Marey diagrams Étienne-Jules Marey was a 19th century French scientist, photographer and polymath who was key in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, and laboratory photography. He was also a pioneer in establishing a variety …
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Reconnections’ Miscellany: Technology side effects – June 2025
This week on Reconnections: Customer service and de-escalation The six points to employ: The five principles of wayfinding through any transport system [I believe this is TfL but if anyone can confirm please leave a …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Technical Plots – October 2023
More Autonomous People you’ll meet in Transport BDSM – Buses do so much BESS – battery energy storage system Comment Colonels – Armchair experts ready to comment to the death on their favourite topic, armed with nothing …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Lord Dawlish speaks! – August 2023
London and South East Region Line Nicknames Transport for London’s Lineage Organisation Brand Reports to Date Metropolitan, Great Northern, and Metropolitan East London Railways Metropolitan Railway shareholders 1863-1933 Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL)[financed …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Good & bad transport language – June 2022
This month on Reconnections’ Miscellany: Bacronym Retronyms BUS – Bi-level Underground Substitute ESCALATOR – Electric Stair Case (Ascending/Lowering) Allowing Travellers Onward Routing OMNIBUS – Overland Metropolitan New Innovative Bi-level Underground Substitute DRIVERS – Defect-Responsive Independently-Verifying …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Infrastructure Translator – March 2022
Today on Reconnections: Asset Management Hierarchy, in ascending order: a. Run to failureb. Corrective maintenancec. Preventative maintenanced. Condition-based maintenancee. Predictive maintenancef. Prescriptive maintenanceg. Foresight maintenance There’s also percussive maintenance – the art of hitting something …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Codes for Living – August 2021
What do those Underground station codes mean? Every LU station room, lobby, corridor and stairway has small blue Station Identification Demarcation (SID) signs with white lettering in the following format level/number: Numerators 1 to 13 …
Continue readingReconnections’ Miscellany: Transport Laws – July 2021
Roger Ford’s Informed Sources Laws First Law – Never assume railways are rational organisations. Second Law = You can’t have too many spanners. Third Law = Always distrust schedules based on the seasons. Fourth Law …
Continue readingReconnections’ Transport Miscellany – May 2021
Tube Map Footnote Symbol Hierarchy Where footnotes are required, the hierarchy is in descending order as follows: † – dagger ‡ – double dagger § – section mark || – parallels # – number or …
Continue readingReconnections’ Transport Miscellany – March 2021
As in any field, a specialised lexicon of shorthand, nicknames, jargon, personality types, and rules of thumb have developed for transport and the places it connects. This new column collects some of the more interesting …
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