Chains as a measurement.

[Foxcote]

I am not sure if it has ever been repealed, but it was a legal requirement for railways to locate mileposts every 1/4 mile.

The legislation for the requirement to provide railway mileposts in England and Wales, is to be found in Section 94 of the Railway Consolidation Clauses Act 1845. Section 87 of this act applies to Scotland.
I recall being informed at Railway Training School (late 50s) that without such a system in place, it was not legal to charge for passenger or freight use. Almost every charge raised by the Railway had a mileage element at that time.

 

[snowball]

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.

No doubt there are metric chains that measure 20m with links of 10cm.

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.

I know the family whose website that is. I knew Keith at university, though that part of the site belongs to his wife. To be fair, she's quoting that bit from a BBC site.

What that site does not mention is that there's also a unit of area called a rood (two O's), which was usually 40 square rods, but these old units often had local variations.

Liquid measure is interesting because it's basically powers of 2, e.g. 2 pints = 1 quart, 4 quarts = 1 gallon, 2 gallons = 1peck etc. Donald Knuth in The Art of Computer Programming volume 2 gives a long table of liquid measures in which each one is twice the previous one.

 

[Mojo]

New constructions have been measured in metric for a number of decades now. I believe the ECML Selby diversion was one of the first major railway projects, built in metric but converted back into miles and chains for operational purposes. That's why the second-generation Tramways use it.

Even road signs are measured in metres from the datum but the signs then display yards/miles. The traffic signs manual has a conversion of 1 yard = 1 metre (actual 0.91 metres) or 1 mile = 1600 metres (actual 1609.34 metres). The numbers on motorway and certain trunk road measurement signs (the trunk road equivalent to the railway milepost?) relate to the number of kilometres from the start point.

We had an interesting discussion entitled 'Metric Railway' about 2 years ago: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/metric-railway.122517/

 

[Ploughman]

Not forgetting Hides,Carucates and Bovates in Land measure.
I don't know how far past the Doomsday book these measures got though or what acreage they actually equated to.

 

[Railsigns]

The legislation for the requirement to provide railway mileposts in England and Wales, is to be found in Section 94 of the Railway Consolidation Clauses Act 1845. Section 87 of this act applies to Scotland.

It's a different Act that applies in Scotland, namely the Railways Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845.

 

[R4_GRN]

If you think this industry is bad try learning to fly aeroplanes

Distance in metres or yards or feet
Height in feet or kilometres
Fuel in pounds, litres or imperial gallons and us gallons
Speed in knots, miles per hour or kilometres per hour
Temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit
And to convert you use a slide rule or guessing stick!

 

[3141]

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.

Absolutely agree. Imperial measurements developed out of practical experience. You can easily visualise an inch, or three or eight of them. When you get to twelve it starts getting more difficult to visualise what a larger number would look like, and the unit changes to foot. Both these units were based on a part of the human body. It's much more difficult to visualize a large number of millimetres, and the same to some extent with centimetres. The metric system didn't grow out of human experience but was based on a theoretical idea and imposed on France and the countries it defeated during the Napoleonic Wars. It's interesting that in terms of weight, the basic metric unit of one kilogram is by definition a thousand of another unit; and that if you go to a street market in France they sell many vegetables and fruits by the "livre", a unit the buyers find more convenient and practical.

Of course, if you have to use metric measurements you get used to them, or find ways round the inconvenience, but it would be silly to change to the metric system just because it's more modern. If someone who goes into a job where chains are used and he doesn't know about them it's not difficult to learn.

 

[ASharpe]

I had an email at work a couple of weeks ago about "20 cwt restriction"; although I knew what a hundredweight was I'd never seen the abbreviation and can't ever recall seeing such a road sign. But sure enough they are still in use.

 

[3141]

If you think this industry is bad try learning to fly aeroplanes

Distance in metres or yards or feet
Height in feet or kilometres
Fuel in pounds, litres or imperial gallons and us gallons
Speed in knots, miles per hour or kilometres per hour
Temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit
And to convert you use a slide rule or guessing stick!

There's a nice story about one of the early Airbuses being tested in Canada, and it had to make an emergency landing because of the complications of converting the amount of fuel required for the planned flight from litres to gallons, and the difference between imperial gallons and the smaller US gallons being overlooked.

 

[birchesgreen]

Absolutely agree. Imperial measurements developed out of practical experience. You can easily visualise an inch, or three or eight of them. When you get to twelve it starts getting more difficult to visualise what a larger number would look like, and the unit changes to foot. Both these units were based on a part of the human body. It's much more difficult to visualize a large number of millimetres, and the same to some extent with centimetres. The metric system didn't grow out of human experience but was based on a theoretical idea and imposed on France and the countries it defeated during the Napoleonic Wars. It's interesting that in terms of weight, the basic metric unit of one kilogram is by definition a thousand of another unit; and that if you go to a street market in France they sell many vegetables and fruits by the "livre", a unit the buyers find more convenient and practical.

Of course, if you have to use metric measurements you get used to them, or find ways round the inconvenience, but it would be silly to change to the metric system just because it's more modern. If someone who goes into a job where chains are used and he doesn't know about them it's not difficult to learn.

No if you don't know or use imperial then visualising them isn't easy. I can visualise 20cm (for example) pretty easily. It all depends on what you grew up with and are used to.

 

[WatcherZero]

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.

Was done primarily for electrical engineering purposes and currency transactions, also for instance British and American inches were standardised.

 

[Flying Phil]

"It's interesting that in terms of weight, the basic metric unit of one kilogram is by definition a thousand of another unit" I thought that the Kilogram was a unit of mass equal to a very precise lump of metal kept in Paris? Weight is a force measured in Newtons (SI).(Pedant Alert!)

 

[Banana]

There's a nice story about one of the early Airbuses being tested in Canada, and it had to make an emergency landing because of the complications of converting the amount of fuel required for the planned flight from litres to gallons, and the difference between imperial gallons and the smaller US gallons being overlooked.

Utter nonsense.

 

[Sunset route]

There's a nice story about one of the early Airbuses being tested in Canada, and it had to make an emergency landing because of the complications of converting the amount of fuel required for the planned flight from litres to gallons, and the difference between imperial gallons and the smaller US gallons being overlooked.

Utter nonsense.

Are you talking about this one?

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

 

[Banana]

Are you talking about this one?

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

Obviously not. That is a Boeing. On a commercial (not test) flight. In a year before A380 was even conceived.

As I said, the post by 3141 is utter nonsense.

 

[Dai Corner]

"It's interesting that in terms of weight, the basic metric unit of one kilogram is by definition a thousand of another unit" I thought that the Kilogram was a unit of mass equal to a very precise lump of metal kept in Paris? Weight is a force measured in Newtons (SI).(Pedant Alert!)

It is (for now) and yes it is a unit of mass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_redefinition_of_SI_base_units

The definition of the kilogram is undergoing a fundamental change—the current definition defines the kilogram as being the mass of the international prototype kilogram which is an artefact, not a constant of nature[38] while the new definition relates it to the equivalent energy of a photon via the Planck constant.

Current definition: The kilogram is the unit of mass; it is equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram.
Proposed definition: The kilogram, symbol kg, is the SI unit of mass. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Planck constant h to be 6.62607015×10−34[Note 3] when expressed in the unit J⋅s, which is equal to kg⋅m2⋅s−1, where the metre and the second are defined in terms of c and ΔνCs.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Absolutely agree. Imperial measurements developed out of practical experience. You can easily visualise an inch, or three or eight of them. When you get to twelve it starts getting more difficult to visualise what a larger number would look like, and the unit changes to foot. Both these units were based on a part of the human body. It's much more difficult to visualize a large number of millimetres, and the same to some extent with centimetres. The metric system didn't grow out of human experience but was based on a theoretical idea and imposed on France and the countries it defeated during the Napoleonic Wars. It's interesting that in terms of weight, the basic metric unit of one kilogram is by definition a thousand of another unit; and that if you go to a street market in France they sell many vegetables and fruits by the "livre", a unit the buyers find more convenient and practical.

I suspect that is purely a matter of what you're used to. Personally I have no trouble visualising numbers of cm or mm. I also have no trouble visualising small numbers of inches. However, if the numbers get large, then I find it much easier to use metric because the conversions are so much easier. If I have to visualise - say 335 cm - then obviously that number is too big to easily visualise. But the problem is nevertheless easy because I can immediately say that's 3.35 m and visualise about 3m instead. If I'm asked to visualise - say - 130 inches (a similar length) then the maths becomes much harder because I need to divide by 12 to convert to feet.

While it's true that metric was originally imposed 'from above' in France, that's a piece of history and not really relevant to whether it's the most appropriate system to use in the future. Besides, what makes you so sure that the various imperial units weren't imposed in a similar way further back in time? Because they are older, we have fewer records of how they came into being, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some initial element of compulsion at some point in time (when imperial measurements replaced even older units).

Of course, if you have to use metric measurements you get used to them, or find ways round the inconvenience, but it would be silly to change to the metric system just because it's more modern. If someone who goes into a job where chains are used and he doesn't know about them it's not difficult to learn.

I don't think it's about changing to metric because it's more modern. It's about that it makes calculations so much easier.

 

[Taunton]

If you ever get to see original railway construction drawings from the early 19th Century they are all in chains. That is what surveyors used as standard then. I always found a convenient conversion that BR standard stock (before Mk 3) at 64ft was almost exactly a chain, so if you have difficulty visualising 10 chains, think of 10 carriages.

I had an email at work a couple of weeks ago about "20 cwt restriction"; although I knew what a hundredweight was I'd never seen the abbreviation and can't ever recall seeing such a road sign. But sure enough they are still in use.

I recall when all buses, and indeed lorries, had their weight painted by the nearside front wheel, and it was always x tons x cwt. As a child I imagined this strange word was pronounced like "suit". The abbreviation is an interesting composite of Imperial and Latin. There are 20 cwt in a ton, so a cwt is 112lb. The more precise vehicle operators went down to quarters as well, there are 4 quarters (28lb) in a hundredweight, of course. 2 stones (14lb) to a quarter, things like potatoes came in stone bags, and I (still) know my weight more in stones than kg (neither concealing its general increase over time, alas). The cwt makes more sense in the USA (where, as with stones, they do not use it any more), for a cwt there was 100lb, hence a US ton is 2,000lb, not the UK 112 x 20 = 2,240lb.

The USA even has a bit of an aversion to tons, and a lot of rail equipment there is quoted in large numbers of pounds, locomotives weighing for example 200,000lb. That's 100 tons.

 

[InOban]

And the lb is now defined as 468gm.

 

[14xxDave]

I can easily convert between both metric and imperial. I just had a thought and I also visualise in both systems. I'm of an age when both were taught but worked in science which of course was by then SI. This thread has just made me realise how easily I can convert from either system. Isn't education wonderful!

 

[ASharpe]

And the lb is now defined as 468gm.

I thought it was a bit less than that.

I'm predicting that soon enough inflationary pressures will have the dairy and brewing industries push for a change from 568 ml to a pint down to 500 ml. I only hope we down go down the US route and and only 16 fl oz. to a pint, or even worse in their US fluid ounces.

 

[InOban]

I thought it was a bit less than that.

I'm predicting that soon enough inflationary pressures will have the dairy and brewing industries push for a change from 568 ml to a pint down to 500 ml. I only hope we down go down the US route and and only 16 fl oz. to a pint, or even worse in their US fluid ounces.

You're right it's 454gm. Oops.
Personally, since as another poster has mentioned, the livre is often used in France, and is 500gm (and the pfund in Germany also), I would like the lb to be redefined as 500gm, and the pint as 0.5l, but that would be politically difficult......!
To return to the thread, I believe that sooner or later, the Railway will have to metricate.

 

[Old Hill Bank]

A surveyor back in the day used a "Chain" it was 22 yards long (IKB and Stephenson used them) That is how our railways were built and are in the main still measured in miles and chains hence we have "Mileposts" 22 yards is a Chain, 10 chains is a Furlong and 8 Furlongs is a mile. It would cost the rail industry mega bucks (imperial, US or Metric) to change things so we keep it.

 

[GusB]

I thought it was a bit less than that.

I'm predicting that soon enough inflationary pressures will have the dairy and brewing industries push for a change from 568 ml to a pint down to 500 ml. I only hope we down go down the US route and and only 16 fl oz. to a pint, or even worse in their US fluid ounces.

A pound is 454g, ish, isn't it?

Interesting that you should mention dairy. In the days when we still had doorstep milk deliveries here (not that long ago, actually), I had a bit of an argument with the company concerned. Our milk was usually delivered in 1 pint bottles (568ml), but occasionally it was delivered in plastic bottles with a capacity of 500ml, and there was no reduction in cost. I wasn't really that bothered about the odd half-litre bottle if they'd run out of pints, but after a while it became a regular occurrence, and the lack of the extra 68ml does add up over the course of a month.

I was taught purely metric at school, but at home it was all imperial. Potatoes were purchased in either 3 or 5lb bags. Curtains and clothing were measured in inches, and indeed I still look for the imperial measurements when purchasing a new pair of trousers. On the rare occasion that I bake a cake, it's ounces: 4-4-4-2* is the classic sponge combination. *EDIT - the two refers to the number of eggs, for clarity

I'm aware that I'm probably drifting off-topic, so I'll add that the first time I ever encountered chains was reading various accident reports from Railways Archive. I hadn't really understood exactly what they were until now, so thank you all for the insight

 

[mark-h]

I used to work in a cinema- we described the reels of film as xK (a complete film would usually fit onto a 12K real).

The unit of measurement used with the KiloFoot (1000 feet)- a strange mix of SI notation mixed with imperial measurements. Even more strange was that the width of the film was in metric (35mm was the main cinema format) but the length was in feet.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You're right it's 454gm. Oops.
Personally, since as another poster has mentioned, the livre is often used in France, and is 500gm (and the pfund in Germany also), I would like the lb to be redefined as 500gm, and the pint as 0.5l, but that would be politically difficult......!

Not just politically difficult, but incredibly confusing. You'd basically not know if you read something that referred to a pint which definition they were using (although admittedly, for the kinds of things most people typically use pints for - such as cooking, it the 10% difference might not be too crucial). Having multiple different measuring systems like imperial and metric is difficult, but at least you do normally know - or can easily look up - what a given unit actually means. But if you start redefining a unit - then it's inevitable that for a long period, both definitions of the same unit will be in common use - and that really would be measurement hell

 

[DelW]

Not just politically difficult, but incredibly confusing. You'd basically not know if you read something that referred to a pint which definition they were using (although admittedly, for the kinds of things most people typically use pints for - such as cooking, it the 10% difference might not be too crucial). Having multiple different measuring systems like imperial and metric is difficult, but at least you do normally know - or can easily look up - what a given unit actually means. But if you start redefining a unit - then it's inevitable that for a long period, both definitions of the same unit will be in common use - and that really would be measurement hell

We manage that with tons/tonnes, with long (2240lb), short (2000lb) and metric (1000kg). The concept of a metric pint or a metric pound might be a bit tricky though.

 

[InOban]

We seem to cope with 1/2 packets of butter being 250g. And of course the sponge recipe of another poster is in ratios. Just the same in metric. Just don't mix up the systems.

 

[Dai Corner]

Beer usually comes in 500ml bottles. I feel vaguely cheated when they don't quite fill my pint glass.

 

[Taunton]

Even more strange was that the width of the film was in metric (35mm was the main cinema format) but the length was in feet.

Elsewhere too. Standard wood sizes were long "four by two" (4 inches by 2 inches) for the larger pieces, or "two by one" (likewise). They are actually planed to metric sizes nowadays, 100mm x 50mm and 50mm x 25mm respectively, which are virtually the same. But the old expressions have stuck. However, length is fully metricated, leading to such mixed measures as "Get 3 metres of four by two".