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25th April 2019

25/4/2019

 
Public Notices and Posters Collection, has been updated.
Cheap Day Tickets part 2.
Cheap day tickets, Weekdays & Sundays by any train from various Western Region stations and Cheap tickets to Taunton to see Somerset play cricket during 1963, from various Western Region stations.
Bus Circuit
Colin Burgess

Picture
From the Colin Burgess Collection.
​An interesting letter on railway operations from Colin Burges :- 
​
Among my bits I found this. It would have been displayed in a standard G.W.R. frame beside one of the phones on the named omnibus circuit.

On such simple circuits, all the phones were connected and all the bells rang, so it was up to the station to listen for the code, which was in practice quite instinctive. Others would pick up just to hear what was going on, often joining in and doing what today would be called "teleconferencing."

The instruction was "Listen before Ringing," because if the ringer were pressed while someone was talking, he would be interrupted by a screech.  I remember the old boys bellowing down the receiver: "Anyone on?!"

The sets could be the familiar wooden-cased type seen on the walls of signal boxes, made by Ericsson, or more modern plastic desktop models with buttons instead of a dial. Long distance sets had relays so that the battery at one end triggered the bell at the other. In the simple box-to-box variety, the battery at one end powered the bell at the other.

It was a phone like this that the signalman in Night Mail used, when he spoke close into the transmitter: "That you, Harry? You'll have to shunt the local - I've got the postal on."

When I worked on the St. David's exchange, the insulation was so bad on the circuit to Barnstaple that when it rained and the line was crackling the best that could be done was getting Eggesford to pass on a message, which may have resulted in a woman who'd lost her shopping bag having a seat reserved.

As had been done from the beginning on the telegraph or block, the 11.0 a.m. time signal was sent to all points using a piece of wood to give 8-5-5 on a row of bus circuit buttons.

By my reckoning, only six out of 22 locations on this Cornish circuit remain.


            Many thanks for your 'in house Memories Colin.
Truro Shed
The late John Cornelius
Picture
Memories are made of this too. We remember a our very good friend the Late John Cornelius in this classic picture taken from alongside the turntable - the turntable was the most noticeable thing one would see as, on an up train you emerged from the deep cutting which followed the tunnel.

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