Sepia Saturday 151 - telephone operator

Just a few minutes between raking up the autumn leaves to participate in this week's Sepia Saturday. I have managed to stay on theme this week, although my telephone operator picture is nowhere near as spectacular as the one Alan posted. This first picture is from an article in the January 1957 edition of Trains Illustrated called "The American Train Dispatcher".

An American Traffic controller at his telephone desk, c.1956

And although not strictly on the telephone theme, the second picture does have a lot to do with communication, so kind of linked. This picture is also from the January 1957 edition of Trains Illustrated and was featured in an article called "Signalling and the Modernisation plan". It's a picture of the inside of York signal box which, at the time, was the largest of its kind in the world, controlling nearly 18 miles of running lines, 5.5 miles of loop lines, with 74 running and 154 shunt signals, and 277 sets of points. Some sense of the enormity of this can be seen in the layout on the far walls. I suspect today that there are only a couple of lines here, all controlled by a microchip the size of a pinhead.

The electric route relay interlocking signal box at York

Lots more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

    

Sepia Saturday 141 - from another time

Despite my best intentions I have fallen woefully behind with my blog updates over recent months. Some because I was on holiday, but also because I seem to run out of time (perhaps an appropriate link to this week's Sepia Saturday theme). This particular blog has also been somewhat neglected over the past few weeks as well. Those of you awaiting the last few postings in my vintage jazz journal series will have to wait a little longer, as today I build on the theme of time and reflect on another time. The magazine cover below is from the May 1952 edition of Trains Illustrated magazine. This was most definitely another time and a time of which I have only read about, having been born just after the Beeching axe swept across Britain. Another time would have meant more trains, more stations, more carriages, stations with waiting rooms warmed by open fires, quality and friendly station cafes, station masters, guards, luggage porters, etc. 

W.R. 0-6-0PT No. 9427 enters Snow Hill station, Birmingham, with a goods train

The only place to really experience this sort of thing today is on heritage railways. I visited the Watercress Line in Hampshire a few months ago and wrote a short blog article about it. And of course there are fortunately hundreds of books and DVD's about steam, so whilst another time will never return, all is not lost.

    

Sepia Saturday 83: The Road to Sunshine

My plans for taking a day trip to the coast on Sunday seem to have been dashed by the weather forecast which appears to predict rain all weekend. Instead we'll probably end up going to London for the day and take in some museums. Depending on how many of the family come will depend on the mode of transport. Ideally I'd like to go by train as it's much less hassle, but the tipping point comes quite quickly when there's more people. Since a kid, I've always had a soft spot by railways but must admit to finding today's railways, stations and trains a little less romantic than when I was younger (although some of the recent restoration works at St Pancras and Paddington are looking impressive). But even the way train travel was described in the early part of the 20th century sounded idealistic and romantic. For my entry to this week's Sepia Saturday I'm trying to recapture some of that by sharing these vintage advertisements taken from a 1920's guide book.

As usual, more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

And it would seem that if the spate of recent TV programs and books is anything to go by, I'm not the only person who dreams of returning to the age of the train. Both Julia Bradbury and Michael Portilo have presented excellent TV series over the past few months. These are possibly still available on iPlayer, but if not the accompanying series books are readily available, and what's really excited me is that Bradshaw's 1907 Railway Map is also available ... all aboard.

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