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While real coffee was not part of the general national culture until later, in upmarket places it always had been. I had a student holiday job at J Lyons main factory in Greenford in 1969 (I think). We were still in a mezzanine office up in a corner of the warehouse, not in the office block or...

I was expecting to find public notices in the Watford Observer about the stopping-up of Loates Lane at the crossing, but so far I haven't. I did however find a reported discussion in Watford UDC (on 31 Jan 1907) about "the LNWR's bill". This does refer to the level crossing in Loates-lane, with...

The use of this area in the Festival of Britain is shown in the attached image, taken from the wayfinding plan in the official "brochure". Here York Road runs across the bottom, and Sutton Walk is the diagonal road, going under the Charing Cross line that runs vertically up the central page...

If you're really interested in bridge strikes, the briefing for that part of FOAK 2025 is here. Despite being quite long, and focused on what NR's current problems are, I can't find anything about existing detection/warning systems and what the problems with them are. There are a number of links...

Re: mincemeat slice - (traditional) date slice is still fairly common, and this would be the same. Most likely shortcrust pastry, with mincemeat in between as a sandwich. So yes, a mince pie with modified geometry.

And they are not new. Here's a surviving BBC news item from twenty years ago! Since you don't need anything that complicated to make one, the surprise is that so few have ever been put in. Maybe they just are not very effective, and hard to make reliable enough. Those two in Swindon do seem to...

I find it odd that BR/CEGB discussions in 1965 would not be for merry-go-round trains. By January 1964 the preferred rail delivery system for other 2000 MW stations was MGR, and all those that could be were being changed over, even while being built. Four of the earliest (at least to start...

It sounds like Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which was about 2000 MW and built 1963-1968 (see Wikipedia). That had four 500 MW sets each of boiler, turbines, and alternator. I went to visit that the year after it opened! At that stage it was still all shiny (well, sort of) and new. And all the bits of it...

Were there problems in practice with the temperature compensation? Obviously the expansion to be made to balance out is greater on a long wire, but so are the possibilities for other factors to upset the balance. The main one (I think) was that some parts were heated by direct sunshine, other...

At that specific location they would be looking out for it - it's no accident there was a video camera set up there, to watch the trains but also in part wishing for this to happen. The clue is in the name of the site: "Horseshoe Curve". The track turns more than 180 degrees on an up grade so it...

According to the HAL Network Statement, Network Rail are Asset Manager, Infrastructure Manager, and Operator for the track, railway communications, signalling, and overhead lines. HAL have the same full responsibility for ventilation, non-railway communications, stations, and the control room...

They lived in the Dower House on the Grove estate, not the (very) big house. That was in the 1960s - they had a TV kitchen there.

Basically that's right; here's a bit more detail. Forster has been banging on about the poor SWR service at Woking for ages, and he had a "topical" written question towards the end of that June 11th transport questions session: Amanda Martin had a written question earlier in that session...

I can't find anything in the newspapers that fits that. So either the notices were worded in a very unexpected way, or appeared only in publications not in the BNA, or else there was a list of contractors (selected, approved, or just known about) who were notified directly of relevant jobs for...

Since you needed to know the bell codes for all the other phones to use an omnibus circuit, there had to be a list by each phone. There were thousands of these things - called "telephone circuit card" or something similar - and quite a few survive and there are pictures online. I've looked for...

Taking what you've written at face value, these are telephone, not telegraph, circuits, so they are not for block signalling. I'd guess they would be "omnibus" phone circuits, as also used by the early telephone (not railway) service. Just as in any land-line telephone, the circuit connects to...

The footbridge at Guildford was built in 1935 and from the start had a ticket office at the Guildford Park Road entrance "where a passimeter office, of very attractive design, will be installed" (Wokingham Times). Apparently the name "passameter" was used at Guildford for that ticket office and...

Thanks for that - I must try to remember not to copy the URL from the tab I'm reading the pdf in.

This is from the Old Oak Common Lane HS2 newsletter March – July 2026 (itself updated in July). Building the new bridges north of the current GWML is a precondition of the realignment of all tracks further north to run through the part-built station. I would have thought that timing would allow...

That depends on the date. The 1953 Transport Act said the BTC had to set up "area authorities" but gave only broad advice as to how the scheme they devised should work (apart from Scotland having its own board). Then the "new deal" of 1960/61 implemented in the Transport Act 1962) created...