were standardising on miles and chains. They must be the only industry with them in everyday use.

 

[coppercapped]

They didnt, only EU rule was metric measurements had to be displayed alongside imperial. Metrication goes back further, in 1963 the confederation of British Industry surveyed its members and the majority wanted to shift to bring alignment with the US,

As the USA is the last bastion of the Imperial system of weights and measures (with some modifications such as the short ton of 2,000lbs and a smaller gallon) changing to SI units to bring alignment to the USA would have been highly unlikely back in 1963.

In the scientific world nowadays certainly SI units are standard, but in day to life the inch, foot, yard, AF threads and the British Thermal Unit still reign supreme although metrification is slowly advancing, mainly due to imported items using things such as metric threads.

in 1965 it became official policy of British industry and in 1966 the government issued a white paper on the change and announced they would decimalise the currency by 71.

 

[furnessvale]

They did try. I think I read / heard that until HS1 it was illegal to use metric measurements on the railway. To get EU money for HS1 there needed to be a change in the law as HS1 is measured in metric and not imperial.

I started as a junior draughtsman with BR in 1964. We used imperial, metric, and even combinations of the two, as each case warranted.

 

[TwistedMentat]

To add on to what's aleardy been said around it being a historic thing.

It's also a fairly specialised and self contained measurement. Railway infrastructure is pretty segregated from other stuff like roads so there's not a huge need to use a system that easily interacts with it. And its quite specialised to one area. Other industries are similar when they use prefixes measurement prefixes. You don't here people talking about thousands of metres, you use kilometres. Or in aviation and shipping where nautical miles are used. Within those specialised areas historic and specific measurements still hold sway as they do the job. And when you need to convert you either have the time or the computer does it for you. Or calculator if you want to do it 'by hand'

Would it be nice to just handwave everything to metric? I think so. But I also understand there are reasons not to right now, and perhaps never.

 

[furnessvale]

Would it be nice to just handwave everything to metric? I think so. But I also understand there are reasons not to right now, and perhaps never.

IMO not necessarily true. Items historically made to an exact imperial measurement could convert to an awkward metric equivalent to a couple of places of decimal point!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

ERTMS signalling schemes are implemented in metric.
So the Cambrian now has metric measurements (and speeds in km/h).
If I'm not mistaken the GW route now has (blue) kilometre posts as well as mileposts, as part of the OHLE/resignalling scheme.
HS1 is of course in metric and so will be HS2 and any other new lines.

The rebuilt Oxford-Bicester line seems to have new mileposts though, and the ones I noticed seem to be to GWR pattern rather than authentic LNWR.

 

[Railsigns]

ERTMS signalling schemes are implemented in metric.
So the Cambrian now has metric measurements (and speeds in km/h).
If I'm not mistaken the GW route now has (blue) kilometre posts as well as mileposts, as part of the OHLE/resignalling scheme.

The Cambrian lines are still measured in miles and chains.

The blue distance markers on the GWML are mileposts.

 

[Sunset route]

Track engineers (Pway) will talk in miles and chains, train drivers will talk prominent locations, signal numbers and a mix of metres and yards and signallers deal in signal and points numbers when identifying locations. The amount of times that a track patrol has found a track defect at X miles and X chains and the response is can you give the location of the nearest signal or point number as to locate the exact location.

Only our newest panel extension to one of our panels, was at the request of the signallers (reps) had miles and chains listed for every, station, level crossing, viaduct, Tunnel, sub station and TP hut as so we can identify more accurately track side faults or problems. None of our other panels or the original part our newest panel has miles and chains on it. Apparently historically no thought that signallers would need easy access to any sort of mileage’s to the areas they control, even though every trackside workers refer to them.

 

[Ploughman]

In the area of Railway work that I used to be involved with, Track Renewals.
All the actual survey figures and dimensions were all recorded and implemented in Metric.
However the actual specified mileage was always denoted by BR, Railtrack and then Network Rail in Miles and yards.
This specification also include a Datum point Milepost to which all site meterages referred back to.
The reason given was that all records are in Miles and Chains / Yards.
This was so that on a site you could then find all the cattle creeps, drains and culverts that were too small or overgrown to be seen from the track and were not numbered in the bridge numbering sequence but were listed in the structures files going back to George's day.

On some projects such as Leeds North West Electrification one of the 3 main disciplines out of OHL. S+T and PWay was nominated to mark out the whole project with a common Kilometerage.
That was marked on the track every 10 metres and all disciplines then worked to that common reference.
However all existing structures were also listed in M+C or M + Y but the KM record took precedence.
In my own situation many Stressing Forms looked a bit messy due to the Miles and Yards being also converted into metres for the actual work. Similarly with on site dig reports for sites.

The one figure to remember was 0.9144 which is the conversion factor either way.

 

[AndrewE]

My understanding was that a chain was used because it was the best length that could be physically handled on the ground. As they were indeed metal chains, used because they didn't stretch.

I actually have a tape measure marked in chains and links (inherited, can't imagine why dad had it|) - possibly the earliest metric incursion into the Imperial system. Each link is around (but not exactly) 4 inches and there are 100 to the chain.
I've never understood how Rods, poles and perches seem to be measures of both length and area. http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/length.htm says "an allotment plot is 10 poles", which must assume a standard width but if so, I'm surprised that it isn't specified.

 

[Sunset route]

Tyne and Wear metro is all metric , speedo is in km too

London Underground use Kilometres as well and I believe the zero point for the entire Underground Network is of all places Ongar.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

What do you mean outdated? I have one (a chain that is, all 100 links of it) in the shed.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

What do you mean outdated? I have one (a chain that is, all 100 links of it) in the shed.

Welcome sir not seen you posing for a while. A bike chain?