People's strange misconceptions (transport, and otherwise)

[Hadlow Road]

Sadly I have always thought that the little green light was a symbol to advise you that you needed a new engine.

 

[dgl]

The orange light in my sister car has three modes, off, on and flashing.
Off = no issues to report
On = you have an issue, get it looked at ASAP
Flashing = oh bugger!

As for misconceptions I wonder how many people think it's the running rails that are live and real trains work just like the model ones, yes I know the Volks Electric does but that is an oddity.

I suppose another one that used to be somewhat true is that our railway companies are run by other European state railway operators when now most are run by UK based entities, with trains run by Aberdeen based First Group (Avanti (with Trenitalia), SWR (with MTR), Hull Trains, Lumo, GWR), the operator of last resort (TPE, Northern, LNER) or by the Scottish or Welsh governments, it's only Chiltern, Grand Central and C2C now run by European state railway operators.

 

[Dr Hoo]

A little way south of the Chester Road that same tram line originally ran along the busy Erdington High Street. In the 1930s that was bypassed by the parallel Sutton New Road, a dual carriageway with a wide centre reserve, down which the tram tracks were diverted. So not too far away from Chester Road, there was once a stretch of dual carriageway with tram lines down the middle, which might have contributed to the misapprehension.

The centre reserve has been used for car parking for many decades, possibly since the trams ended in 1953, but I doubt if there are any rails left insitu below it.

Only just discovered this thread. (I was born and brought up in Birmingham and know Erdington and the Chester Road well.) Dating back to around the First World War Birmingham Corporation took the far-sighted view to set building lines along all principal radial roads so as to allow a dual carriageway with central reservation wide enough for a double-track tramway (3' 6" gauge). It also designated the future Outer Circle similarly and threw in a few extras like notional 'village' bypasses of which Erdington (Route 2) was the only one exploited as such, in 1938, to get rid of the awkward single-track bottleneck on the narrowest part. This was part of the main Exeter-Leeds road route at the time!

When the Erdington Bypass route was opened the tram tracks in the High Street and past the tiny 'Village Green' were just tarmacked over, only to re-emerge around the Millennium.

The Chester Road was an oddity, being a 'through' road that that just skirted the City boundary but was nevertheless honoured with the same building line protection. Besides the Erdington route, the Pype Hayes route via the Tyburn Road also had trams in the central reservation and terminated just short of the Chester Road (Route 79, one of the later openings, in 1927).

So, plenty of 'tramway history/heritage' around the Chester Road. I would forgive people who are a bit vague about it over 70 years after final closures.

 

[Springs Branch]

A surprising number of drivers believe that the car dashboard oil warning light is merely a low level indicator rather than a low pressure alert which could be lit up as a result of other causes besides too little oil.

My sister-in-law drives a Mazda. It's an automatic and when driving along normally, displays a big, bright letter "D" right in the middle of the instrument cluster to show the gearbox is in Drive. Only problem is this LED (or whatever source it is) is coloured bright red.

Whenever we're travelling somewhere together, she usually twists my arm to drive her car as she's getting on a bit. I always find it disconcerting at first to be driving along ignoring a red light in my lower peripheral field of view (surely Mazda could have used any other colour than red - particularly for the D).

In short - my misconception is that a bright, insistent red light on a car dashboard means something's wrong.

 

[Hadlow Road]

My sister-in-law drives a Mazda. It's an automatic and when driving along normally, displays a big, bright letter "D" right in the middle of the instrument cluster to show the gearbox is in Drive. Only problem is this LED (or whatever source it is) is coloured bright red.

Whenever we're travelling somewhere together, she usually twists my arm to drive her car as she's getting on a bit. I always find it disconcerting at first to be driving along ignoring a red light in my lower peripheral field of view (surely Mazda could have used any other colour than red - particularly for the D).

In short - my misconception is that a bright, insistent red light on a car dashboard means something's wrong.

Surely the result is that there are too many lights to say that everything is O.K. (I except the constant O.K. sounds and signals at Sellafield and the like). A lamp to indicate parked or in reverse or locked in a lower gear would be helpful, but I agree about the red for danger aspect.

 

[Calthrop]

Only just discovered this thread. (I was born and brought up in Birmingham and know Erdington and the Chester Road well.) Dating back to around the First World War Birmingham Corporation took the far-sighted view to set building lines along all principal radial roads so as to allow a dual carriageway with central reservation wide enough for a double-track tramway (3' 6" gauge). It also designated the future Outer Circle similarly and threw in a few extras like notional 'village' bypasses of which Erdington (Route 2) was the only one exploited as such, in 1938, to get rid of the awkward single-track bottleneck on the narrowest part. This was part of the main Exeter-Leeds road route at the time!

When the Erdington Bypass route was opened the tram tracks in the High Street and past the tiny 'Village Green' were just tarmacked over, only to re-emerge around the Millennium.

The Chester Road was an oddity, being a 'through' road that that just skirted the City boundary but was nevertheless honoured with the same building line protection. Besides the Erdington route, the Pype Hayes route via the Tyburn Road also had trams in the central reservation and terminated just short of the Chester Road (Route 79, one of the later openings, in 1927).

So, plenty of 'tramway history/heritage' around the Chester Road. I would forgive people who are a bit vague about it over 70 years after final closures.

Thanks -- all the above, fascinating. I reckon that I do forgive my misinformed acquaintance -- while feeling that he was more than just a bit vague ! -- but perhaps I'm being in this, like the obsessive railway-enthusiast pedants who were distressed / disgusted over the recent film drama, centring on the epic events of Dunkirk and rescue therefrom in 1940: because the railway-carriage interiors in the scenes where the rescued troops were being brought back from the English coast, were of a kind which would not have existed on the Southern Railway in the year concerned.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Nov 2024 ==



Further "things rail" -- and, a matter about which I have over the years, posted on these forums more than once. However -- a thing which seems to come my way time and again; often, people not greatly knowledgeable about / interested in railway-related stuff: would seem automatically to ascribe all and any railway closures in Great Britain, which may "come into mention" -- to "Beeching" -- quite irrespective of date. My most extreme example of this so far, must be the chap who spoke of passenger services on the Severn & Wye Joint system north of Lydney (Town), as having been a victim of Beeching -- this withdrawal having taken place in 1929, when the Doctor-to-be would have been all of sixteen years old. The man and the name seem to have entered the public consciousness big-time, as invariably associated with the closing of doubtfully-viable rail lines -- quite irrespective of the fact of the Beeching report / plan as such, having covered and occupied just a few years in the 1960s.

I have a notion that this oddity may have to do with the quasi-poetic appropriateness of the guy's name, for his mission. I recall a comment in a periodical of the time of the Beeching Report -- may have been the magazine Punch -- to the effect that there might-and-could be a verb "to beech", = to remove dead wood -- appropriate to the then circumstances, and to the name of the central figure. The commentator concerned, approved of the purge of envisagedly become-useless lines; but the seen suitability of the name and thus the imaginary verb, might be applied no matter whether one was, re the slaughter, "pro-, anti-, or anywhere in between". I wonder whether popular collective consciousness felt this appropriateness -- hence the name's thus becoming a byword, regardless of historical detail. I kind-of feel that if the surname of the gentleman concerned had been -- say -- Bloggs; or Todhart-Frosterley; it wouldn't have become the universal "byword / 'shorthand'-identifier", that it has done.

 

[Falcon1200]

would seem automatically to ascribe all and any railway closures in Great Britain, which may "come into mention" -- to "Beeching" -- quite irrespective of date.

Indeed. Not quite as extreme as your example, but I have a (railway) book which blames the loss of passenger services on the Watlington branch to the 'Beeching Axe'; In 1957. Extremely lazy and wholly inaccurate authorship.

 

[Calthrop]

Indeed. Not quite as extreme as your example, but I have a (railway) book which blames the loss of passenger services on the Watlington branch to the 'Beeching Axe'; In 1957. Extremely lazy and wholly inaccurate authorship.

Good grief ! Truly -- in a railway book, quite unforgivable. Have seen Wikipedia entries about a fair number of communities in Britain having supposedly lost their railway under "Beeching", when closure date rules that out; but there is a lot of assorted-ly strange stuff on Wiki, about various smaller British settlements -- some of it decidedly comical (whether intentionally, or not).

 

[alxndr]

I was trying to explain something or other about the railway to my mother which I thought I had dumbed down sufficiently, but she couldn’t grasp it. It eventually came out that the key bit of background information I’d assumed was general knowledge enough to not need to explain was that trains have wheels. When questioned further she admitted she thought they had something similar to skis.

I took great delight in pointing out all the wheels at the Shildon Locomotion museum the following day.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

As for misconceptions I wonder how many people think it's the running rails that are live and real trains work just like the model ones

I thought models would've been battery powered (like the Lego trains are), but it does make a lot of sense to power the rails, rather than keep replacing batteries.

 

[gg1]

I knew someone at work a few years ago who was adamant New Street station had been renamed to Grand Central - which is of course merely the name of the shopping centre build on top of it when the station was redeveloped.

 

[High Dyke]

If you are married/cohabiting with someone that works in road or rail transport, then you know everything about timetables etc. My late mother had that comment off a friend of hers over thirty years ago.

 

[D6130]

If you are married/cohabiting with someone that works in road or rail transport, then you know everything about timetables etc. My late mother had that comment off a friend of hers over thirty years ago.

Yep....and you walk into your local pub and someone immediately calls out "Ah, D6130! What time do I have to catch a train form here in the morning to get to Llangammarch Wells by two o'clock?"

 

[dgl]

Yep....and you walk into your local pub and someone immediately calls out "Ah, D6130! What time do I have to catch a train form here in the morning to get to Llangammarch Wells by two o'clock?"

The great reply would be "Let me see, well due to service cuts, about half an hour ago!"

 

[Merle Haggard]

I remember reading somewhere about someone who had been driving their parent around for years; can't remember the exact circumstances that arose but the parent eventually said 'Oh, I didn't realise you used your feet as well!.
The reverse of the people who believe drivers steer trains (including an en-nobled one...)

 

[High Dyke]

Yep....and you walk into your local pub and someone immediately calls out "Ah, D6130! What time do I have to catch a train form here in the morning to get to Llangammarch Wells by two o'clock?"

The great reply would be "Let me see, well due to service cuts, about half an hour ago!"

 

[Calthrop]

Reverting to my OP: I happened this morning, once again, to meet my mentioned acquaintance, both of us waiting for a -- slow to show up -- no. 28 bus. I was unable to resist saying to him -- gesturing toward the central reservation -- "we could really do with some of your trams". In angling parlance, "he didn't bite".

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

. However -- a thing which seems to come my way time and again; often, people not greatly knowledgeable about / interested in railway-related stuff: would seem automatically to ascribe all and any railway closures in Great Britain, which may "come into mention" -- to "Beeching" -- quite irrespective of date.

Indeed so, I don't know how often I have seen on the dreaded Facebook (Welsh) Nationalists blaming Beeching, and the English in general, for the inability to travel now by rail from North to South Wales without having to go into England.
In an idle moment I did once plan such a journey from one of my father's old timetables from the 1930's - now I would have found it a most splendid and interesting journey (as you might @Calthrop) - there were, of course various options, but it would certainly have taken longer than via Chester and the North and West).
When I could be bothered I have pointed this out on Facebook, my father's first recollection of rail travel was in 1919 as a five year old travelling with his Father from Dinas Junction to the South Wales valleys somewhere by that route. (Incidentally, and digressing, he recalls his father pointing out a long line of stored ROD locomotives that had returned from France - but had no idea of the location).

 

[Merle Haggard]

Indeed so, I don't know how often I have seen on the dreaded Facebook (Welsh) Nationalists blaming Beeching, and the English in general, for the inability to travel now by rail from North to South Wales without having to go into England.
In an idle moment I did once plan such a journey from one of my father's old timetables from the 1930's - now I would have found it a most splendid and interesting journey (as you might @Calthrop) - there were, of course various options, but it would certainly have taken longer than via Chester and the North and West).
When I could be bothered I have pointed this out on Facebook, my father's first recollection of rail travel was in 1919 as a five year old travelling with his Father from Dinas Junction to the South Wales valleys somewhere by that route. (Incidentally, and digressing, he recalls his father pointing out a long line of stored ROD locomotives that had returned from France - but had no idea of the location).

From Heavy Goods Engines of the W.D. - Vol 1 ROD 2-8-0s (JWP Rowledge); the only storage location in Wales was the Government sidings at Queensferry in Flint, also known as Sandicroft. It appears from the book that the R.O.D.s were hired to some main line railways immediately on their return but this hire didn't last long because of changes in Government policy. The ones that hade been hired to the L.N.W.R. (151 locos) went to Queensferry in 1921 and, by 1923 there were 198 there.
Unfortunately this doesn't match with either a date of 1918 or using a direct route.
As far as the latter; Dina's Junction was L.N.W.R. and it's possible that. a ticket bought there might be routed via the North Wales coast route to Chester and then South - Shrewsbury and either Swansea or Hereford - M.T. & A., keeping the revenue for the L.N.W.R.

 

[Gloster]

Indeed so, I don't know how often I have seen on the dreaded Facebook (Welsh) Nationalists blaming Beeching, and the English in general, for the inability to travel now by rail from North to South Wales without having to go into England.
In an idle moment I did once plan such a journey from one of my father's old timetables from the 1930's - now I would have found it a most splendid and interesting journey (as you might @Calthrop) - there were, of course various options, but it would certainly have taken longer than via Chester and the North and West).
When I could be bothered I have pointed this out on Facebook, my father's first recollection of rail travel was in 1919 as a five year old travelling with his Father from Dinas Junction to the South Wales valleys somewhere by that route. (Incidentally, and digressing, he recalls his father pointing out a long line of stored ROD locomotives that had returned from France - but had no idea of the location).

There are two possibilities for storage of the ROD locos: Queensferry near Flint and Beachley near Chepstow. Queensferry is more likely as the locos would, I presume, have been alongside the line and easy to see. At Beachley they were almost certainly in the shipyard on the other side of the River Wye.

 

[Calthrop]

Indeed so, I don't know how often I have seen on the dreaded Facebook (Welsh) Nationalists blaming Beeching, and the English in general, for the inability to travel now by rail from North to South Wales without having to go into England.
In an idle moment I did once plan such a journey from one of my father's old timetables from the 1930's - now I would have found it a most splendid and interesting journey (as you might @Calthrop) - there were, of course various options, but it would certainly have taken longer than via Chester and the North and West).
When I could be bothered I have pointed this out on Facebook, my father's first recollection of rail travel was in 1919 as a five year old travelling with his Father from Dinas Junction to the South Wales valleys somewhere by that route. (Incidentally, and digressing, he recalls his father pointing out a long line of stored ROD locomotives that had returned from France - but had no idea of the location).

General "idle / fantasy-type musings" -- kind of stuff which I enjoy -- on the geographical aspects of your above post... and the mentioned difficulty / inconvenience / unwieldiness of rail travel, even at "rail peak", between North and South Wales; instead of going, however "on paper" circuitously, into England and then out again. I see the main "choke-point" here as being (aside from the "tortuosity" of the Cambrian Coast route -- that damned Dyfi estuary doing a lot to mess things up): basically just two in-Wales routes passing through mid-Wales truly between north and south (that which is nowadays called the Heart of Wales line, of basically little help here) -- both of them secondary lines at best, not express-friendly: the Cambrian's Moat Lane -- Talyllyn Jun. route, and its onwards connections; and Aberystwyth -- Carmarthen -- this one circuitous, and heading basically, way to the west / south-west -- of some use for Swansea-and-environs access, but little or none for Cardiff / the main Valleys area.

"Fancy-generator-working-overtime" fun was had a few years ago by myself and another Forums member: concerning how more routes in mid-Wales (never in fact built) might have bettered and expedited this matter. (Original impetus for these flights of fancy, was our both taking part in the "Closed Stations Journeys" thread in the "Quizzes and Games" section -- we felt that there having been a fair few more lines in Wales, would make the game's Wales-located imaginary journeys, more varied and enjoyable, and less repetition-prone.) This pipe-dream's northerly reaches involved big junction-action, in the stretch generally between Llanidloes and Rhayader. A junction at Cwmbelan, between Llanidloes and Tylwch -- where would meet the Cambrian's Mid-Wales line: a new direct line from Machynlleth; and -- with conversion of the Vale of Rheidol line to standard gauge -- new direct line Devil's Bridge -- Cwmbelan. A little further southward: a line would diverge at Rhayader, and run south-west and then south, past southern end of Elan Valley reservoirs, to Abergwesyn: then further on south, intersecting (with all traffic-transfer facilities) with HOWL at Llanwrtyd Wells; then on southward to join the Neath and Brecon at Cray -- this would be great, for traffic to and from Swansea-and-thereabouts (great improvement on having to go Aberystwyth -- Carmarthen, and then double back). Cardiff-and-chief-Valleys-overall, could south of Cwmbelan, be reached as in real life, by Cambrian Mid-Wales line and then Brecon & Merthyr -- these routes might be improved and upgraded. (There were other, lesser, bits-and-bobs of this grand scheme; but the above, are the parts of it relevant to improving "rail connection between North and South Wales without having to enter England".)

With all this -- long, heavily-engineered, costly-to-build routes through largely empty and highly unremunerative tracts of beautiful country; and the matter of what rail undertakings would own these various lines -- the beauty of fantasy is that re such things, one can airily say "details, details"; and not worry about them, unless one were to wish to do so.

 

[philthetube]

one of my earliest childhood memories is of asking my father how blind drivers knew if someone else had parked in a disabled parking space.

I must have been pre school age

 

[nw1]

A few from my very early days of rail enthusiasm, in late 1982 and early 1983, which all seem bizarre now:

Firstly, I think I've said this before, but for a while in early 1983 I used to think that the main WCML went through Birmingham New Street.
I remember spending some time on Stafford station in Feb 1983 when I was still rather naive about the services and the routes they took, and noting some Euston services which were either non-stop or only stopped at places other than New Street (probably one or more of Rugby, Milton Keynes Central and Watford Junction). I had visions of them running non-stop through New Street!

On a related point I noted, on the same occasion, that the Trent Valley 304-operated local called at "Lichfield T.V" and thought it was named after the Lichfield TV mast which I assumed was adjacent to the station. I didn't think "Trent Valley"!

Secondly, I used to think for a brief period that Ascot was on the GWML. I remember asking someone else at school "is it only IC125s that don't stop at Ascot?"

Thirdly, another HST-related misconception, for a brief period at the end of 1982 I though that all prime WCML IC services were operated by HSTs. I think I must have seen an HST at New Street on a NE-SW XC and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I was a bit hazy on electrification extent at this time!

Fourthly, from the same period again, I remember noting that the Cross-Country train I travelled on in December 1982, the Portsmouth-Manchester, was a diesel loco (a 47 presumably) at Guildford but the loco had a pantograph by Stafford. For whatever reason, I didn't think that the loco might have been changed and thought it was hauled by some kind of bi-mode! (Yes, there was a brief period when I wasn't aware of the various loco classes and their diesel or electric status; I think seeing 50s and 33s in large numbers at Woking soon after made me more aware).

Even in July 1983 - by which time I knew where the WCML actually went - and I was much more aware of the range of locos, I wrongly assumed that the 47-to-85 replacement at New Street on the 0805 Portsmouth-Manchester was the result of the 47 failing, and the 47 should have worked the service through (for whatever reason my mind at that age didn't consider my observation of an electric loco hauling the service at Stafford the previous December). There was a significant delay at New Street with a lot of attaching/detaching going on hence my incorrect assumption. Perhaps what actually happened was the original electric loco failed and the 85 that actually hauled the service was a sub.

Very soon after that, though, all these misconceptions were quashed.

 

[miklcct]

My first misconception was that if a bus route had both non air conditioned and air conditioned fares, both kinds of buses alternate on the route that I could save money by waiting for the next one if the one coming was an air considered bus (which was false). There were routes where air considered buses were a majority and others where they were a minority on the same day. A similar misconception was that, if a bus route was operated by two garages / two companies, the departures alternate between the two, which was not true for most routes.

Another was that I thought on a plane, there would be one meal only on flights over 6 hours, and two meals on flights over 10 hours, and no meals on flights shorter than that.

 

[boiledbeans2]

I think a lot of people think that trains are automatic and don’t get driven, and that train signals either don’t exist or are all controlled centrally.

I get a lot of opposite viewpoints to that though. Non-train enthusiasts don't know that a significant part of LU is ATO. They think everything is driven manually.

 

[nw1]

My first misconception was that if a bus route had both non air conditioned and air conditioned fares, both kinds of buses alternate on the route that I could save money by waiting for the next one if the one coming was an air considered bus (which was false). There were routes where air considered buses were a majority and others where they were a minority on the same day. A similar misconception was that, if a bus route was operated by two garages / two companies, the departures alternate between the two, which was not true for most routes.

On buses, I did for a short period assume that bus routes were always self-contained in the off-peak period, even if it meant long layovers at one end.

My local bus route in the mid-80s (Alder Valley, late NBC) would have required four buses were it to have been self-contained. So when I made more detailed observations of the route, I remember being confused by the fact that (with one exception) the vehicles didn't repeat every four hours. Quickly learnt about interworking soon after that, having observed it at a large bus station!

 

[McRhu]

Back in the early 1970s, when ScR still ran mystery tours, I was under the distinct impression that the only option on their books was Morecambe. This was based on bitter experience. Every time. Years later I learned that on at least a couple of occasions some fortunate mystery-tourists had in fact got to a different destination.

 

[D6130]

Back in the early 1970s, when ScR still ran mystery tours, I was under the distinct impression that the only option on their books was Morecambe. This was based on bitter experience. Every time. Years later I learned that on at least a couple of occasions some fortunate mystery-tourists had in fact got to a different destination.

Yes.... Southport.

 

[McRhu]

Yes.... Southport.

Oh well - it was always better to travel than to arrive and it was the thrill of the chase that made that £5 dent in the pocket money worthwhile.

 

[Indigo Soup]

For many years as a child I waited in anticipation of InterCity 225s replacing InterCity 125s on 'the London train'. Which would have been a good trick, considering the station of origin was Inverness.

Indeed so, I don't know how often I have seen on the dreaded Facebook (Welsh) Nationalists blaming Beeching, and the English in general, for the inability to travel now by rail from North to South Wales without having to go into England.

I've never quite understood why, considering the geography of Wales, someone might actually want to travel between North Wales and South Wales without going into England, other than to claim it had been done.

Firstly, I think I've said this before, but for a while in early 1983 I used to think that the main WCML went through Birmingham New Street.

I must have been well into my twenties before I discovered this wasn't the case. In my partial defence, the WCML had managed to be largely irrelevant to my rail travel until that time.